Why GoDaddy Linux Virtual Dedicated Hosting Sucks & How to Fix It

Ok, put the guns away. Linux rocks… My beef is with GoDaddy and how they are hurting the average Linux virtual dedicated server user.

GoDaddy, one of the nation’s largest registrars and hosting providers is distributing bloated and possibly insecure code that will cause the average user to more than double their hosting costs. In this guide, you will learn exactly what GoDaddy is doing to your server, how their support staff will try to upsell you, and the steps you need to take to ensure proper operation of your Virtual Dedicated Server.

Background

One of my new year’s resolutions this year was to consolidate hosting accounts into one virtual server (hosted). I had my domains and old hosting with GoDaddy already, so it was a no-brainer to try out one of GoDaddy’s VDS (Virtual Dedicated Servers).

I went with their $29.99 a month package, with CentOS 5, unlimited domains, 10GB disk, and 256 MB of memory. This should be perfectly fine for hosting a couple MySQL-driven sites and a couple gallery instances. Let me emphasize this is only handling 4 active domains, two of which only have static HTML.

Server Error

I opened up my TurboPanel interface and went to provision a new domain into the domain manager. It came back with the least descriptive error I have ever received:

Server Error
We are sorry, the system has encountered an error while processing your request.

Error details:
CommandFailedException: Unable to get min/max uids
at c.g.t.f.systems.user.LinuxUserSubsystem.loadUids:825
...

The Real Problem

After investigation, I discovered that GoDaddy’s control panel application was using 218 Megabytes of the 256 Megabytes of memory I had purchased. That left me with only 34 Megabytes of memory. This was due to inefficient Java programming and running web server processes as root.

How to Fix the Problem

Getting Shell Access (Windows Users)

Download putty from putty download
Enter your domain name in the host field
Click open and accept the security warning

Getting Shell Access (Linux/Unix Users)

ssh [email protected]

Fixing Memory Issues

Become root:

su - root

Install memhog:

yum install numactl

Stop GoDaddy’s memory-hungry services:

/etc/init.d/turbopanel stop
/etc/init.d/tomcat55 stop

Prevent services from auto-starting:

chkconfig turbopanel off
chkconfig tomcat55 off

Clear memory:

memhog 200m

Using Control Panel When Needed

To temporarily enable the control panel:

/etc/init.d/tomcat55 start
/etc/init.d/turbopanel start

After use, disable it again:

/etc/init.d/turbopanel stop
/etc/init.d/tomcat55 stop

Update: Performance Issues and Migration

After 12 months with GoDaddy, I discovered severe I/O limitations:

Directory size check on GoDaddy VPS:

[root@ip-72-167-15-128 home]# time du -hs  
1.3G    .  
real    0m49.013s
user    0m0.011s
sys     0m0.062s

Same command on Rimuhosting VPS:

[root@colinmcnamara home]# time du -hs  
1.3G    .  
real    0m0.343s
user    0m0.050s
sys     0m0.290s

The same command took 49 seconds on GoDaddy vs 0.34 seconds on Rimuhosting.

Better Alternatives

Rimuhosting offers better value:

Virtual Dedicated Server 190MB RAM - $19.95
Virtual Dedicated Server 400MB RAM - $29.95
Virtual Dedicated Server 900MB RAM - $39.95
Virtual Dedicated Server 1150+ MB RAM - $49.95

For the same price as GoDaddy’s base VDS ($29.95), you get 400MB RAM instead of 256MB, plus free backup space, backup mail relays, and DNS service. After migrating to Rimuhosting, the service has been superior in every way.