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Registered User
Asked: 2011-02-26 21:42:45 +0800 CST

how do web hosting companies host end users domain and give so many public IPs

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I am a Computer Science guy who understands networking very well. But when it comes to Web hosting companies I am clue less. I want to know how do web hosting companies give so many public IPs to so many users and each of them has root login also. How this is technically done that is what I am interested to know. I do not know how you people configure it.

In my case if I have to do I will buy a public IP from some one and connect my server to it and at max give some people SSH access to it.In case of Web hosting companies how is it done.

networking web-hosting

3 Answers

  1. In addition to IP-based hosting, hosting providers offer name-based hosting which allows multiple domains to be served from each IP address.

    In Apache, for example, you can configure either type using Virtual Hosts.

    In a configuration file such as /etc/apache2/sites-available/default for an IP-based host:

    <VirtualHost www.smallco.com>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /groups/smallco/www
ServerName www.smallco.com
ErrorLog /groups/smallco/logs/error_log
TransferLog /groups/smallco/logs/access_log
</VirtualHost>

    or a name-based host:

    NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.domain.tld
ServerAlias domain.tld *.domain.tld
DocumentRoot /www/domain
</VirtualHost>
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  2. Best Answer

    generally you wont be given ssh access to your hosting account, unless expressly asked or allowed. This is too bigger security risk. Some hosts do allow ssh access but only under certain circumstances or separate virtual systems or if you ask. After which they will turn off.

    You generally have 3 types of hosting services; in a brief nutshell

    1. Shared web hosting service, where the physical machine and operating system will host several 10's to 100's of sites. Many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. Each site "sits" on its own partition, or section/place on the server, to keep it separate from other sites. The use of plesk or c-panel software and user control and each users can access their sites directories and add in options at will.

    2. Virtual private server (VPS), where the whole operating system is yours and not shared with anyone else. Virtual private server (VPS) is just a marketing term used by Internet hosting services to refer to a virtual machine.

      Virtual private servers bridge the gap between shared web hosting services and dedicated hosting services, giving independence from other customers of the VPS service in software terms but at less cost than a physical dedicated server. As a VPS runs its own copy of its operating system, customers have superuser-level access to that operating system instance, and can install almost any software that runs on the OS. You maintain pretty much the same and may get ssh access

    3. Dedicated hosting service, where physical server (hardware) and operating system not shared with anyone. Very expensive and rarely will you find. generally if you go this way I would find a data centre and put my own server in their racks

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  3. They get one or more netblock allocations from their RIR. They're in the business of providing internet services, so they have a business case (and therefore need) to get a large block (or blocks) of addresses.

    As far as giving root access goes, they'll provision virtual linux servers (Xen, KVM, OpenVZ, etc.) which allow them to give their customers full access to their own server(s) without having to worry about them negatively affecting other customers.

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