Bluehost Unbiased Review

A SSH or secure shell is a network protocol that enables data exchange to be done safely. SSH initially was designed to replace TELNET and other insecure remote shells. Used primarily on Linux and Unix based machine, the SSH protocol minimize the risk of interception compare to the previous system. The encryption used by SSH provides confidentiality and integrity of data over an insecure network, such as the Internet.

In web hosting, the usages of SSH are mostly meant for providing an encrypted mechanism to log into systems and transfer files - in layman’s term, a secure version of FTP connection.

Is the SSH functions available with Bluehost?

The answer is yes, Bluehost offers SSH function. However this function is not enabled by default. In order to activate shell access, you’ll need to fax or mail a copy of your driver’s license, passport or other photo id to customer service. Alternatively, you can upload the copy via Bluehost cPanel.

You’ll then need to generate or import your SSH keys in order to start using the SSH services. These SSH keys are used at Bluehost for security measure - as the private SSH key must be held to authenticate, it is virtually impossible to brute force. You can Import existing keys, generate new keys, as well as manage/delete keys.

Common SSH command

Listed below are the common command used in SSH/Secure Shell quoted from Bluehost Helpdesk.

ls : list files/directories in a directory, comparable to dir in windows/dos.
ls -al : shows all files (including ones that start with a period), directories, and details attributes for each file.

cd : change directory · · cd /usr/local/apache : go to /usr/local/apache/ directory
cd ~ : go to your home directory
cd - : go to the last directory you were in
cd .. : go up a directory

cat : print file contents to the screen
cat filename.txt : cat the contents of filename.txt to your screen

tail : like cat, but only reads the end of the file
tail /var/log/messages : see the last 20 (by default) lines of /var/log/messages
tail -f /var/log/messages : watch the file continuously, while it’s being updated
tail -200 /var/log/messages : print the last 200 lines of the file to the screen

more : like cat, but opens the file one screen at a time rather than all at once
more /etc/userdomains : browse through the userdomains file.
hit Space to go to the next page, q to quit

pico : friendly, easy to use file editor
pico /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user’s website.

vi : another editor, tons of features, harder to use at first than pico
vi /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user’s website.

grep : looks for patterns in files
grep root /etc/passwd : shows all matches of root in /etc/passwd
grep -v root /etc/passwd : shows all lines that do not match root

touch : create an empty file
touch /home/burst/public_html/404.html : create an empty file called 404.html in the directory /home/burst/public_html/

ln : create’s “links” between files and directories
ln -s /home/username/tmp/webalizer webstats: Now you can display http://www.yourdomain.com/webstats to show your webalizer stats online. You can delete the symlink (webstats) and it will not delete the original stats on the server.

rm : delete a file
rm filename.txt : deletes filename.txt, will more than likely ask if you really want to delete it
rm -f filename.txt : deletes filename.txt, will not ask for confirmation before deleting.
rm -rf tmp/ : recursively deletes the directory tmp, and all files in it, including subdirectories. BE VERY CAREFULL WITH THIS COMMAND!!!

last : shows who logged in and when
last -20 : shows only the last 20 logins
last -20 -a : shows last 20 logins, with the hostname in the last field

w : shows who is currently logged in and where they are logged in from.

netstat : shows all current network connections.
netstat -an : shows all connections to the server, the source and destination ips and ports.
netstat -rn : shows routing table for all ips bound to the server.

top : shows live system processes in a nice table, memory information, uptime and other useful info. This is excellent for managing your system processes, resources and ensure everything is working fine and your server isn’t bogged down.
top then type Shift + M to sort by memory usage or Shift + P to sort by CPU usage

ps: ps is short for process status, which is similar to the top command. It’s used to show currently running processes and their PID.
A process ID is a unique number that identifies a process, with that you can kill or terminate a running program on your server (see kill command).
ps U username : shows processes for a certain user
ps aux : shows all system processes
ps aux –forest : shows all system processes like the above but organizes in a hierarchy that’s very useful!

file : attempts to guess what type of file a file is by looking at it’s content.
file * : prints out a list of all files/directories in a directory

du : shows disk usage.
du -sh : shows a summary, in human-readble form, of total disk space used in the current directory, including subdirectories.
du -sh * : same thing, but for each file and directory. helpful when finding large files taking up space.

wc : word count
wc -l filename.txt : tells how many lines are in filename.txt

cp : copy a file
cp filename filename.backup : copies filename to filename.backup
cp -a /home/burst/new_design/* /home/burst/public_html/ : copies all files, retaining permissions form one directory to another.
find * -type d|xargs -i cp –verbose php.ini {} : copies your php.ini file into all directories recursively.

kill: terminate a system process
kill -9 PID EG: kill -9 431
kill PID EG: kill 10550
Use top or ps ux to get system PIDs (Process IDs)

EG:

PID TTY TIME COMMAND
10550 pts/3 0:01 /bin/csh
10574 pts/4 0:02 /bin/csh
10590 pts/4 0:09 APP

Each line represents one process, with a process being loosely defined as a running instance of a program. The column headed PID (process ID) shows the assigned process numbers of the processes. The heading COMMAND shows the location of the executed process.

