Slicehost

Since we first unveiled the API, we have had excellent feedback and suggestions from many of our users. The first release only had support for DNS zones and records, which, as our clamoring customers let us know, was not enough!

So today, I am pleased to announce version 1.3 of the API which includes support for creating, rebooting, and rebuilding Slices. This will allow for quick and easy deployment, taking us another step in the direction of user-specified automation.

This is the first step to adding Slices to the API, which brings along several caveats:

• Slices cannot be deleted using the API
• OS Images available are currently only public images; you cannot yet build or rebuild from backups

Also note that the charges for new Slices are prorated the same as in the SliceManager.

The future of the API will is dependent on the feedback we receive; What is most important to you? Please let us know how we can improve our service, and we will do our best to make it possible.

Most of you are familiar with Pickled Onion’s famous articles and tutorials site. Wanting to hit some topics in greater detail, he’s been working on ebooks designed for those new to the Slicehost community. The first batch covers SliceManager:

• Slicehost Account Creation and Login
• Slicehost Account Management
• Slice Administration
• SliceManager DNS Administration

We hope those of you using our services for the first time find these books helpful. Please let us know what you think and send ideas for more topics. And a big cheer for Pickled Onion who put these together!

Lot’s of buzz for the new Mac app ExpanDrive. There’s even a plug on the Textmate blog, where folks have been clamoring for a remote editing solution for as long as I can remember. ExpanDrive allows you to mount SFTP servers in finder, making remote work easier. Gruber says:

For many typical tasks, ExpanDrive is far more convenient and seamless than a standalone client like Interarchy or Transmit. You don’t have to worry about uploading or downloading, it works more like a USB flash drive — you just save and open files directly. If you open remote files checked out of an SVN (or other revision control system) repository, you can use the built-in SVN commands in BBEdit or TextMate, just as though the files were part of a repository checked out on your local drive.

And everyone comments on how fast and easy it is to use. If you’ve been working on your Slices’ apps via SFTP, this could be the tool you’ve been waiting for.

Update – Jeff from Magnetk sends a $5 off coupon for Slicehost customers. It’s good for the first 50 users and lowers the price to $24. Coupon code: ZQCGHPX2LEGFLFI6

A couple of weeks old, but I wanted to mention SysAdmin’s Chronicles extensive review of Slicehost and the new SliceManager . It covers interacting with a Slice and has several great screenshots. A great article for people considering our services.

It took a while to get going thanks to some last minute bugs and an edge rails change that bit us, but the new SliceManager is live, as is the revamped backend powering it. We haven’t talked about this rewrite, namely because we’ve been working like dogs to get it out the door. Here are some highlights of the new software and how it affects you.

Slices

• The design of SliceManager has changed – we streamlined the UI for the growing number of customers working with multiple slices for different projects.
• You can add a slice quickly from the front page, previously this was buried under the Account tab.
• Clicking a slice’s name from the master list allows you to work with it.
• The web-based console now supports multiple windows, which was a bug in the previous version.
• The stats page now allows you to retrieve a snapshot of your slice’s performance and review a list of previous stats for comparison.
• Backups won’t look different, but they are under the microscope and we’ll be changing them in the future. Please note, for the next week old daily and weekly are unusable via SliceManager, as they’re being overwritten to be compatible with the new system. We still have them, you can email us if you need one restored. Ditto for snapshots.
• A big user request – you can rename a slice at anytime!
• Reboots and resizes stay the same, but now have progress metrics to show you how far along they are.
• In addition to Rescue mode, you can also reset a slice’s root password should you lock yourself out (that never happens, right?).
• Drumroll please – extra IP’s. They’re $2/month, you’ll need to email us to allocate them and please provide justification.

Adding, removing and resizing Slices

• Adding/upgrading a slice stays the same – you’re billed a prorated amount based on the number of days remaining in your billing cycle.
• Previously removing/downgrading a slice would affect the next billing cycle (you wouldn’t be billed). Now, when you remove/downgrade a Slice, a credit is applied to your account (minus one day). For example, you need a 1GB Slice for a week and you’re halfway through a billing cycle – you’d be charged $35 (half of $70). A week later you’re finished and delete the Slice – you’d receive a credit of ~$17.50. So the most you’re on the hook for at any given time with a new Slice is 1 day. Not quite hourly billing ala EC2 but a step in the right direction ;)

DNS

• We did away with the easy/advanced DNS distinction, since most users preferred the advanced interface. Now there is a dedicated DNS tab where you can handle zones, records and reverse DNS.
• We increased the length of the data field, which should help with DKIM records.
• There is no longer a delay between entering/editing a record and its propagation to our DNS server. We used to sync records between SliceManager and DNS servers, now all of the records are manipulated via a REST API on top of the DNS server.

Help and Support

• We removed the emergency pager, since our monitoring system alerts us of trouble preemptively.
• You can review previous support requests, before contacting us for a new issue.

