I may be given the task of being administrator of a website. I have never done this before.
Can anyone recommend any resources for web server management which covers things like security, efficiency, backups etc?
As I am going to launch unique product connected with webhosting in the near future, I would like to learn more about the tech aspects of webhosting. By tech aspects I mean for example how to setup nameservers - how they work and how to setup them, SSL, how to setup ftp etc., so, basically I am interested in all the things connected to servers.
Could you please recommend me some guides or books related to webhosting and server management. I am newbie to servers and hosting, so I would like to learn it from the ground. I am searching for some book for beginners, but I cannot find any.
if there were any free resources out there that anyone know's of that could teach someone how to manage an unmanaged dedicated server? General guides will do but the more specific the better although I really cannot imagine a guide specific to my requirements but anyway
Quote:
Fedora core 6 with WHM and Cpanel
Where do people learn this stuff without having to take a course in it?
Hosting: VPS Hosting with 320 MB min and 1024 MB burst.
Websites: All the websites (about 20+) on my current vps hosting are very database heavy. They include blogs, ecommerce sites and a few small forums.
Before: In the beginning, when I had less than 10 websites on my hosting, the web hosting worked great. No hiccups and all websites worked flawlessly.
Now: Now that I'm hosting 20+ websites, I find that websites sometimes tend to timeout or not show up in my browser as well as browsers in other locations.
Do you think I need more resources? Do you think that upgrading to Hybrid Server hosting will rectify the situation?
I am running CPanel/WHM as well as the WHMSonic plugin for a Shoutcast service. Now the thing is that my RAM limit is 4GB, but my RAM usage is always at around 3.5GB and above.
I guess it's mainly due to WHMSonic, so is there any way i could lower this RAM as on multiple occasions the server has locked up and shutdown,rebooted or had to be rebooted.
On top of that, the server load is around 10.00 or above.
Is there a resource controlling script which i could install?
I run a server and some game server using cPanel game plugin and found that they are using cpu and RAM usage in high percentage.
What is the good cpu usage for a normal server load?
a few times, my host contacted me and said that my account is suspended due to high usage of server resources.
I have 3 sites using SMF (a forum script.) I have around 8500 visitors and 3 million page views per month in total.
can this be a reason of high usage?
if it's what's the meaning of terabyte traffic limit ? which you can never use
I asked to my host if they could let me know what's causing high server resources usage. here is the answer:
We do not know which domain or script caused this high usage, it is your responsibility to investigate. I would suggest that you go through your raw access logs to see the most requested pages and then investigate those further. After you find the pages responsible, please optimize them so you are not using so many server resources.
so if a host wants simply to restrict traffic limit, they have a pre-reason under hand.high server usage! yes but how will I know that? how will I trust that it's true?
when I ask why my sites are down, they can easily tell me that it's because of high server usage!
I have more than 200 users in my server but thier is 2 user take the server resources
how can I limit that users to not take the server resources?
My VPS keeps crashing and my host has emailed me saying that
/usr/bin/php index.php
Is causing the problem. Could anyone talk me through were I go from here to lower the resources. I have no idea what could be casing the problem.
i have few dedi servers from one Us company, i am currently using their DNS service, we are into small level hosting, i want to run my own DNS, is it necessary to run a separate server for DNS?
Actually how the hosting companies do the name server pointing, for an example if i am buying a server and want to host a few domains in that server, what normally we do is we will change the name server to that companies name server
ns1.domain.com
ns2.domain.com
my question is if i am pointing my domains name server to the name server
ns1.companydomain.com
ns2.companydomain.com
how that company points the domain to my server for an example its ip is 72.xx.52.xx i am bit confused in this.
Also i have a doubt how they are creating this for n number of domains?
We are working on our pci certification ( fun times right? ) and i was wondering what other people do for server management in the dmz. Few things we are looking at listed below. We will be doing cisco zbfw for firewalling and using NAT.
