A2hosting: Ubuntu Virtual Private Server (VPS) Setup
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This tutorial will explain how to purchase a VPS hosting package at A2 Hosting , setting up a fresh Ubuntu server installation, and configuring several typical applications such as Apache, MySQL, PHP .
A2hosting provide Ubuntu VPS hosting for very reasonable prices.If you are looking for Ubuntu VPS packages i would suggest a2hosting.If you want to buy your ubuntu VPS you can do from here.
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What is VPS (Virtual Private Server) ?
A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a simulation of hardware by a host operating system that allows another operating system to run on it. What that means for Web developers is that a Web hosting company can host multiple "Virtual" servers on one physical, or "host", server.Each virtual server is isolated from the others (or "Private"), and access to hardware resources (RAM, CPU, Disk Space, Network throughput) is managed by the "host" server.
Once you purchased your VPS you should be receive an email within a few hours saying your account is ready and providing URLs, usernames and passwords for your HyperVM control panel, DNS management, and SSH login. Your virtual server will have its own unique IP address.Your initial password is emailed to you in plain text. This same password is used for the A2 Hosting billing system, the HyperVM control panel, the DNS control panel, and for loging in to the server via SSH. You should change these immediately for security reasons.
Install Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) on your VPS
At the time of purchase you can choose Ubuntu version OS image after completing your order you will receive an email from A2hosting with you VPS details.
First thing you have to do is you need to change your VPS root password for this Go to https://my.a2hosting.com/ and login using your details.Once you logged in you need to click on My Services-> Manage here you can see default root password.
Under Virtual Server control you need to click on root password to change
Login in to your server using SSH
You can use putty or any other tool to login in to your server using ssh or use the following command from your linux/unix system
$ssh -p 7822 <IP ADDRESS> -l root
Once you login you should see similar to the following screen
Setting up New users
A2hosting Ubuntu system comes configured for only the root user.We would recommend the Ubuntu way of using sudo instead of logging in as root.
Create a new user using the following command
adduser newuser
This new user doesn’t have permission to use sudo yet. Open the sudo configuration file
#visudo
Add this line to allow users in the admin group to use sudo:
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL
Save and close the editor. The admin group may not exists yet, so create it:
groupadd admin
And add the new user to the group:
usermod -g admin newuser
Now you need to update your new VPS system using the following command
apt-get update
Disable root logins on SSH
By default, VPS systems at A2 Hosting use port 7822 instead of 22, the default. This will provide some protection from brute force attacks, but it’s still possible for someone to scan your ports and find the SSH server.For security reasons, it’s not a good idea to allow the root user to log in over SSH. Open the SSH daemon configuration file
vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Find the PermitRootLogin option and change it to no.
If you are the only person who will be logging in, you can limit logins to only your username by adding AllowUsers <username>.
Then restart SSH using the following command
/etc/init.d/ssh restart
Install the LAMP stack in Ubuntu server
This is very easy with A2hosting quickinstaller script so i would recommend any one can install without any issues.Run the following command to start the quickinstaller script menu
sh /usr/sbin/quickinstaller.sh
Now you should see similar to the following screen and select option 5 for LAMP and press enter
If you want to install LAMP server enter 1 and press enter to start installation process
Installation in progress
After completing the installation you should see similar to the following screen with the apache documentation root folder /var/www/ and you need to setup your mysql server root password by running the /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation script
After this you can check the installed apache,PHP and Mysql versions
Enable mod_rewrite module for apache
If you want to enable mod_rewrite using the following command
sudo a2enmod rewrite
Reconfiguring the timezone
If you want to reset your server timezone use the following command
sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
You can check your ubuntu version
You can use quickinstallerscript to install some framework and version control systems
Try with A2hosting Ubuntu VPS and i hope you would love it.Now your Ubuntu VPS server is ready to host your applications,websites etc (with required modules)