Putting commands together
Often you will find you need to use different commands on the same line. Here are some examples. Note that the | character is called a pipe, it takes date from one program and pipes it to another.
> means create a new file, overwriting any content already there.
>> means tp append data to a file, creating a newone if it doesn not already exist.
< send input from a file back into a command.

grep User /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf |more
This will dump all lines that match User from the httpd.conf, then print the results to your screen one page at a time.

last -a > /root/lastlogins.tmp
This will print all the current login history to a file called lastlogins.tmp in /root/

tail -10000 /var/log/exim_mainlog |grep domain.com |more
This will grab the last 10,000 lines from /var/log/exim_mainlog, find all occurances of domain.com (the period represents ‘anything’,
– comment it out with a so it will be interpretted literally), then send it to your screen page by page.

netstat -an |grep :80 |wc -l
Show how many active connections there are to apache (httpd runs on port 80)

mysqladmin processlist |wc -l
Show how many current open connections there are to mysql

mysqldump -u username -p dbname > file.sql
MySQL Dump

tar -zxvf file.tar.gz
UnTAR file

mysql -u username -p database_name Importing MySQL database

which [perl]
Finding path to [perl]

Bluehost server uptime for the first week of the month: 99.789%.

Is Bluehost server reliable?

From my user experience (I’ve been hosting with Bluehost for the past 4 years) and according to tons of other websites tracking on Bluehost server response - yeah, Bluehost hosting is very reliable. As you can see from the image below, 99.8% server uptime is quite a record and I salute folks at Bluehost for achieving this.

Bluehost hosting uptime tracked by WebHostingGeeks. If you wish to learn more about Bluehost server performance in the past, you can read my post here and here. Or, you can learn how to check Bluehost server status yourself.

What’s Bluehost customer’s say about Bluehost hosting service? Check out Bluehost customer’s feedbacks I received as well as user’s comment I found from the other hosting websites.

Tibbst from Dallas, TX: Satisfied Customer for 2yrs

I’ve used a few hosting providers and researched a lot. BlueHost may not be #1 on many reviews, but it’s been on the top 5 or 10 ever since I found them, at least, while others come and go. I monitor my service for 3 organizations with Nagios, and I reconfig’d Nagios with 1min granularity.

I get 99.7% uptime. I thought that was pretty good for the price, but leadership for one of the orgs had us switch to a new provider due to my data. After switching, we got 99.3%. We’re switching again. BTW, .3% downtime is rarely noticable.

Mail has a few outages, but also barely noticeable (sorry don’t have %s). The “customer” support is great. I make my way through the queue pretty fast, if there is any. Tech support usually can’t provide me specific details for recurring issues (detected by Nagios, usually), because I think the actual admins work for another company (maybe BlueHost resells?) But, I’ve had many excellent experiences w/ tech support, otherwise. I would highly recommend BlueHost.

Marci Briggs rate Bluehost 93/100

I have selected Bluehost as my hosting provider for my advertisement site and it has worked well for me. They also use cpanel, which is the most popular and highly user friendly control panel for many users. That is another factor which prompted me to use Bluehost. For just $6.95, we will get the hosting plan for one month along with unlimited bandwidth usage and unlimited storage space.

Bluehost has been a loyal and true service provider of mine and they have sophisticated mechanisms to ensure smooth functioning and they use the widely chosen cpanel.

Awards won by Bluehost

Bluehost won numerous awards since they started their business back in year 2005. A quick glance on the recent ones include:

• Most Reliable Web Hosting by WebHostingYes.com
• Top Pick Host 2008 by TopPickHost.com
• Best Blog Hosting 2008 by WebHostingClue.com
• Editor’s Choice 2008 of BestoftheWebHosts.com
• Best Support 2008 of Top-10-Web-Hosting.com

Is Bluehost good or bar?

Well I bet half of you guys might read thousands of good words on Bluehost but still feeling unsure about their service quality. Web reviews, after all, are often full with biased reviews and one have to be very aware of catch-22 behind every marketing talk.

To learn whether Bluehost is a good (or bad) hosting, the best way is to try it yourself! Signup Bluehost here, 30 days free trial period.

As what we had previously discussed about Bluehost Refund Policy, shoppers are advised to take advantage on Bluehost refund policies and try Bluehost hosting services for free!

How Bluehost customers are charged?

Bluehost offers one set of hosting features and you have five options for the payment terms - 3, 6, 12, 24, and the new 36 months payment terms. All hosting accounts are required to be paid upfront. For 3 and 6 months hosting plan, a one-time setup fees of $30 are charged; whereas setup fees for 12, 24, and 36 months are waived.

