Plusnet's Pay As You Host Platform

[#1]

I am just doing a small poll to find out how many people are using Plusnet's Pay As You Host Platform
Thanks Iain

[#2]

An option for it is too expensive would be nice

[#3]

Possibly need to differentiate between users of the free space allocated to ccgi users on PAYH and the full paid service.
Gabe

[#4]

Oldjim and Gabe and Plusnet
I have changed some of the questions in the poll but for some reason it will not let me change everything i want I will try again later,the reason for the poll is that i want plusnet to upgrade the PAYH platform to something higher plesk 9.5 is near end of life but still a good platform even if they would update the install script for the Web Applications that would help so much.
Iain
 

[#5]

Haven't tried PAYH, but as it's no cheaper over a year than a well-known USA-based hosting company where stuff I install mostly works first time, therefore I probably won't.
Experiences with the ccgi platform are that it's not easy to get anything more than very basic scripts to work properly on it, because the settings are unlike any other I've seen. (Even an Options -Indexes in .htaccess bombs the site out with a 500!) That said, the ccgi platform is a bonus feature on a comms package, and is reasonable in that respect. If a webdesigner (like me) is paying for hosting it has to work properly though, and ccgi-type space would not  be acceptable in that role.

[#6]

Quote from: Anteaus

Even an Options -Indexes in .htaccess bombs the site out with a 500!

There's no override for Indexes, but Indexes is already off in conf.
Gabe

[#7]

Hi Anteaus
Thanks for taking the time to reply and giving the views of a web designer, are you using your US-based hosting company to host uk based sites ie .co.uk  
your comments about the cgi platform are interesting anyone else got any comments I would like to hear them.
Iain

[#8]

Yes, we host .co.uk and.com sites on USA webspace. Though we register .co.uk domains here and point the DNS. But, .com domains are cheaper in the States, which is one advantage.

[#9]

Quote from: Gabe

There's no override for Indexes, but Indexes is already off in conf. Gabe

Hardly the point, as -Indexes is a standard security setting for many packages. Thus, this is just one of many ways in which a standard setup has to be modified to run on ccgi space.
I might add that a key problem with ccgi seems to be that php returns a script_filename value of /~accountname /index.php instead of /index.php. Yet, if a script tries to access /~accountname/index.php this will fail. This seems to be the reason a great number of commercial packages fall over on ccgi. You can sometimes get around this by forcing a webroot value of / in the settings.

[#10]

Quote from: Anteaus

Hardly the point

I think my point is that the ccgi conf setting for Indexes follows a normal recommendation for hardening Apache. It's not unusual. The fact that some CMSs set things like -Indexes and +FollowSymLinks as defaults in their .htaccess files, rather than as commented-out recommendations, and this breaks on some correctly-configured hosting platforms isn't really a valid criticism of the platforms but of those CMSs. The fix is trivial.
I don't think I've met a standard setup. ccgi is, or was, a rather nice example of its sort.

Quote

php returns a script_filename value of /~accountname /index.php instead of /index.php.

No it doesn't. 
While I think ccgi was originally conceived as a scripting addition to homepages, I know quite a few people have successfully run a range of CMSs on it. At present, I think the main obstacle these users encounter is the available version of MySQL. The lack of updates is a real issue. Over the years, other issues have been associated with the loss of shell access and the daily bandwidth limit.
Gabe

[#11]

Thanks a lot Antaeus and Gabe for your posts and anyone else who looks in and leaves a posts,any way back to the reason for the post I Really like planets PAUH platform and plusnet in general I have been with them for a long time and they are very reliable the problem is the PAUH platform it works well but no longer supported at all according to this 
Parallels Plesk Panel 9 Released December 9, 2008
Extended Support December 9, 2012
End of Life & Support June 9, 2013
So unless plusnet have a special deal with Parallels it's no longer supported i know some other host still run plesk 9 but have announced that they are ore about to upgrade to 10 or 11
This is the response i got from plusnet "I'm afraid there's no plans for an upgrade at present, sorry about that. There'll certainly be a service status posted if any changes are due to be made though, you can see those at servicestatus.net." thanks Matt for the reply(I know you are just the messenger in this case)
I would off though plusnet would of had short medium and long term plans for all their products the lack of any informations makes things difficult for us not knowing what's going on in the medium longer term.
Iain

[#12]

Quote from: Gabe

Quote php returns a script_filename value of /~accountname /index.php instead of /index.php. No it doesn't.

I can assure you that it does, on my account anyway. Just spent some time hacking an app's paths to work around this.
Unfortunately, thought I'd solved it and had the main part of the app working OK  but then found that it still crops-up in a few more places I hadn't anticipated. 

[#13]

Hi
Has anyone one got anything higher than WordPress v2.8.4 to run on plusnets PAYH / or on the free space allocated to ccgi users, if that at all possible the reason i ask is if i were able to run the latest version of wordpress on PAYH that would solve half my problems
Thanks Iain

[#14]

Quote from: Anteaus

it does

SCRIPT_FILENAME != SCRIPT_NAME
Gabe

[#15]

Quote from: Iain03

anything higher than WordPress v2.8.4 to run on plusnets PAYH

I haven't tried it, but I think you should be able to run up to 3.1 on PAYH.
On ccgi you can run the current 3.7.1, using this script to install it. There may be problems with some plugins (as ever). I don't know for how long this workaround will continue to work.
Gabe