#1
Servers have 2 nics, 2 ips, gateway ect. One of the networks would be considered a "management vlan/network". Other network would be for all other traffic, including natting to the internet, and traffic to the "internal" zone but locking down traffic to source,destination, and protocol level.
On windows you really on have 1 true default gateway, and because windows doesnt just send traffic out the interface it came in, but looks at the routing table, some network routing issues popped up.
#2
Use only 1 nic/vlan/ip/gateway. Lock down traffic to source,destination, and protocol level for dmz to "internal" traffic and do an "inspect" statement to allow all necessary traffic back in and drop everything else. "Internal" to dmz would just be an inspect all because this traffic wouldnt need to be firewalled so management traffic would work just fine.
i currently have a reseller server in the states but ive seen for the money im paying (and im not using the space actually) i can get a VPS server here in the UK which i can combine for webhosting and other development projects. I am after a UK based VPS for the following requirements:
Host 15 websites
Access the box remotely and dial-in to the box which needs to be configured as a VPN server (the box will act as a router, i presume masquerading on eth0 for the connected vpn clients to go out through the server and onto the net).
Traffic will not be too high, maybe around 75GB per month.
Around 3-4 websites run forums on (small size phpbb) and the other sites are again small and mostly used for email.
I will need full root access and maximum configurability.
Preferably Suse 10 as i have worked with that before but i am open to suggestions on other OS. I need to configure the pppd service and easier this is via the OS the less time i have to dig in scripts and terminal! I wouldnt mind windows but on a VPS this will be a resource drain so i am happy to get more performance from the box by sticking with smaller footprint of linux.
Plesk for website management, or cpanel, i dont mind either way.
I dont however know how much CPU/RAM i will need, what is a sensible amount? I dont think my requirements are too strenuous, what would be a good sensible amount of RAM to select to allow me to host say 50 web sites in future?
I have heard good things on the forums for the following:
a2b2.com
cheapvps.co.uk
1and1.co.uk
I know you get what you pay for so i do need something reliable, but if people say the service from the above sellers is good i will go for them as the price is fantastic. It would be great to hear of other recommendations also.
If you are deploying PHP and MySQL along with a site/application, how do you do it? Do you work with the individual components, or do you lean towards ready-made packages?
I use WAMP to develop my applications, and I find it a very simple yet powerful tool for deploying Apache, MySQL and PHP to Windows platforms. I've been looking at the Zend Server today too, which strikes me as very interesting, especially the full version.
Does any body recommend we3cares server management services?
I need a very simple server management and hardening job and dont want to pay much. (not for a hosting company)
I'm not talking about weak sauce companies that treat your server like any other server and apply settings base a file they got saved on their desktop.
platinum server management- been there done that total server solutions - been there done that people who send me PM's - been there done that
Maybe I'm underestimating the importance of server management, but I can't see how it is worth it to pay $300 per month for a server that can be built for $700 with the co-location costing about $100 per month.
So, I'm thinking that I can build a server or just buy a server that was considered excellent 2 years ago off of Ebay for about $700 or maybe less. From there, I simply need to find a $100 per month co-location hosting place and a freelance server dude to keep the thing updated for me and work out problems if they actually come up.
So with that said, where is a good place to find a freelance server manager?
Does anyone know of any good reliable companies that can manage our servers remotely? It could even just be 1 server admin, however looking for a company with a good rep.
Searched on Google but wasn't able to find what I was looking for. Maybe searching the wrong keywords.
I know about Platinum - I was wondering if anyone had any specific recommendations for server management services.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI am planning to implement a chat software for our team.
We are currently using AIM. But, we have planned to install any software which works like AIM but it should be controlled by us.
Only, we can add or remove users. Only, we can see the chats done. To be frank, I need a software like AIM installed on a server which should be controlled by me.
I initially posted a topic to get help with a problem because I want to fix it myself without wasting the time of the server management company. They however picked up the post and said I should opened a ticket with them.
The problem is however still not resolved to my satifaction after a few days because we differ on some points so can you please air your view on this matter?
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[url]or [url]
Problem 1) Certificate error that hostname and certificate name don't match.
