Could it be that I'm not able to edit /etc/rc.local??
No, seems to be working OK.... I just tested it by adding:
touch /tmp/doesthiswork
to the end of it and rebooted. After rebooting, the contents of /etc/rc.local remained the same and doesthiswork appeared in /tmp/.
Maybe if something gets messed up and it can't contact any networks, there are some overrides. I had previously used it to remove a bunch of unwanted modules which weren't getting blocked by /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.
Currently the hostnames of the machines I've used from NewServers is something like: server1866.newservers.com.
What if I wanted to setup a mailserver and needed a reverse IP DNS (PTR) entry? I'd want that entry to match my machine's hostname.
To prep, I setup the /etc/hostname file, and then added the corresponding line into /etc/hosts. Let's see if it persists through a reboot. It should, but I want to make sure.
NOTE: Its nice that changes to the NewServers firewall setup persist through reboots. The iptables state is saved to /etc/sysconfig/iptables. I wonder, is that a NewServers directory or a CentOS directory? Looks like its a CentOS or wider directory, but I don't think its used on Debian. Nope, just checked.
My hostname setting did not persist across a reboot. Hmmm. What's up with that?
For some reason, while using the NewServers.com machine, I feel constrained by the stuff that's already there. I am impressed with their technical knowhow, but I'm skeptical of anything that hasn't been thoroughly reviewed by peers - hence the reason why I love open source software!
¥