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  1. #1

    New to VPS, a couple of questions

    I have been using shared hosting for years.

    I just bought a VPS from Linode. Since I have no experience dealing with VPS, I have several questions hope you guys can help me out.

    1. Which OS(or named distribution on Linode) is the best for running PHP+MySQL? CentOS?Debian? 64bit? Any difference?

    2. My plan is 512MB memory, should I use 512MB for Swap disk size when building a distribution?

    3. Linode is unmanaged, does that mean I should do the security jobs myself? Will my site get hacked much easier than those on shared servers?

    Many thanks.

  2. #2
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    1: What ever distribution you know best.

    2: Why not set it to 1024MB - that is fine.

    3a: Yes. 3b: 70% yes.

  3. #3
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    1. Depends i would go for CentOS 32bit (it's very commonly used)
    2. No clue about that
    3. Yes you have to set the security up on your own, and yes shared servers are not un-managed. You need to set up your VPS from scratch basically.

  4. #4
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    Please do not be offended by my answer, but if you really need to ask these question you should go for a managed VPS.

  5. #5
    1. Centos 32 bit is the most popular OS on the market
    2. You can set to 1024
    3. yes.

  6. #6
    You didn't ask the question but in addition to your needs I would put buying a fully-managed VPS on your list if you want to ditch shared hosting.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lincxu View Post
    1. Centos 32 bit is the most popular OS on the market
    2. You can set to 1024
    3. yes.
    Agreed on all, but if memory is managed properly (particularly with mysql) he can probably get by with 512 mb of memory just fine.

  8. #8
    I'd recommend CentOS 5.6 as your distribution as the package manager is simple to use and CentOS is a very stable distribution. If you want to use cPanel later on you also got the right distribution if you pick CentOS. I'm on Linode too and I usually set the swap disk to 256MB since I know that I can manage the memory usage properly - if you go past 512MB RAM it's better to just upgrade than deal with the slow swap memory. And the answer to your last question is simply yes - you will have to deal with security issues by yourself. However, there are extensive tutorials which will help you secure your server and I wouldn't say a VPS is much less safe than shared hosting, at least not if you're following reliable tutorials and ask professionals for help.

    Good luck!

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by rds100 View Post
    Please do not be offended by my answer, but if you really need to ask these question you should go for a managed VPS.
    Managed means there's not much of an opportunity to learn
    ~ @PreetamJinka

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by jellday View Post
    I have been using shared hosting for years.

    I just bought a VPS from Linode. Since I have no experience dealing with VPS, I have several questions hope you guys can help me out.

    1. Which OS(or named distribution on Linode) is the best for running PHP+MySQL? CentOS?Debian? 64bit? Any difference?
    With 512 MB RAM go for a 32bit distro. CentOS or Debian is up to you. Both are very stable and good choices. The differences amount to distro-specific ways of doing things. Examples are the different package managers for installing and updating software, and different filesystem structure for some applications (e.g., Apache). There's lots of reference material available on the web for both distros.

    2. My plan is 512MB memory, should I use 512MB for Swap disk size when building a distribution?
    The default setting is usually 256MB swap for a Linode. If you use a significant amount of swap on a regular basis (more than, say, a few tens of MBs) then performance of your VPS will be seriously impaired. Setting a large value like 1024 MB is (IMO) only a waste of diskspace. Your VPS will be paralyzed long before you get to use that much swap. Better to let it run out of memory and kill off processes. Then you fix the problem, or upgrade to more physical ram.

    3. Linode is unmanaged, does that mean I should do the security jobs myself? Will my site get hacked much easier than those on shared servers?
    Yes, you absolutely do security yourself. Start by updating your distro to the latest packages. Don't run services you don't need, like an FTP server. Read about how to make SSH more secure. And perhaps most importantly, make sure your web apps (forums, galleries, wordpress, etc.) are always updated to the latest version.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnMoberg View Post
    I'd recommend CentOS 5.6 as your distribution as the package manager is simple to use and CentOS is a very stable distribution.
    Actually, if I was starting a new server project today I would wait a few days and go with CentOS 6. It's scheduled to start syncing to mirrors Monday (June 6).

    The thing is that CentOS 5 is not upgradable to CentOS 6. Your server will be contemporary with CentOS 6 for a lot longer than with CentOS 5.

  12. #12
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    For stability I'd go with a proven release (CentOS 5) rather than a fresh new major version (6). CentOS 5 will be maintained until March 31, 2014.

    When you're ready to upgrade to CentOS 6 just spin up a new Linode from the control panel, install & configure things and then cancel the old box when you're ready. You can even swap IPs between the old and new servers if you want to keep the original IP. Extra expense would be maybe one day @ $20/month. Linode is great

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by jellday View Post
    1. Which OS(or named distribution on Linode) is the best for running PHP+MySQL? CentOS?Debian? 64bit? Any difference?

    2. My plan is 512MB memory, should I use 512MB for Swap disk size when building a distribution?

    3. Linode is unmanaged, does that mean I should do the security jobs myself? Will my site get hacked much easier than those on shared servers?
    I prefer CentOS 32 bit (you don't need 64 bit with 512MB of RAM). CentOS has the advantage of being the most used, so many of the tutorials on the web cover it well.