Problem 2) At some places in WHM or cPanel there is a secure and non secure warning items.
The problem 2 is perhaps to bug in WHM V11 so it is not so important.
However, the server mangement staff insist that problem 1 is because the login is via IP (or other domain name) and not via hostname but I don't agree with them because.
a) During the years I always logged into whm or cpanel via ip or domain names and never got such error.
b) cPanel redirect any whm or cpanel access to the ssl ports under HOSTNAME so it MUST match the certificate even if you use 75.127.69.82:2087
I don't get any error if log in with [url]so it is clear that the redirection to ssl ports under HOSTNAME like above don't work correctly.
That the redirection works can be seen by using [url]because the same error comes up (for mercury.domain.com) despite the site have his own certificate.
What we have here is.
Hostname = mercury.domain.com
Certificate Name = mercury.domain.com
[url] (Works Fine because certificate name is mercury.domain.com)
[url] (Name of site don't match mercury.domain.com despite redirection to hostname IN WHM)
[url](Works fine, Host name = othersite.com and match certificate name)
[url](Name of site don't match mercury.domain.com despite redirection to hostname IN WHM)
What I suspect is that cpanel redirect but NOT to the actual hostname (mercury.domain.com) or otherwise present/display the hostname incorrectly so that it don't match the certificate.
WHM 11 setting: Redirect to ssl ports = enabled
Two further settings, redirect to hostname = enabled
(None of the settings have any effect anyway and I tested hostname, certificate name and origin domain name redirect with the same results)
One of my sites has outgrown its current cheap hosting so I'm looking to upgrade. I'll probably just snag a low end, leased server from EV1 unless someone has any better ideas.
I've attempted to use a unmanaged EV1 server in the past without any setup and it was a disaster. So this time I want to pay a guy/girl to set it up properly.
My needs are not that great. I just need a server that can handle a vBulletin forum, and your typical database driven article site. At the moment, I'm only getting about 2,000 uniques per day, but the site has been growing at a constant rate.
I'm writing a new script that I think will double the sites bandwidth usage by early summer so I think I may be able to justify the expense of going from a $60 per year server to $100 per month server.
Does anyone here have any experience outsourcing server management? I've setup and run my own Linux server and configured my own database and PHP and Apache but I just don't have the time to keep everything running, backed-up and updated.
I'd love to have someone who I could just send jobs to, such as upgrading to PHP 5.2.2 or figuring out why Postgres doesn't start up correctly or why the logs aren't getting rotated automatically anymore or making sure the backups are happening or recovering from a hard disk failure, etc. I'm sure I could figure all this out (maybe on the second or third tries too), but I just don't have the time or the expertise these days.
any software, I do not care if it is free or paid, that will allow me to track and list all servers, what kernel versions are on them and track all changes made to each server.
I just need some sort of software that will allow me to better manage all our servers.
we have one dev server that is hosting a website. I would like to use the same server to host another internal website. Can i do that?
I am using Linux centos OS.
After doing the proper research, I decided to lease a dedicated server from WiredTree. Let me start by saying that in the short time that I've been a customer of WiredTree.. I have absolutely loved their service! After one month, I will do a full review of their service.. because they have been absolutely amazing!
The only issue that I've had up until now is not their fault at all. When we first signed up to their service, they were aware that we were getting a dedicated server with them because of their proactive support with DDOS attacks. Sure enough.. first day up.. we were getting DDOSed.
WiredTree responded very quickly, and worked for endless hours to help us out. The issue was resolved, and the site ran great for about another week..
Then, DDOS attacks started up again and the site became very slow. Not only was Apache running slowly, but FTP/Shell would load very slowly. I asked them to assist me with the DDOS, and they did.
Now I'm just not sure of what the issue may be, because the site still loads slowly or times out for many of my members. The site loads fine for me (now), but was lagging/timing out up to this morning. - Once again, I'll note that up to now, WiredTree have been as helpful as they can possibly can.. though for them, the site has loaded in under 3 seconds the entire time. They've asked me to submit affected IPs.. and I've submitted one that I know is affected. I'm waiting to see if the IP was blocked.. though its only loading slow for them. It is not blocking them, so I'm pretty sure that they weren't hit by the firewall.
