VPS Questions?

Big Ben · 11-14-2004, 10:59 AM

Hello,

After much consideration I have decided to go with a VPS hosting solution from RackForce. So far so good!

The VPS seemed to be the best solution for a novice like myself that needed a lot of diskspace but not many other bells and whistles.

I did have a few questions that I could use some help on:

1. I see a lot of talk about "Server Reboots." In fact some companies even use "Free Server Reboots" as an advertising pitch. RackForce gives me the ability to reboot my own server. My question is why would the server need to be rebooted? Is it just like my computer in that it simply needs to be rebooted on ocassion? How will I know when my server needs to be rebooted?

2. I got my VPS set up without any problems including the DNS. Now that I am off and running what types of activities do I need to do on a daily/weekly basis to maintain the health of my server?

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

Best Regards,

littleFella · 11-14-2004, 11:18 AM

I think you may want to install webadmin (if it's not installed there yet). This will show you pretty much right out of the box what things to look for, especially in Logs (kernel, security etc), server load, and hardware info. Everythig is pretty esay to understand.

Which service did you buy from them?
I know they guarantee T1 class connection. How is the speed in practice? Did you run any CPU intensive tasks yet?

Big Ben · 11-14-2004, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by littleFella

I think you may want to install webadmin (if it's not installed there yet). This will show you pretty much right out of the box what things to look for, especially in Logs (kernel, security etc), server load, and hardware info. Everythig is pretty esay to understand.

Which service did you buy from them?
I know they guarantee T1 class connection. How is the speed in practice? Did you run any CPU intensive tasks yet?

Hey littleFella,

Thanks for the info!

I just got the server going yesterday and have not yet had the time to test it too much, but so far so good. My DNS changes have not even propagated yet. Once my site has been propagated I will take it for a good test drive and let you know about the speed.

The plan I purchased was the ddsMax. I did not see anything about webadmin. Is this something that should come with a VPS?

Thanks!

littleFella · 11-14-2004, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Ben

Hey littleFella,
The plan I purchased was the ddsMax. I did not see anything about webadmin. Is this something that should come with a VPS?

Webmin is not so much a package that may come with any particular level of service, but rather a piece of software that can be installed if you have root acess, which you do with RackForce's VPS. I spoke to them a while ago about that too, and they thought webmin was a good idea. If by any chance they did preinstall webmin for you you will be able to access it via :
http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:10000 or https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:10000. You need to login as root.
For many tasks webmin beats command lline by a wide margin.

If they didn't install it for you then take a look at webmin at http://webmin.com. You will be glad you did. And the installation is easy too.

fishfreek · 11-14-2004, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Ben

Hello,

After much consideration I have decided to go with a VPS hosting solution from RackForce. So far so good!

The VPS seemed to be the best solution for a novice like myself that needed a lot of diskspace but not many other bells and whistles.

I did have a few questions that I could use some help on:

1. I see a lot of talk about "Server Reboots." In fact some companies even use "Free Server Reboots" as an advertising pitch. RackForce gives me the ability to reboot my own server. My question is why would the server need to be rebooted? Is it just like my computer in that it simply needs to be rebooted on ocassion? How will I know when my server needs to be rebooted?

2. I got my VPS set up without any problems including the DNS. Now that I am off and running what types of activities do I need to do on a daily/weekly basis to maintain the health of my server?

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

Best Regards,

If your server is running linux then there are not many times a server does need to be restarted unless its totally unresponsive (ie run away process consuming all resources so you cant login and shut the process down). if its a windows box then it might be adventagious to reboot on a regular schedule.

Other times a reboot would be in order is when upgrading the kernel of a linux box.

Big Ben · 11-14-2004, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishfreek

If your server is running linux then there are not many times a server does need to be restarted unless its totally unresponsive (ie run away process consuming all resources so you cant login and shut the process down). if its a windows box then it might be adventagious to reboot on a regular schedule.

Other times a reboot would be in order is when upgrading the kernel of a linux box.

Hey fishfreek,

Thanks for your input!

My server is running Linux. Would it still be a good idea to reboot ocassionally, say once a month or so?

Thanks!

littleFella · 11-14-2004, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Ben

My server is running Linux. Would it still be a good idea to reboot ocassionally, say once a month or so?

No need to reboot Linux whatsoever, unless you make some major kernel changes (recompile modules, upgrade the OS itself etc). Btw. installing an application is not a kernel change, and I don't thik there are any applications that would require Linux box to be rebooted. Linux has very good memory management so processes free memory properly, or it is freed if the kernel decides they no longer need it.

fishfreek · 11-14-2004, 07:16 PM

webmin can also be installed on a random port number so it may still be installed just on a port other than the default port 10000.

littleFella · 11-14-2004, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishfreek

webmin can also be installed on a random port number so it may still be installed just on a port other than the default port 10000.

Yes, it's a good point. Webmin installed through rpm defaults to port 10000, so installing it through setup.sh may be a better idea, since the setup is then interactive and allows to select a different port, which is good for security reasons. Of course config files can be changed later too.

Big Ben · 11-15-2004, 09:01 AM

littleFella and fishfreek,

Thanks for all of your advice. I will definately check into Webmin. It does not seem to be preinstalled on my server.

Best Regards,