I want to get my own Dedicated or VPS soon but since this will be my first time i don't know how to manage it! i've worked with Debian,Ubuntu and Kubuntu before but just simple stuff! also know simple stuff with shell like wget! the highest access i ever had was reseller with you just get a overview of WHM and not the important stuff! So is there anyone who can recommend any way or resource that can help me learn how to manage my own Linux: Apache, MySQL, PHP, Cpanel/WHM and ... Server? someone told me the best way is to install a Linux with all services on my own PC and try to manage them as practice and then move to a real server!but yet this way i can't see all the bugs and don't have to everything like Cpanel and etc.
Theres hundreds of thousands of quality tutorials.. if you want to learn the basics check out TLDP (The Linux Documentation Project) and if you would like more pointed tutorials towards web hosting and such check out HowToForge.
is it? My main problem is starting cause when it's your first time you don't know where to start with! and after that from what i've heard you need to know about smallest settings of your services specially Apache and PHP which have major influence on server's security!
CPanel/WHM cuts the knowledge needed significantly.. but I find it important to be able to set it up manually at least once so you have the knowledge / it will make life easier in the end.
I'd recommend you getting a server, then getting a company to manage it. It would be good since you do not know about it. Though cPanel makes it a lot easier but still Linux is complicated.
I kinda more of a do it myself kinda guy and i rather the to learn it! and Linux isn't that complicated! as i said i've worked with debian and many more Linux distributes and i have friends who are only working with Linux and no Windows at all and it's not that hard!
It is really unfortunate that there is a lot of BAD info in this thread. Cpanel/WHM does next to nothing in securing and running a server - it is a set of applications that make reselling of web hosting services easy. Last time I checked, (and it was today) The Latest WHM has nothing in it to re-compile a kernel, install and maintain your firewall. You need to do a LOT to your server before you put clients on it and try and "manage" it with WHM! Then, you need to be comfortable in installing, updating, upgrading software on the server and not breaking things. You need to know what is running, where it is installed, where the config files are etc to begin to administer a Server. Are you confident that you can re-build a server that has a dead hard disk and restore all your backups - because you will need to be able to do this and far, far more. If you really need a server, then I suggest that you get one from somewhere that offers full server management. Learning how to run a server is best done by installing the same linux distro on a local computer and reading everything you can. In about 2-3 years of doing it every day you might have enough skills, knowledge and experience to call yourself a junior sysadmin and actually be able to run a server.
i kinda confused with different info that i'm getting.one of the main reasons that i opened this thread was that i was thinking exactly about this: i'm not in a urgent situation or forced to get a server yet but i'm pretty sure that in max 1 year i'm going to be!for now i'm going to host my own and my friend's sites and maybe a limited number of clients but small sites and nothing serious!but after the 1 year i said i want to work serious and host many and big sites! as far as i knew the most WHM could do it to manage dns or restart services like apache and etc. but others seem to disagree! as said before getting someone else to manage it is totally out of question and i'm more interested in learning how to manage a server that i'm in getting one! as for installing it on my local PC i mentioned that i got that from someone else earlier too but first of all what distro do you suggest that i start with?i've worked with debian(and debian based distros:ubuntu,kubuntu and...)before and it's really easy to manage specially with it's package manager program(don't remember the exact name), ofcourse i won't have any access to the graphical parts like KDE and Gnome but yet i think the package manager program(and the rest) will be accessible from shell. and i believe the most important thing that i need to learn is working with shell and ssh! the other thing is that if i start to work on my own local computer how should i start and learn cause it won't get down for server load or the won't be any PHP,apache or... security bug to fix! aside from all this just cause i'm curious for hardware problems such as losing the hard disk, wouldn't the data server be responsible for fixing the problem?