    If you are running a single site, or perhaps up to 15 - 20 of your own sites, 512MB is fine. I have come to like two free control panels, Webmin and Kloxo. I use Webmin for some server configuration issues, but find its a bit hard to use for setting up web accounts.

    Here are the steps I would take: Install CentOS, install Kloxo (which will install Apache, MySql and PHP for you). Then, install Webmin and CSF ... config server firewall. Add CSF to Webmin as a module so you can manage it from within Webmin.

    You have several hours (days?) of tweaking to do while you're learning, but those tools will certainly help. Or, you can hire someone for about $65 to configure your VPS for you on a one-time basis. You are still responsible for updates, on-going maintenance items, etc, but at least you can get started without the huge learning curve.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    For stability I'd go with a proven release (CentOS 5) rather than a fresh new major version (6). CentOS 5 will be maintained until March 31, 2014.
    That sounds good on the surface but remember that CentOS 6 is based on RHEL 6, which is considered stable. While RHEL 6.1 has been released, RHEL 6 has been well received.

    What you need to weigh is the early instability of CentOS 6 vs being frozen in time. I suggest that you'll eventually be ahead on stability going with 6, and you'll probably add 4 years to the product life og your box with 6.

    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    When you're ready to upgrade to CentOS 6 just spin up a new Linode from the control panel, install & configure things and then cancel the old box when you're ready.
    That's not always practical. Not only are you going to lose your configuration, possibly costing a week or more of work, but if the box is put into production work it can be difficult to migrate to a new box. The risk of a newer CentOS release might be worth it to some server administrators.

    I know that I'm waiting until next week to start a new project, and the only reason I'm waiting is so I can start the box with CentOS 6.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    Actually, if I was starting a new server project today I would wait a few days and go with CentOS 6. It's scheduled to start syncing to mirrors Monday (June 6).
    They've dropped dates before, they've all been grossly missed. I wouldn't hold your breath . . .

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by jellday View Post
    I have been using shared hosting for years.

    I just bought a VPS from Linode. Since I have no experience dealing with VPS, I have several questions hope you guys can help me out.

    1. Which OS(or named distribution on Linode) is the best for running PHP+MySQL? CentOS?Debian? 64bit? Any difference?

    2. My plan is 512MB memory, should I use 512MB for Swap disk size when building a distribution?

    3. Linode is unmanaged, does that mean I should do the security jobs myself? Will my site get hacked much easier than those on shared servers?

    Many thanks.
    There's no advantage to using a 64 bit OS with only 512MB RAM. 32 bit works fine.

    Alot of new users prefer Debian distros as opposed to the CentOS/Red hat flavors because Debian is a bit easier to learn.

    However, for the most part, most of the hosting apps are built primarily with CentOS/Redhat in mind (cPanel, SolusVM, HSphere, Kloxo,etc)


    If you know how to setup a LAMP stack then you can use the least resources by doing this. However, it's my guess you will need to install a hosting panel. The paid kind like cPanel and DirectAdmin work, as do the free ones like Kloxo.

    If you need to be up and running within the next couple of weeks, I'd pay your provider to get it setup for you or purchase a "fully managed" server.

    If you have a few months to play before actually putting the VPS into production, you can figure it out yourself
    KiloServe Hosting - 48 Core Nodes and specializing in high disk I/O VPS
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  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    That's not always practical. Not only are you going to lose your configuration, possibly costing a week or more of work, but if the box is put into production work it can be difficult to migrate to a new box. The risk of a newer CentOS release might be worth it to some server administrators.
    I don't really disagree with your suggestion to go with CentOS 6, but you've lost me here. How on earth would you lose the configurations?

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by [CTI] Todd View Post
    They've dropped dates before, they've all been grossly missed. I wouldn't hold your breath . . .
    The release is contingent on it passing QA today. I don't know how that's going.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by sleddog View Post
    I don't really disagree with your suggestion to go with CentOS 6, but you've lost me here. How on earth would you lose the configurations?
    Because CentOS 5.x is not upgradable to CentOS 6. It requires a fresh install. The installation has to be entirely configured from scratch. Depending on the type of installation that can require a lot of work.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    Because CentOS 5.x is not upgradable to CentOS 6. It requires a fresh install. The installation has to be entirely configured from scratch. Depending on the type of installation that can require a lot of work.
    Yes, we've already established that CentOS 5 is not upgradable to CentOS 6. That's what I addressed in my previous post.

    On Linode the upgrade can be accomplished quite easily and safely by provisioning a new server, doing the basic setup (yum) and then copying configurations & data from the old one.

    CentOS 5 is supported until March 2014 so there's lots of time to think about it.

    You don't "lose" any configuration, and it certainly shouldn't take "a week or more of work" to copy existing configurations from a production server to a newly provisioned one. A couple hours maybe.

    And when you spin up that new Linode in a year or two from now, there's a good chance you'll land on some new hardware
    Last edited by sleddog; 06-03-2011 at 05:39 PM.

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    The release is contingent on it passing QA today. I don't know how that's going.
    I'll believe it when I see it

    And this is not a knock on the CentOS team, hell its free -- not like there are grounds to complain!

  22. #22
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    The CentOS 6 release has been pushed back again. The new release date is now Monday the 13th. You can track the release at this location.

    http://qaweb.dev.centos.org/qa

  23. #23
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    Bump. Another CentOS 6 try tomorrow.

    http://qaweb.dev.centos.org/qa

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