To order Bluehost, click here (special promo: $6.95/mo)!

Refunds at Bluehost

Bluehost’s trial period is set as 30 days. All Bluehost hosting account can be fully refund in the first 30 days without questions. The setup fees and domain registration, however, is non refundable. An extra $10 will be charged on the free domain you get from Bluehost; while in case you’re buying the 3/6 months hosting plan, the $30 setup fees are not refundable.

Refunds after the first 30 days trial period

One thing that impressed me is that Bluehost is willing to refund their customers even it’s after the trial period. From what I’ve learn with their Helpdesk, all Bluehost accounts canceled after 30 Days of service qualify for a prorated refund at the monthly rate.

Example of prorated refund

Two Year 24 Month Account is $7.95 a Month x 24 months = $190.80 paid at sign up. If you cancel two months into it then you would be reimbursed at the $7.95 a month rate for a period of 22 months. Your prorated refund would be $7.95 x 22 = $174.90.

Take advantage of Bluehost refund policy!

Don’t be foolish by those who advise you to try for one or two months before getting long term with your hosting company. The advice simply sounds ridiculous with Bluehost and I’ll show you why.

Maths for Bluehost 3 months plan refund

Imagine that you go with Bluehost 3 months hosting plan. The cost you pay will be $69.85 ($9.95/mo x 3 + $30 setup fees + $10 domain registration). Say that you’re unhappy with Bluehost and decide to ask for a refund within the first 30 days, the refund you’ll get back: a domain registered under your name and $9.95 x 3 = $29.85. Loses = $40 ($69.85 - $40).

If you refund after the trial period, say the day 31st, your refund amount will be $9.95 x 2 = $19.9. Loses = $49.95.

Maths for Bluehost 24 months plan refund

Now if you read my post and go for Bluehost’s 24 months plan. The dollars you pay upfront will be $190.80 (Official price $7.95 x 24, domain fees and setup fees waived). If you refund within the first 30 days, here’s what you will get: a domain registered under your name and $180.80 ($7.95 x 24 - $10 domain registration). Money lost = $10.

Now what if you refund your 24 months plan after trial period, say again, day 31st after your purchase? Here’s how much you can refund under Bluehost pro-rated refund policy: $172.85 (7.95 x 23 - $10 domain registration). Money lost = $17.95.

Conclusion: Go for Bluehost 24 months term!

Note that the money lost in 3 months hosting plan are 300% more than a 24 months hosting plan - regardless how long you waited before you cancel your Bluehost account. My advise to all of you is to take advantage of Bluehost pro rated refund policy.

Most webmasters own more than one domain/website.

However, we do not need multiple hosting for those domains.

Most hosting plan available online enable webmaster to host multiple domain on a same hosting account - Bluehost for example, allows their clients to host unlimited addon domain on one single hosting account.

We’ll see how to add an ‘addon domain’ at Bluehost in this post. But first, we have to be very clear on the difference between an ‘addon domain’ and a ’subdomain’.

Addon Domain vs Subdomain

What’s an ‘addon domain’?

An ‘addon domain’ is a new domain that’s added on top of your main domain.

For example if you purchase Bluehost hosting package now to host your website abcd.com; abcd.com is your main domain. 6 months later you decided to register another domain name with GoDaddy, say efgh.com, and wanted to host it on the same Bluehost account, then efgh.com is the ‘addon domain’ that’s added on top of abcd.com.

Setting up an ‘addon domain’ will not create you another cPanel (web hosting manager) at Bluehost. However, it will creates a sub directory in your main web hosting directory and the addon domain website will have it’s very own index files as well as cgi bin folder.

What’s a ’subdomain’?

Quoting from Wikipedia, a subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain. For example, “mail.example.com” and “calendar.example.com” are subdomains of the “example.com” domain, which in turn is a subdomain of the “com” top-level domain.

A very important point to keep in mind is that unlike addon domian, subdomains are free of charge at Bluehost. It can be created at will for any domain you already hosted with Bluehost. Like for our previous example, you can create a subdomain named ‘efgh.abcd.com’ without paying any registration or annual maintenance fees.

How to add an “addon domain” at Bluehost?

Go to the ‘Domain’ section and click ‘Addon Domains’ on your Bluehost cPanel page.

Note that you can as well register a new domain name, park a domain, add a subdomain, setup a redirect for your domain on the same section. But for our discussion, we’ll limit the topic within the addon domain.

You’ll be requested to login to Bluehost Domain Manager after that. Once you’re in, you’ll come to a setup page where you’ll need to keyin all the necessary info about your addon domain.

The input fields, like the domain name, the location of your website folder, and so on are pretty basics and I am sure you can handle it without my guidance.

However, one thing to be sure is that you MUST have your domain name server pointing to Bluehost’s server before you adding any addon domain in your hosting account. This is crucial for Bluehost to verify your ownership of the domain and Bluehost will not process your request (of adding an addon domain) without it.