Server / VPS management

[AssetDomains]

Can anyone recomend any beginers guides / Books usefull for me to learn how to manage maintain a linux server.

 

[Skinner]

Welcome to the void.

Rather than looking at server management, I'd look at *nix commands first, and see if you have problems there before you look at specific server books.

Its worth downloading a live distro (i.e. runs without install) so you can play around.

 

[tifosi]

If you have an old laptop/pc then it's easy enough to get one of the current distros and set it up as a server.

Ubuntu is gaining popularity as a distro used for hosting. It's based on debian. Others are centos and debian itself.

 

[monaghan]

Webmin is a useful tool for server management, it puts a fancy web based front end making it much easier to see what's going on.

Ubuntu is nice, CentOS is also worth looking at. I use Ubuntu in a private environment and CentOS for public systems.

Whether you go command line or control panel, set yourself up with a local virtual PC and install your desired OS and get familiar with it before venturing out to an Internet connected machine.

 

[tifosi]

Agreed, a local system you can use and abuse... literally is the way to go. Get used to the filesystem structure and the file permissions system. There's a core set of *nix commands that you'll end up using more than others.

Download putty and get used to using SSH.

 

[AssetDomains]

Thanks guys I'd picked up a cheap VPS to play with anyway before posting its running centos. And now got Webmin on it.
Should I be overly worried about security I'm not running anything live on it just want to play round with a few scripts
I'll defo download a few live CD's though so I can play with other flavors.

 

[mdrussell]

If you have an old laptop/pc then it's easy enough to get one of the current distros and set it up as a server.

Ubuntu is gaining popularity as a distro used for hosting. It's based on debian. Others are centos and debian itself.

It's probably easier just to setup a virtual instance on your regular desktop/laptop assuming it has enough RAM. Gives you readier access to it and none of the having to switch it on / use a kvm switch etc so its at your desk.

CentOS is the most popular distro for hosting.

 

[mdrussell]

Thanks guys I'd picked up a cheap VPS to play with anyway before posting its running centos. And now got Webmin on it.
Should I be overly worried about security I'm not running anything live on it just want to play round with a few scripts
I'll defo download a few live CD's though so I can play with other flavors.

http://www.tldp.org/

Probably the only site you'll ever need.

 

[RobM]

Best bet is to play with a cheap server/VPS unmanaged. Assume no webmin/cpanel/whatever so you can get to grips with it (all panels and 3rd party scripts are insecure). Also learn how to secure it. These are things that can take many years to learn but if you're not afraid to 'break' it and there's nothing important on it this can be the best way
ETA vps are insecure. Go straight dedicated.

 

[monaghan]

Should I be overly worried about security I'm not running anything live on it just want to play round with a few scripts

The problem is that once your VPS (or dedicated) is hacked that's your lot, your bandwidth allocation will be used by a hacking bot or as part of a DDOS or worse. The first job of getting any machine is to sort the security, then worry about the application scripts.

You can look at something like the csf firewall, this has a login failure detection and will apply firewall blocks for the usual brute force hack scripts (this is of course not guaranteed to keep you safe, but is a useful starting point)

 

[Aaron Clifford]

I'd recommend ZPanel for a free web management panel much more user friendly than webmin and has an active plugin/theme community for a newbie to a linux VPS its for managing websites (one click nameserver set up being one plus).

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Great for a newbie*

 

[monaghan]

Whichever panel you choose, do spend time understanding how it works from the CLI otherwise you can run into trouble when something breaks

 

[mdrussell]

And do be careful locking it down / understanding the security if you do pick up a VPS with any host.

From a host's perspective, a compromised VPS due to poor security isn't much fun going through all the cleanup.

 

[Aaron Clifford]

And only a select few hosts will actually help you out when something goes wrong on an un managed server, I'd suggest signing up at rackspace cloud, generate yourself a linux box and have a fiddle around, if it goes wrong and you break something then just delete the VPS and recreate it. It will give you a chance to test out different panels, linux distros and using the CLI.

Saves having to reformat a PC everytime you want to try something and it will give you a "real" environment to work from.

 

[AssetDomains]

Thanks guys all very helpful enjoying getting stuck in with this