Is this unethical or what?

manonthemoon

This is a good one.

A new client had provisionally agreed for me to carry out some work on his site - update content & new images.

Anyway, when i get back to him he tells me that the bloke who designed site will not provide ftp details as -

"he has a few other sites hosted there and he cant give me access to those sites"

- He said he could update the site for the client (nice of him!)

My question is this.

1. Can he host several sites on one server and by giving me ftp to the site i would be able to access these other sites. If this is true it is very careless and somewhat unethical as he is charging to host several sites on one server.

or maybe this is true

2. He is a lying bastard trying to con his client (who has no webbie experience) into staying with him.

What do ye think?

Thanks

Motm

davej

Originally posted by manonthemoon

My question is this.

1. Can he host several sites on one server and by giving me ftp to the site i would be able to access these other sites. If this is true it is very careless and somewhat unethical as he is charging to host several sites on one server.

There's no problem with having several virtual hosts on the one machine (once the machine is spec'd to handle whatever the sites are running). It is also a trivial task to have a separate ftp a/c for each virtual host on the machine...

davej

Clamor

Hi.

1. Yes he can host many websites on one server. It's done all the time. I wouldnt consider it unethical either as he's making use of the server to host websites. Which I presume is a dedicated machine for that purpose anyway. Depending on the requirement of each site, if the customer wanted a dedicated server for their site then they could get that but it would cost them. Alot of the sites out there just serve up pages and this won't overload the box if it's setup correctly. As for the FTP access, this looks like he's trying to ensure that any changes to the site that need to be made are made (and invoiced accoringly) by him. There should be no reason to prevent you from accessing the webspace on that server via FTP or other secure means if this too has been setup correctly. He should be able to provide the client with a user name / password that would login to the customer website folder only. They would not have access to any other hosted sites on the server.

2. He's a business man. There's nothing like repeat business and a maintenance contract to keep the money flowing into the coffers. I would recommend you move hosting service to somplace that will not limit your access to the site in such a way. Inform the customer as well as to the situation and what you think is happening. They may be happy enough to stay in that situation but perhaps not.

Anyway I hope this help's.
Clamor

Lucutus

Surely this guy can set up an ftp account for your client giving him access to update his site, and only his site?

Inform your client that it's a 30 second job to give you an ftp account with access to his site and ask him to approach mister bofh to do it.

Luc

manonthemoon

Thanks fellas

Motm

Sposs

This guy sounds like he just doesnt know how to give seperate ftp access,most hosting companies have up to 100 individual sites on a server each with there own access and ftp details.

damnyanks

Or even he could put a script up allowing you to upload files

mneylon

If your client cannot get FTP access then they should move host.

RicardoSmith

I would be very unhappy if somebody wouldn't give me ftp access to my own site. It means that the client has no access to his own site. The guy hosting it could put anything up there and theres nothing the client could do about it.

If that hosting guy gets run over by a bus tomorrow does that mean no one will be able to get the source for the existing site/work done? The client have paid for this site but will have nothing in hand to show for it.

I'd advise the clcient to get ftp access and get all the source files for the site. In that why if theres a problem he can just move the site elsewhere. (assuming he owns the doman registration too)

Finally if the hosting guy can't manage to give seperate ftp access then how can you be sure he will be able to upload your modifications ok. He could make a complete mess of it and then blame your modifications. Give you a bad rep.

Now these are just the worse case scenerios. Its very cost and labour intensive for a host to share webspace and ftp access as long as the access is tightly controlled. However if clients want their own ftp access then you can't do it.

Bard

Originally posted by manonthemoon

1. Can he host several sites on one server and by giving me ftp to the site i would be able to access these other sites. If this is true it is very careless and somewhat unethical as he is charging to host several sites on one server.

I have several sites on the one hosting account. I'm quite sure that my hosting account is not the only one running on that particular physical server too. It's quite normal, and - I'm sure - fairly common.

The sites themselves are fairly low on bandwidth use (they're not accessed very much) and so the fact that they're sharing the same machine is not really impacting on the quality of service provided. I'm sure that the fact that my hosting provider has nice high spec'd server machines sitting on a nice fast Internet connection helps too.

Because the client is getting a high quality service which is not really affected by their site being on shared hosting, I'd hardly call it "unethical".

There's only one FTP username/password on my hosting account, and only I have the details of that account. None of the clients require FTP access and they get on to me any time they want an update done.

However, I'm sure that if it came about that one of the clients required FTP access, my hosting provider would be happy to perform the simple task of adding an extra FTP username/password onto my account for me.