Hi there. I'm starting a new imageboard soon. What is a reasonable starting server requirement? Are $10-a-month shared hosting enough or do I need a minimum of $50-a-month virtual private server?
Also, why can't images hotlinked to? Why do they always have to be on my server? And why do images have to be on my computer to be uploaded? Why not put a URL box and upload the image from another webpage?
Lots of questions here...
I know I run http://iiichan.net on $10 a month shared hosting, so yeah, it can be done.
>>why can't images hotlinked to?
That's a per-host setting, not a wakaba one.
>>Why do they always have to be on my server?
As far as I know, scripts can't put things on remote servers, though you might want to look into the distributed system dmpk2k set up.
>>And why do images have to be on my computer to be uploaded? Why not put a URL box and upload the image from another webpage?
This has been asked before-- it's technically easy; the worry is that remote uploading opens the door to a number of interesting hacking attempts, as well as the use of your imageboard to, theoretically, repeatedly download very large files from other servers-- very bad mojo.
Thanks anon, very reasonable replies.
The question about hotlinking is about posting photos that are not on your computer and won't be uploaded to your server -- like photos in flickr for example. Why can't you just embed it in your post -- or can you do that already?
Because then you are stealing other people's bandwidth, which they are paying for. In the best case you just use up somebody else's resources, in the worst case, they replace the image with goatse when they notice.
Not necessarily because if you use flickr and want to post your own photo, you can do that because that's what flickr is for. But you're right about people deleting or replacing their photos with something else. Thanks iichan.
>>5 It's still sorta bad manners to hotlink. Nettiquette, man!
I'll keep that in mind, thanks. ^_^;;