I wanted a web host that supported Drupal, but ever since Drush came along it is now a must have when working with Drupal. Now that, we can no longer work with Drupal without Drush it is one of the first questions after finding out the web host that supports Drupal. Before signing up with GreenGeeks, I asked the online sales chat if they supported Drush on their shared environment as to which the reply was a tremendous fat YES.
Excited
Image by Koshyk.
I was so exited when I talked with GreenGeeks about supporting Drush on their shared server I was grinning from ear to ear. Although I don’t have proof that is what GreenGeeks said, I hope the evidence I do have proves that this conversation did take place because I wouldn’t have singed up with them if they did not support Drush on the shared servers.
Double Feature
Image by Double Feature Podcast.
I was even more exited that GreenGeeks were Green, and I’d be supporting the cause of being a good steward of the Earth.
Drush Command Line at my Disposal
Now with my new GreenGeeks shared server up and running with Drupal installed, I was rock’n away by installing modules and keeping the site up to date via Drush. Don’t believe me, checkout my bash history from GreenGeeks.com.
Site Maintenance Needed
Well it had been a while since I updated the modules or the core of Drupal with Drush and the Drupal website that I was taking care of was letting my know about via email.
What do I do now? Get back to using Drush to update the site, no problem I think to myself since Drush is Uber Elite Command Line for Drupal.
Now at that point I’m logged into the shell via Putty, I type Drush status just because I can and what do I get? Pretty information about my Drupal install? No. I get “permission denied”!
Tech Support to the Rescue
I thought at this point well it should be an easy fix for the tech support, I tell them that Drush is not working anymore and they tell my that they have disabled it and no longer works with the shared environment, but if I upgrade to their VPS I can have it back. Don’t believe me look at the screenshot I took of our conversation.
I Can Have Drush Back if I Pay GreenGeeks More Money
Suppose you buy a sports car at a dealership with a supped up engine. You buy it because it has the supped up engine, it will help get you to work faster. You use the sports car for a while everything is working fine. Then you wake up one morning and find that the car does not drive as fast so you call the sports car dealership where you bought the car and they say while you were sleeping we came to your house and took out the sporty engine and replaced it with a 4-cylinder, but if you pay us more money we will put the sports engine that makes your live easier back in. How would you feel?
The Kicker
So a few months had passed and I still was thinking about them telling me they supported Drush before I signed up and then took it away. I wanted to see if they were still telling people they supported Drush so I went to the site, congered up the live chat and asked them if Drush worked on the Shared Environment. They told me Yes. Don’t believe me? Checkout the screenshot I took of them saying so.
A Better Ending
What would have been more like good business ethics if they no longer wanted to support Drush on their shared environment hosting would have been for new sign ups not allow Drush and not tell other people after they have disabled it that it sill works on their shared hosting servers and to allow the existing customers that did have it when they signed up keep it, or allow those who wanted to keep Drush because they supported Drupal and did not want security issues on their shared servers is giving those people VPS for the same price. What do you think?
