Traffic and Disk Space

Please choose from the following questions.

  1. What exactly does "traffic included" mean?
  2. What methods do you use to determine storage?
  3. How do I determine how much hard drive space my account is using?
  4. What methods do you use to determine traffic usage?
  5. I'd like to get 3 additional MB of space...
  6. Does each additional MB carry the same traffic limit?
  7. I've been offered my own virtual server with unlimited bandwidth on a T1 connection for $350 a month. Why don't you have an offer like that?
  8. Is there a way I can accumulate my access logs rather than having them turned over every day?

What exactly does "traffic included" mean?

Traffic: If you have a home page with 10 k of text each time somebody looks at it and causes the server to transfer the file over the Internet it generates 10 k of traffic. If you had 100,000 visitors to your web page you would have 1 gigabyte of traffic.

What methods do you use to determine storage usage?

We determine storage usage by a daily average of the combined total size of an account's home directory, anonymous FTP directory, and mail file. 

How do I determine how much hard drive space my account is using?

The size of your home directory in bytes can be determined by logging onto the server using telnet and at the shell prompt typing:

du -sb /home/username

Make sure to substitute your account name for where it says "username".

What Methods do you use to determine traffic usage?

We determine web traffic usage by extracting information from the access_log files generated by the HTTP daemon. We determine FTP traffic usage from the FTP xferlog file generated by the FTP daemon.

What do I do if I'd like additional hard drive space?

You can use additional space as you need it. We will charge you based upon your average space consumed throughout the month.

Does each additional MB carry the same traffic limit?

Traffic is separate from storage. If you use additional storage it does not change your traffic total or increase the amount of traffic included free. So the answer is no, you don't get extra free traffic because you have a giant web site.

Is telnet included in traffic?

No. You can use telnet as necessary to configure your account, but as this is not included in your traffic for the month we can't allow you to conduct a large number of simultaneous telnet sessions without prior arrangement to pay for the additional bandwidth consumed.

I've been offered my own virtual server with unlimited bandwidth on a T1 connection for $350 a month. Why don't you have an offer like that?

Anybody who offers you unlimited bandwidth on a T1 for $350 per month is betting that you will not use it. If you do, it will force them to have to discontinue business with you because they will be losing money. That's because the price of a full T1 is $950 to $2000 per month depending on their provider. The only other alternative to them dropping you is if they cheat you by throttling your server down so that it doesn't use the full T1. You get what you pay for.

We have several high volume clients that we are happy to host. We are able to deliver the performance they require because we charge them according to the amount of bandwidth they use.

Is there a way I can accumulate my access logs rather than having them turned over every day?

Yes. In your home directory create an empty file called:

access_log

Your logfile will be rolled into this every night when the logs are processed.

To create the file telnet to the server and issue the command:

touch access_log

This will create an empty file.

Because the access_log file is included in you disk space allocation, you should check its size from time to time. You will be responsible for keeping your access_log file at a manageable size.