Things i could do with VPS?

My whole life, i only experienced managing a shared hosting, it will be my first time for VPS next week. I wonder what things could i do with it? Is there a site online that teaches me the basics on how to manage VPS? And i remember, the OS is CentOS, is that linux? And another thing, it comes with lxAdmin, are there any ways i could run linux commands even it has its lxAdmin control panel on it? I wonder if i could unrar password protected .rar files too.. thank you..

 

You can so everything in VPS like in dedicated hosting.

Yes, CentOS is just another Linux distribution (RedHat).

Usually VPS also provides access to shell command, so you can run any linux command.

 

Which VPS company are you going with?

 

CentOS also has become increasingly popular but they are quite similiar as far any differences are concerned. Also, as a VPS owner, you should have the ability to login to it as "root" allowing much more modifications then a normal reseller would have. If you use this VPS to resell space you may want to tweak some securities though.

 

Managing a vps is the same with managing a dedicated server. It requires knowledge about OS, software, system. If you don't know anything, you should be better with a managed vendor. We just got a new customer in Indonesia yesterday. After comparing many things, he signed up as a semi-managed customer. After one day, after reviewing what we have done for initial settings, he decided to upgrade to managed customer By that way, he can focus on his business, doesn't have to spend time on vps management job.

For your specific questions:
- CentOS is a Linux distribution. It's re-compiled from RHE
- vps can comes with LXAdmin, or other control panels like cPanel or DirectAdmin.
- if you want to execute linux commands, you can login ssh. If you are using Windows, you can try with Putty. With MAC, it has terminal already.
- for unrar normal files, yes you can. I am just not sure about password-protected file, cause I haven't done it before

 

About logging in to SSH, how is the flow on that? Is it similar to DOS? like all i see is black screen, choose a directory by using "CD" command, find the rar file and execute the command to unrar it? Do you know a site for VPS beginners? Thanks you...

 

Default Linux installation doesn't come with unrar, you will need to install it. Check this: unrar on Linux

 

You can use putty in accessing the machine. Yes the interface a lot like DOS. Probably, you should be studying first the Linux OS.

 

I advise you stay with the Lxadmin control panel itself for all your management. Its pretty flexible and easy. I was unsure to shift from my shared hosting using cpanel to my current VPS using Lxadmin.. but after a few days itself I was comfortable with Lxadmin. also unlike dedicated server (without remote reboot) you can reboot your VPS from your VPS control panel which must be probably HyperVM (as your VPS has Lxadmin )

if you really wanna login to SSH you must know a few linux commands and should be sure of what you are doing

Also if you have SSH I recommend that you set it up such that you can login using a public key and private key instead of using a user ID and pass. this is good from a security point of view as you can prevent brute force logins to your SSH port. (this is a bit tough to setup for newbs so you must take help of some pro)

puTTy is great for SSH client (and you can use puttygen for generating keys as I said in the above paragraph)




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Is there a simulator wherein i could practice SSH commands using my computer? Maybe a VMWare or virtual pc with a CentOS 5 installed on it? or a CentOS 5 Live CD? Is that possible? Thanks for the replies..

 

Are there any ways i could run my VPS just like a normal CentOS PC? Like viewing the desktop and stuff using a client? Create files, save, edit, intall files just like a normal computer but remotely? tnx

 

yes, by installing a GUI application. There are some tutorials on the net, but I haven't tryed any tho :\

 

you may want to check with your vps provider if you are allowed to run vnc as I wanted vnc and my host disallows it due to the high usage of resources.

 

It's funny looking back to this thread, I got some Virtual Private Servers already located on different sides of the world. All of them got VNC and I also have a windows vps for a windows remote desktop. I'm thinking of a dedicated server but I don't think I need it now for what I do. Let's see after some few months..

 

I have ssh access but as far as connecting through vnc so I can use gnome or kde they dont allow this as Im not yet a linux shell guru

Regards

 

So how did you go about it? I just bought a VPS and am looking for option just as how you did 1 year back.

 

you can start from this tutorial: http://mysql-apache-php.com (look for debian/centos)
As a beginner, i wrote this.

One advice - dont leave your server open without installing a firewall.

 

Wow thanks a lot for summing it all up for me. I really appreciate it. To think I spent such a long time doing half of what you have mentioned is really frustrating. But thanks again. Reps added for the favor and time.