My question is.. does anyone think that PlatinumServerManagement could more for us as far as finding/resolving an issue here? Perhaps a fresh pair of eyes could help considerably..
My concern would be having two people managing the server. Obviously PSM won't do anything unless I create a ticket, requesting their help.. but would having PSM work alongside them possibly become intrusive for WiredTree?
I'm just looking for some advice on the next step. If it'd help at all.. I could post the URL so I could see if other people experience the issue.
I'm thinking about using 'Platinum Server Management' to set up and later monitor a server I'm getting from FoftLayer. Anyone has any history with them?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI got around 5 servers running and added one more last week. Its becoming a pain managing them all. Updating, setting up new policies and restrictions, securing or whatever other tasks that are needs to be executed on ALL these servers.
Wanted to know how you guys are doing it. I know that some hosts use HSPc, HSphere, Helm, etc to manage the entire cluster. But what about the lot who use cPanel?
any reliable server management companes who charge a monthly fee to manage your server?
so far i've used:
[url]- had a lot of difficulty with them
[url]- not bad, but a little slow in responding.g
OK so I am running one powerful server. And have PlatinumServerManagement Manage it.
But Ever since I got this server The server never went down or anything like that due to high CPU usage or to many visitors.
But for some reason I am still getting emails from my members that once in a while they cant access the site because they get a "server not found error" I checked the server uptime and it never went down. The server has been up all the time. So I have no idea why these people can't access the website.
My first guess is that they are getting blocked by some security software on my server. But I talked with PlatinumServerManagement and it can't be that.
So does anyone know why they might not be able to see the websites all the times? but only some random times.
Lots of things have improved in the last 5 or so years with regards to hosting.. faster hardware, improved control panels, cheaper bandwidth.. but the ability to keep your eye on your box whilst out and about is definitely amongst them I'd say.
So share your tech tips for when you're not at your desktop for monitoring your sites.
Key hardware: My iPhone. 3G is prevalent in my locality, but the deal on o2 means I also get free access to the two largest UK public wifi hotspots - TheCloud and BT OpenZone. Whilst some of these are free anyway (such as ones in pubs) being able to walk through town whilst on a wifi connection can be really useful if the 3G is lagging or just not there.
Software:
Pingdom - It's not the flashiest of all apps, but it tells you what you need to know - is the server up?! It'll echo all your reports for all servers into one quick and easy screen. I really hope Pingdom puts even more time and effort into this, it could make the service unbeatable with a few more features. The app is free too, which is a bonus.
TouchTerm - there's a bunch of SSH clients for the iPhone out there, I've not had chance to try any of the others but will do at some point. All my accounts are bookmarked in and I can replicate whatever I need to with ease. I've installed software and configured it with relative ease just using the touch keypad. It was either free or at most a dollar or two.
iStat - The software/server combination used to be Mac only but someone has ported the server side over to *nix now and it runs pretty well. I'm having issues with one of my boxes showing it's bandwidth usage but I'll look more into that. Live CPU/Memory figures AND graphing?! Very impressive, and if you're doing face to face with your client it's bound to be a good thing to show off (make sure it's working first tho!!). It was £1.19/$1.99 on promotion when I bought it, should still be for a little more.
Critical email accounts IMAP'd - all my key accounts are on 15minute checks, and I'll be making an emergency PUSH account for when time is very much of the essence. Having instant access to email is absolutely essential on a handheld device these days, and the iPhone does a pretty neat job of it.
EverNote - great note syncing between various boxes. No more having to ring people to jump on my laptop to read me out an IP address or similar ever again.
I am trying to get a feel out there if cPanel users would pay for a service say $5.00 - $10.00 a month where they can call in to a number and have access to their system. They would be able to reboot the server, restart services, stop and start services, get server statistics etc.
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