Account and Billing

• The Email & Password display allows you to edit your login password and email address, which is now separate from the billing email address and information. This should help people who use a corporate card for billing and invoicing, but have a technical person logging in to interact with slices.
• It’s not quite ready yet, but the groundwork has been laid for allowing multiple users to login and interact with slices via SliceManager. We’re still finalizing how granular the access control will be, so keep an eye out for updates on this feature.
• The Payments, Balance and Invoices page also contains a bunch of information designed to simplify billing. At any time you can see your balance, pending charges to your account, the next billing cycle and your current monthly rate.
• Going forward, invoices are saved, so every time your card is charged you’ll receive an email and can review the invoice in SliceManager down the road.
• If you are carrying a positive balance (from a large prepayment), we’ll send you monthly invoices showing what was deducted from your balance each month.

Future

This rewrite is the culmination of a year’s worth of lessons learned, outstanding community feedback and our plans for the company. You can expect APIs, enhanced slice images and multi-user accounts in the coming months, in addition to some news we hope to share with everyone in the next week.

Pickled Onion’s been hard at work on a new site that went live today. We’ll be using it as a repository of tutorials and technical articles that are full of details, examples and configurations. It’s a supplemental site to the wiki and will focus on common things you might want to do with your Slices.

There are several articles up now on everything from Subversion to Ubuntu upgrades. Let us know what you think, we’re anxiously waiting for you to submit future article ideas.

Our friends at Magnetk have put together a nice deal for Slicehost users interested in SftpDrive. It’s a very handy application for Windows that maps an SSH server as a local drive, creating a network filesystem over SFTP. It will work great with your Slice!

Normally priced at $39, using the coupon code SLICEHOST, you can get a copy for $24. The code works for the first 50 users and there are discounted multi-license options too should you need it for a development team. We’re not receiving any kickbacks for this, it’s just a nifty piece of software, is easy to use and enhances your ability to work with Slices. Thanks again to Jeff at Magnetk for setting this up.

Screencast of SftpDrive in action

We’ve just enabled a new feature that will allow you to resize your Slices.

• via the SliceManager, choose a new Slice size
• resize will begin as soon as resource availability permits
• data is copied from the old slice, preserving your IP
• the synchronization process was designed to minimize downtime
• a notification email is sent on completion and status may be viewed in SliceManager

• upgrades are prorated based on the difference in Slice price and remaining time in the current bill period
• the speed of the process and amount of downtime will vary depending on your system activity and the composition of your filesystem
• the original copy of the Slice is kept for up to a 12 hour verification period

Announcing the birth of a new virtual celestial object.

Open for immigration to all Slicehosters. Feel free to submit your feed. Planet Slicehost is the place to read about what Slicehosters are up to, check it out!

edit – updated to reflect Planet software/links. (2007.09.05)

My wife is an excellent cook. I can get by if the recipe is detailed enough (how much is a pinch??). Mike Bailey has given us a great deployment and server setup tool in deprec, but it seems that folks still have some problems getting up and running with it. In my opinion the utlimate usefuleness and time savings of deprec and capistrano is worth the initial cost of actually learning how to use it.

Here is a short walk through that hopefully will help highlight the startup process, and also help us keep track of some of the common issues/pitfalls.

FC6 is now an available slice image. We’ve had lots of people ask for different distro’s and FC6 was far and away the most common request. Enjoy.

We’ve been knocking out a few things on our todo list. Some items of interest:

• our email invoice templates are formatted better to assist businesses with tax documentation
• the Account page in SliceManager now displays upcoming maintenance events for each of your Slices. This should help all of the multi-slice owners who had a hard time telling which Slice was affected.
• we implemented an affiliate linking system as an alternative to giving out your email address. Check out the Referrals page under the Account tab to get your link and code. Sorry this one took so long!

First round of DNS management features coming soon.

We have future plans for Debian Etch as a distro choice. But Slicehoster Marko couldn’t wait and installed Debian on his own. This wiki page shows you how he did it. Thanks Marko!

Say what you will about Dave Winer, but the man has jump started mobile content. It’s not as if he invented the concept, but the industry was just… stagnant. He released his tools, which I find useful, and suddenly – mobile versions of every feed in my list are popping up.

That being said, one of the ideas we had on our to-do list, was a mobile version of SliceManager. Something you could access comfortably via your blackberry/treo/cell, possibly w/ some SMS features. Would such a thing be useful? Perhaps the ability to see uptime, stats and maybe even reboot? Let us know.

Celebrate good times. You speak, we listen, cool stuff happens. A major customer request was console access. Now why would you need console access when you have SSH?

• you might accidentally lock yourself out via firewall (never happens right?)
• SSH can fail
• you misconfigure a server and it can’t boot propoerly

Previously, you had to open a support issue to get this resolved. No longer! Just login to SliceManger, click the [console] link next to your Slice name and let the magic happen.

Pretty wicked eh? This shouldn’t replace SSH as your remote access method, even though it is encrypted over HTTPS. The console is mainly for emergency use or a quick check in when you only have browser access. But we’re certain it will make your life easier someday and that’s what we like to do.

Now who can you thank for such coolness? Jason of course. He forced Ruby, Rails and Python (ajaxterm) into the same room, then convinced them to play nicely. Too smart for his own good that guy. Pop into the chatroom and let us know what you think. As always thanks for your input – it’s how we make things better around here.