Begginers help

[tyke23]

Running a few sites from HG on shared accounts for the last few years, i do realize as my memberships builds up that VPS is the way to go. Thing is i know nothing about this side of things, so i wondered if there was any tutorials, hints and tips, and so on for somebody like me who has never ventured down the VPS path before.

regards

Tyke

[rec9140]

If you've been doing sites for others.... when moving to a VPS.

Level 3 or better WITH WHM/Cpanel will help you tremendously in doing most of the day to day stuff.

You will need to become fluent with the Linux command line or CLI specifically for the CentOS V5.4.x variant.

If you don't have one, I strongly suggest getting a PC which is installed with Linux only preferably direct to the system. If thats not an option then get a copy of the FREE VMWare Player and get a download of the LiveCD/DVD VM from VMWare and a copy of the latest ISO of your distro of choice. You can DL an actual CentOS one or you can get one such as KMint aka Linux Mint CE KDE, only get the Elyssa version on the older release page.. The newer versions use KDE 4.x which is NOT ready for prime time or new users to Linux.

Also, while there are other VM software like Sun's VirtualBox, they all have shortcomings when it comes to their implementation, which VMWare does not. Stick with the leader in VM, VMWare.

Play around in the Linux OS

You will see some familar commands like dir, but ls is more powerful and what you need ls -al is the norm for most.

Can you do this in another OS over Linux? Yes, but you need to learn the skills of the Linux CLI, so why not do them natively?

Things like ssh - l root 123.456.789.012 will be the things you do day in and day to manage your VPS.

A lot of what you need to do to fix things and do some things is all going to be driven by ssh'ng to your VPS and doing things .

Install software for clients:

yum install somepackage

or compiling software and installing for clients

wget http://www.somsupersoftware.ivalidco...oftware.tar.gz

tar -zxvf ubergreatsoftware.tar.gz
cd ubergreatsoftware
./configure
make
make install

If all of the above is gibberish to you then, getting a feel for the Linux CLI will be the first step to moving to VPS.

I am afraid I don't know of any good tutorials on most of this, as I learned via "baptism by fire" from having to learn the commands to do what I needed for my job... years ago... later I still find commands people know I don't... its a constant learning process. And theres always probably 2-3 ways to accomplish the same task with the same and similar commands, but having the basics is a must.

Books on the bash shell will help too.

WHM/Cpanel will probably cover the basics 99% of the time, but as you need to do more and more advanced things. The need for the CLI will come into play.

[quietFinn]

Running a VPS is pretty much the same as running a dedicated server, so I'd suggest you take a look at the "Linux Dedicated Servers" forum area.

[GatorSteveN]

And also

http://www.hostgator.com/tutorials.shtml#whm_dedis