VPS to learn/experiment?

Dave!

Hi guys,

I'm a PHP/MySQL developer with a little bit of experience, but I have no real experience with server stuff, and I want to remedy that! I was going to try and set up an Apache server at home, but it's a bit more hassle than it's worth, so I've been advised to just get a VPS and work on that instead.

I want to use it to mess around with the likes of cron, ssh, installing different software, etc., but as I mentioned I don't have much experience. The attraction for having my own server running on a virtual machine is that if I break it, I can just start from scratch.

I'm wondering, is it possible to 'break' a VPS, and if so, can it simply be reset by some means that I have access to? Or is it a big deal, and there is some sort of fee associated with it. If for example I did an oul:

rm -rf /

and wiped it clean, what would happen?

I'm not being flippant here, I don't have any plans to break anything or f*ck with your machines, but my main reason for getting a VPS is to experiment with it and learn how to use it! I don't have any pressing hosting needs that require a VPS, my current shared hosting package (with Blacknight) serves that purpose fine for now.

My other question is, are the major differences between your VPS packages to do with hardware, or would the Starter package limit my access to certain things? I'll need to be able to connect to it with SSH, FTP, run cron jobs, install software, have a control panel (Plesk), etc... But the performance isn't terribly important. I can always upgrade at a later stage I presume.

Thanks!

Dave

mneylon

Dave

A VPS is ideal for playing around with.

I'm sure you could break it if you really put your mind to it, but you should be able to reinstall it from within the control panel without any issue

All the Linux cloud plans give you access to the full suite of tools that you'd need for a LAMP environment. The difference comes down to RAM, CPU, bandwidth etc.,

If you're new to Linux then Debian might be a good choice, though Centos is also very popular

HTH

Michele

Dave!

Excellent - thanks for your help.

I went ahead and registered a VPS with Ubuntu as the OS

Quick question - do I have a Plesk control panel already installed, or how do I install that? :-/

I'm looking to add a new domain (subdomain rather) to the server, but I'm not sure how to do that.

edit:

Just seeing this...

It is not available on the Starter VPS package and is only available on VPS packages with the following Operating Systems:

Windows Server 2003
CentOS 5
Debian 4.0

Please note that it is not possible to easily upgrade from a non-Plesk VPS to a Plesk VPS.

What's the best way to add a domain to a VPS then? I've got the domain pointing to my IP address, and it seems to be going to /var/www

Is it standard to install some other control panel, e.g. webmin ?

mneylon

I posted this howto a few years ago http://www.michele.me/blog/archives/2004/07/apache-2-configuration/

Dave!

Thanks, I'll read through that, it should point me in the right direction anyway.

Given that the Starter package has no Plesk Control Panel, what way would people normally administer their server? Just using the command line is it? Or would they install some other control panel?

I ask because I installed Webmin, apparently successfully, but when I visit my.ip.address:10000 it just times out I've been googling for an hour and it's not giving me a solution.

mneylon

Personally I use the command line, as it's usually faster and saner than webmin or any of the alternatives.

If you're having issues accessing webmin check the firewall settings - the port might be blocked

Dave!

Okay thanks for your help! Managed to get it working Everything's comin up Milhouse!

mneylon

Glad to hear it

Just make sure you don't accidentally turn it into an open relay