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DreamHost is a Los Angeles-based web hosting provider and domain name registrar. It is the web hosting branch of New Dream Network, LLC, founded in April 1996 by Dallas Bethune, Josh Jones, Michael Rodriguez and Sage Weil,, undergraduate students at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California.

Web hosting

DreamHost hosts over half a million domain names on a network of mainly Debian GNU/Linux-based servers. The company has deployed a unique control panel, devised by their own programmers , that includes integrated billing and support ticket systems. The control panel used by DreamHost is markedly different from the popular cPanel software used by many commercial web hosting companies and this has resulted in some customers reporting transition difficulties as they get used to the unconventional system. The majority of hosted domains exist within a shared hosting environment, with a small percentage of customers on dedicated servers. All accounts can have shell access. Initially available by invitation only, DreamHost offers a virtual private server service using Linux-VServer. Dreamhost commonly over sells service, putting thousands of customers on each server. This causes severe reliability problems, and many of their customers have left as a result. They offer no telephone support for their basic hosting package, and have no telephone number readily available on their site. Their technical support staff is rude, unhelpful, and has on occasion purposely disabled sites only because the staff doesn't like what they say about the company.

Domain registration

DreamHost is an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar. The company previously operated the .la top-level domain, allocated to the country of Laos, which it marketed as a domain for the city of Los Angeles. It stopped operating it in April 2006 because it reportedly received only "one registration a day". The company frequently has DNS problems, and other problems associated with putting too many clients on one server which is a common practice at Dreamhost.

Transparency

DreamHost is notable for being unusually transparent about its business practices, with staff contributing to a popular blog. A disastrous power outage incident in August of 2006 led to a frank account of what happened by Josh Jones that set a particular tone for the future. It was followed by the creation of a status site dedicated to detailing server maintenance and outages.

Security issue

According to the company, the control panel was thought to have been partly to blame for a June 2007 incident in which approximately 3,500 of the 500,000 (less than 1%) FTP account passwords were compromised. Customers were notified by email, and a few found their sites had been altered to deliver malware. Upon further investigation, new evidence came to light that cast doubt on the theory that the control panel was responsible.

References

1. Webhosting.info World ranking as of August 3, 2007
2. DreamHost's feature glossary
3. Web-based account administration
4. What a CON
5. DreamHost Private Servers
6. List of ICANN-Accredited Registrars
7. DreamHost Newsletter, February 2006
8. Honesty, transparency can offset customer service disasters
9. Netcraft site report showing site ranking of DreamHost's blog
10. LA Hosting Providers Slowed by Power Problems
11. Anatomy of an ongoing disaster
12. DreamHost Status Blog
13. Web Hosting Break-Ins, Security UpdateWeb Hosting Break-Ins, Security Update
14. Hackers load malware onto Mercury music award site
15. DreamHost Wiki: V9.06 June 2007

External links

• DreamHost - Official site
  • DreamHost staff blog
  • Customer discussion forum
  • DreamHost Wiki - wiki knowledge base, maintained by DreamHost staff and users
  • DreamHost Status

• Employee-owned companies
• Web hosting