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Thread: Root with VPS?

  1. #1

    Root with VPS?

    Hi Guys,

    I dont really know much about VPS, but this is my main question, do you get root access on it? Allowing me to create reseller accounts, etc.

    Also, how many max people can there be on the VPS? and Does this mean there are that many root accounts?

    Does each part of the server have a different control panel. So say 2 people were on the same VPS, one wanted cPanel, and one wanted DirectAdmin. Would it be possible?

    Sorry if these questions seem dumb, but I'm just trying to find out about VPS.

  2. #2
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    For the VPS itself you get full root so you can create resellers etc. For the max people it depends on the hardware however you have to think of each VPS as a differenet dedicated server so one root account can't interfer with another.

    As such you could have like 20-30 people on a VPS but theycan't see each other

    Well each VPS can only have DA or C-PAnel installed but you could have 2 VPS on the same physical server one runing DA and one running C-Panel

    HTH

    Rus
    Russ Foster - Industry Curmudgeon
    Freelance Sysadmin for Hire - email vaserv@gmail.com

  3. #3
    Thanks for your reply, its helped me alot.

    So apart from price, what is the difference between a VPS and a dedicated server?

  4. #4
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    VPS is obviously on shared hardware and dedicated isn't.
    Normall with VPS licenes for Control Panels are cheaper
    Managment is sometimes included (on both)
    VPS hardware is normally more powerful that most dedicated servers (Dual CPU, RAID-5 SCSI)
    Free backups

    Thanks the sort of things I would look for

    Rus
    Russ Foster - Industry Curmudgeon
    Freelance Sysadmin for Hire - email vaserv@gmail.com

  5. #5
    What kind of hardware do they share? RAM, etc?

    Does that mean if 4 people were on a VPS, and it had advertised as 4GB of RAM, would that be 4GB each, or 4GB for everyone on the VPS?

  6. #6
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    They shared disk/RAM/Network. For memory each VPS is normally allocated a share of the memory so you might be allocated 256MB burstable to 4GB (if there is all that free)

    Rus
    Russ Foster - Industry Curmudgeon
    Freelance Sysadmin for Hire - email vaserv@gmail.com

  7. #7
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    Not all VPS providers give you root access. If you require root access, be sure to confirm if it is not clearly stated.

  8. #8
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    Doesn't not giving you root access just defeat the point of the VPS entirely...?

    Dan
    █ Dan Kitchen | Technical Director | Razorblue
    █ ddi: (+44) (0)1748 900 680 | e: dkitchen@razorblue.com
    █ UK Intensive Managed Hosting, Clusters and Colocation.
    █ HP Servers, Cisco/Juniper Powered BGP Network (AS15692).

  9. #9
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    Originally posted by RazorBlue - Dan
    Doesn't not giving you root access just defeat the point of the VPS entirely...?

    Dan
    Exactly. I've never seen a host offering VPSes that doesn't allow root access to the VPS.

  10. #10
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    Yes, it defeats the point of a VPS. Although, with the control panel you "shouldn't" need true root access to create resellers, add domains, manage DNS, etc. At least, that's the way Plesk works.

    Data393 (formerly Ventures Online) is one provider I've seen that does not provide root access on its smaller VPS packages. Maybe they figured it would make them easier to support. Originally, none of their VPS plans allowed root access--I guess enough people complained!

    Other VPS products are so crippled that you might as well not have root access. I've got a client on Sphera, but it's a very limited environment.

  11. #11
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    Originally posted by phvt
    Yes, it defeats the point of a VPS. Although, with the control panel you "shouldn't" need true root access to create resellers, add domains, manage DNS, etc. At least, that's the way Plesk works.
    Control panels are not a substitute for root SSH access by any means. You'll still need root access to install software (that requires that), or make customizations to your "server".

  12. #12
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    Originally posted by Joshua
    Control panels are not a substitute for root SSH access by any means. You'll still need root access to install software (that requires that), or make customizations to your "server".
    Right of course. But if you have reseller WHM or Plesk access you can do plenty of normal things with it, and still benefit from the VPS environment.

    I guess Data393 doesn't want you to make those customizations (their larger packages do offer root access). They don't want you to replace qmail with exim or do something that might break the VPS. You're supposed to ask them to do any supported upgrades, or use the control panel upgrade functionality.

    My point to the thread opener was that if root access is a requirement (as with any requirement), if you don't see it stated you should verify its existence before signing up.

  13. #13
    The host I am with you get ssh and they give you a gauranteed cpu and ram and also give you a max there max meaning you could get this amount if the resources are there to use. If you request they will also enable ssh on a reseller account to.

  14. #14
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    Just to expand on my "don't assume your VPS will act like a dedicated server" theme and respond to the thread starter, I'd like to describe my experience with the Sphera VDS system.

    Sphera does provide virtual isolation from other accounts on the host machine, and we did find it to be very stable over the last couple of years. You can SSH in and configure Apache, edit files and use common UNIX utility commands. However, there's no compiler, there are no man pages, and the filesystem structure is not really like a complete system. You can edit most files but you do not have root access. As a Linux administrator, I found the platform to be very frustrating.

    By comparison, Ensim, SW-Soft and UML technologies do produce a VPS that acts much like a real server.

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