Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Running a dedicated server

[phpprobid]

Hi,

We are considering moving from our MC Host reseller plan to a dedicated server. To cut costs we are considering purchasing an unmanaged server.

We have been in contact with Rackshack this afternoon and they told us that they would “try and help if they can” should anything go wrong.

With this in mind what can typically go wrong with a dedicated server?

How hard is it to keep everything running smoothly?

Have any of you had a problem with a Rackshack dedicated server, if so do you help as much as they can?

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

[oanielsen]

I moved all my accounts from MCHost to a dedicated Rackshack CPANEL server last month. All seems to be going real well. The learning curve was A little steep to start off, but if you follow the HOW-TO's on the RS forums, you should be fine. You need to make sure you are comfortable working at the command line and can navigate around through the Linux file system and use the editors.

[Cephren]

Hmm what can typically go wrong.....


1. server being compormised
2. server being spammed/relayed off
3. chance of hardware failure is small. But heck it happens sometimes especially to fans.


What you can do to prevent trouble
1. make sure your server runs logrotate if its a nix box, or clean up the logs in /var once every week. Or use logrotate to rotate the logs automatically by time/date or by size.

2. always remember that a server is your baby. That means going in and routinly checking everything on a sechduled basis. logs, bash, if it is redhat based, do a rpm -V on main utilities such as fileutils, procps, etc.

3. put up a firewall. Use iptables extensively. (if nix)

4. make sure all announced vulnerabilites are patched on a regular basis.

5. Do not give out root access to lots of people. Perferably 1 or 2. There is bound to be some dummy who will accdidently mess up soemthing.



6. SSH all the way.