Hi, I just purchased a dedicated server from storm just for learning purposes only I wanna learn about vps. I would like to learn how to create them and how to sell them and get them to deploy automatically after payment via whmcs. My server aspects are as follow: Memory: 7113 Disk Space: 600GB 4CPUs Unlimited Bandwidth as I pay per Gig's CentOS 5.5 64bit with Cpanel/whm Now, could someone with experience provide me clean steps on how I can create VPS. I wanna know what programs and etc.. I don't plan on selling these vps I just purchased this server to learn these things I won't start selling until my knowledge expands. Thanks, Richard.
first of all you need to decide which virtualization you wanna run there are xen, openvz, kvm, hyper-v, etc.
Hey thanks for the reply, I tried installing openvz but man... that's hard, I followed the installations instructions and everything was going okay but when the time to reboot came the server wouldn't come back so I had to terminate it and set it backup. Which virtualization do you recommend? I'm gonna try to install a different one, you suggest that another one is better than openvz.
KVM seems the most sought after by people seriously looking for a VPS, while OpenVZ generally allows the provider to oversell more. The performance on OpenVZ can be better than all the others because each container is not running its own kernel, but KVM allows the client more customization and options such as running windows or any flavor of bsd. Also, if you're trying to sell virtual private servers, cpanel/whm is a waste and a pointless expense.
Ah, ok. If it's just for learning experience then it should be fine to have them on the same server, but if you go live, you should keep the shared and resellers on a seperate server from the vps clients. Most OpenVZ providers use solusvm.
Yeah, I just purchased this server last night to learn about vps, my shared and resller clients are in a different server with softlayer. Once I feel comfortable about serving vps I will purchase another server with softlayer and start selling them to clients but right now I can't beause I don't know much about it, that's the reason for this thread and the new server away from my other ones. And I don't think I can use solusvm, it's not supported by whmcs (my billing system) so it won't be automaticly setup after payment which is what I'm seeking to do. I'm thinking about using veportal
I believe whmcs supports solusvm, docs.whmcs.com/SolusVM (not allowed to post a full link yet, sorry) haven't used it before, but it looks like it does. Softlayer has always seemed like one of the most expensive server providers. You would also need to figure out what kind of VPS clients you are looking for, since using Softlayer would rule out the low end crowd because of the cost inherent in just the dedicated server.
That's weird.. I checked the link you provided and it looks like whmcs supports it but it's no longer listed under the Module Name list anymore.. I just checked my whmcs and it's not there. Maybe they stopped working with them? I don't know but it's not there anymore.
Ah, I see why.... it's not listed under the module name because we have to install them our selves. http://www.solusvm.com/whmcs.php
solusvm is supported by whmcs if you want to run openvz with solusvm, you might need to do a clean reinstall on your server and do a repartition (for lvm and stuff, if you want to run kvm/xen)
I'm trying to learn all I can about vps. What's the difference between Openvz and KVM? I noticed that some vps providers charge more for KVM/Xen. And you said that If I wanna run openvz with solusvm that I need to do a repartition, what do you mean by that? I'm not sure what repartition means.
i said for kvm & xen you have to provide LVM partition on your HDD, and most probably your current system doesn't have that (hence the repartition word i put there) so you will have to do a clean OS reinstallation & repartition of your HDD to meet with xen/kvm requirement as for openvz, you might be able to setup it without reinstallation just need change the kernel to openvz (follow the solusvm guide for openvz there) but if you have tried before and failed it'd be best to do a clean reinstallation first like above but you don't need to do the repartition as openvz doesn't need LVM. openvz allows you to oversell as already stated above by Days. it is an OS-level virtualization, that's the reason why it's cheaper than kvm/xen because those two are hardware-level virtualization in other words, it is safe to say that xen/kvm is semi-dedicated platform, while openvz is a fully virtual platform (as it is running on OS level not hardware)
A very easy way to setup a VPS is also by using the Proxmox system. You can easily setup KVM and OpenVZ with the webinterface and it's completly free. So it's a good way to start with it. The bad thing is, the current stable version 1.9 doesn't support a webinterface for your clients. So if your clients need a webinterface, I would also recommend solusVM. But if you are just testing and trying things for the first time, I would recommend proxmox, since it's free. The new version 2.0 will also support a webinterface for every VM, but there is only a beta of this version available right now.
So with proxmox, I the "admin" setup the vps via an interface but my clients would have to manage them via source? And with proxmox I would still need to install Openvz? I'm having a lot of trouble installing it, I crashed my server twice they had to be terminated.. LOL @ lachrymologist, that's some really useful information you provided there thanks a lot.
With proxmox, you just need to install the proxmox-system (it's debian based OS). After installation of the proxmox system, you can open your webbrowser and navigate to the webinterface. There you can easily setup OpenVZ and KVM VPS (proxmox already installs the KVM and Openvz functionality automatically). The main problem with proxmox is, that your clients don't have access to the control panel to manage their VPS. This function will be supported in proxmox 2.0, which will be released in the first quarter of 2012. At the moment they can only access their VPS via SSH/VNC/RDP (depends on the system you setup for them). Good luck.
Thanks a lot, can can be installed on centos right? and also, I couldn't find the installation instructions to install this via source as I do not have physical access to the server.
No, proxmox itself is an operating system based on debian. You need to ask your provider to install the system for you.