

Ask HN: VPS for Dummies? - calebhicks

I'm trying to get off of shared hosting solutions (BlueHost, GoDaddy). I don't have huge needs, I run 5-10 Wordpress sites with pretty low traffic. But shared hosting has become unbearable.<p>I've looked into various VPS solutions. Specifically, I have set up accounts at Rackspace and Linode. I'm attracted to Rackspace because of their Cloud Files option that will publish to a CDN, but realize that is independent of the actual VPS.<p>However, I'm a complete newbie when it comes to Linux. I've never ssh'd into anything before, or run much in a terminal.<p>Where can I find a good guide for setting up an Ubuntu server for hosting a few Wordpress setups?<p>Thanks in advance for your recommendations.
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sixtofour
Everyone's different, you may find some of this useful to you.

Linode and Slicehost both have excellent documentation, forums and other
resources, all publicly available whether you're a customer or not.

<http://www.linode.com/community/>

<http://library.linode.com/>

StackScripts, ready-made scripts to set up a box:
<http://www.linode.com/stackscripts/>

Using Linux on your Linode - Linux System Administration:
<http://library.linode.com/using-linux/administration-basics>

<http://www.slicehost.com/community/>

Ubuntu help for various releases: <https://help.ubuntu.com/>

11.04 Desktop, Server and Installation help:
<https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/index.html>

11.04 Ubuntu Server Guide:
<https://help.ubuntu.com/11.04/serverguide/C/index.html>

20 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know:
[http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/top-linux-monitoring-
tools.htm...](http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/top-linux-monitoring-tools.html)

The Linux System Administrator's Guid:
<http://tldp.org/LDP/sag/html/index.html>

Linux Administration Made Easy: [http://tldp.org/LDP/lame/LAME/linux-admin-
made-easy/index.ht...](http://tldp.org/LDP/lame/LAME/linux-admin-made-
easy/index.html)

Linux Newbie Administrator Guide: <http://lnag.sourceforge.net/>

Shell Programming for Beginners: <http://ontwik.com/linux/shell-programming-
for-beginners/>

man bash (i.e, read the man page)

Bash Reference Manual: <http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html>

Linux Security Basics (particularly the bits on no root login, and locking
down ssh): <http://library.linode.com/security/basics>

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karterk
As mentioned by others already, the slicehost articles are great for
installing and setting up a server (they have detailed guides for Ubuntu,
centos, debian, etc.) A few things to be aware of:

1\. Security. I can't stress this enough, as people new to managing their own
VPS can end up doing some bad mistakes with respect to security, e.g. leaving
root account login enabled, weak firewall etc. Make sure you do a bit of
googling to make sure you get a good hang of the security aspects of hosting
your sites on your own VPS.

2\. Although you mentioned that your sites are low traffic ones, you might
still want to choose a light weight webserver like nginx/lighthttpd over
Apache, which can be quite heavy weight and need a larger slice.

3\. You won't have any mail server by default, which is a free benefit in a
shared hosting environment. Setting up and managing your own mail server can
be nightmarish.. Look into something like Amazon Simple Email service for
that.

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idleworx
I would highly recommend slicehost.com as a VPS host and they have a great
library of tutorials (particularly helpful for linux newbies)
<http://articles.slicehost.com/>.

Even if you don't get an account with them, you'll probably find the tutorials
very useful.

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kitcar
if you have never SSH'd into anything before, I would recommend running a VPS
and your shared hosting accounts in parallel until you get a better handle on
Linux, then migrate your sites from shared hosting at that time.

Although I haven't checked recently, from memory as far as pricing goes,
slicehost $ > linode $ > prgmr.com. Prgmr is true do it yourself though, so if
your a complete linux newbie you may want to go the middle ground and get
linode.com, and use the slicehost tutorials to get it up and running

