VPS & Servers articles

VPS & Servers 385 First steps with your VPS A VPS is a server of your own: you choose the operating system and you have full root access. That also means the...
VPS & Servers 373 Connecting to a Windows VPS with Remote Desktop A Windows VPS is reached with Remote Desktop instead of SSH. The rest - how the server is delivered and what's your...
VPS & Servers 481 Common VPS and Cloud errors: SSH, memory, disk and reboots On a VPS the machine is yours: the system, the services and the firewall obey your orders - and your mistakes. These...
VPS & Servers 649 Managed or unmanaged VPS: which to choose and who does what Two VPS with the same processor, the same memory and the same disk can be priced very differently. The difference is...
VPS & Servers 208 Reinstalling or changing your VPS operating system On shared hosting the operating system is not your choice - and just as well, because it is not your problem either....
VPS & Servers 298 Streaming Server: first steps with SonicPanel A streaming server is not a website with music on it. It is a machine built for one job: delivering live audio to...
VPS & Servers 233 Where to find your VPS or dedicated server IP address You bought a VPS or a dedicated server and you are missing the address to connect to. It is the request we get most...
VPS & Servers 203 I have lost SSH access to my server: the four usual causes The server answers ping, but SSH gives Connection timed out or Permission denied. In the overwhelming majority of...
VPS & Servers 250 Which operating system to choose for your VPS or server When you order a VPS or a dedicated server you choose the operating system, and the list is long. The choice matters...
VPS & Servers 217 Keeping your VPS or dedicated server secure: the six that matter On a shared hosting plan the machine is ours and we are the ones keeping it shut. On a VPS or dedicated server, the...
VPS & Servers 174 VPS, Cloud or Dedicated: how to choose All three give you what shared hosting cannot: resources that are yours alone and administrator access to the...
VPS & Servers 108 Your first session on a new Linux VPS: the commands to type, in order You have just received the VPS address and password and do not know what to type first. The answer is a fixed order,...
VPS & Servers 82 How to create an SSH key and log in to your VPS without a password An SSH key is two files: the private key, which stays on your computer and never leaves it, and the public key,...
VPS & Servers 73 How to create a user with sudo on your VPS and stop logging in as root Root can do anything, so a mistake of yours, or a program’s, can wipe everything. The normal practice is to create...
VPS & Servers 74 How to add swap to a VPS that keeps running out of memory Swap is disk space the system uses as spare memory when the RAM fills up. It does not make the server faster: it...
VPS & Servers 73 How to set the time zone and keep the clock correct on a Linux VPS On Linux, the command in charge is timedatectl. Run it with nothing after it and you see three things: the local...
VPS & Servers 84 Setting up the ufw firewall on Ubuntu without locking yourself out ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall) is Ubuntu’s simple firewall: it shuts everything coming in and opens only what you tell...
VPS & Servers 69 Installing fail2ban on a VPS to stop SSH password guessing A server with SSH open receives, day and night, automated password attempts from all over the world. fail2ban reads...
VPS & Servers 70 How to update a Debian or Ubuntu VPS, and turn on automatic security updates A server that is not updated piles up known security holes, and the updates already released are the cheapest...
VPS & Servers 73 How to install nginx on Ubuntu and serve your website from a folder On an Ubuntu VPS, you install nginx with sudo apt install nginx, create a site file in /etc/nginx/sites-available/...
VPS & Servers 77 How to install Apache on a VPS and set up a virtual host On Ubuntu or Debian you install Apache with sudo apt install apache2, write a site file in...
VPS & Servers 91 Nginx or Apache on a VPS: which web server to choose For an ordinary site either one will do, and the deciding factor is what your application expects and what you...
VPS & Servers 100 How to host several websites on one VPS A VPS has one IP address and can serve as many sites as its memory and processor can carry. The web server picks...
VPS & Servers 72 Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS and www to the bare domain in nginx or Apache On a VPS you choose one canonical address (for example https://yourdomain.tld) and send everything else there with a...
VPS & Servers 79 Certbot renewal failed or the certificate expired: how to find out why If the browser warns that a certificate has expired on a VPS using certbot, the automatic renewal either did not run...
VPS & Servers 81 A service will not start on my VPS: reading systemctl status When a service fails to start, the answer is in two commands: systemctl status service-name and journalctl -u...
VPS & Servers 90 How to run your own program as a systemd service that starts at boot For a program of yours (a Node.js app, a Python script, a bot) to start with the server and come back by itself if...
VPS & Servers 151 Where are the logs on a Linux VPS: journalctl and /var/log On a Linux VPS the logs live in two places: in the systemd journal, read with journalctl, and in files under...
VPS & Servers 90 My cron job does not run on the VPS: the usual causes When a cron job does not run on a VPS, the cause is almost never cron itself: it is the environment it runs in. cron...
VPS & Servers 92 No space left on device: finding what fills your VPS disk The error No space left on device means one of two things: the space has run out, or the inodes have (the number of...
VPS & Servers 76 Out of memory on a VPS: what the OOM killer is and what to do When memory and swap run out, the Linux kernel picks a process and kills it to save the system. It is called the OOM...
VPS & Servers 83 How to see what is using CPU, memory and disk on your VPS Five commands that ship with the system tell you the essentials: uptime (load), top (who uses processor and memory),...
VPS & Servers 77 Copying files to another server with rsync, safely rsync copies folders between two computers over SSH and, on later runs, sends only what changed. It is the most used...
VPS & Servers 97 Running a mail server on your VPS with Postfix: why it is hard, and the alternative Installing Postfix takes minutes; getting the mail to reach other people’s inboxes is the real work. A new mail...
VPS & Servers 102 Linux file permissions on a VPS: chmod, chown and Permission denied A “Permission denied”, or a 403 on a website, is almost always one of two things: the file’s owner is not who the...
VPS & Servers 66 SELinux or AppArmor is blocking my service: how to tell, and what to do SELinux (AlmaLinux, Rocky and others in the Red Hat family) and AppArmor (Ubuntu and Debian) are security layers...
VPS & Servers 79 Upgrading Ubuntu to the next LTS release without breaking the server To move from one Ubuntu LTS release to the next without reinstalling, you use do-release-upgrade, after updating...
VPS & Servers 73 How to change the SSH port without locking yourself out The rule for changing the SSH port is a single one: open the new port before you close the old one, and test in a...
VPS & Servers 74 How to publish a website on Windows Server with IIS On Windows Server the web server is IIS (Internet Information Services). You install it as a server role, create a...
VPS & Servers 85 Making Remote Desktop on a Windows VPS safer A Windows Server with port 3389 open to the internet is probed by automatic programs every day, guessing passwords....
VPS & Servers 28 WireGuard on a VPS: your own VPN, step by step The short answer: WireGuard is a simple, fast VPN you can set up on a Linux VPS in a few minutes. It connects your...
VPS & Servers 31 logrotate on a VPS: stopping log files from filling the disk The short answer: logrotate is the program that, every day, takes the log files, keeps the old ones compressed and...
VPS & Servers 59 Rate limiting in nginx: slowing down bots and password guessing The short answer: nginx has a built-in request limiter. You define a “zone” that counts requests per address and a...
VPS & Servers 74 Keeping a command running after you close SSH: tmux and screen The short answer: when you close the SSH window, or the connection drops, the system ends the programs that were...
VPS & Servers 66 SSH shortcuts: the config file, and copying files with scp The short answer: instead of always typing ssh -p 2222 -i ~/.ssh/key user@203.0.113.10, you can give the server a...
VPS & Servers 69 Editing and searching on a server: nano, grep and find for beginners The short answer: on a VPS there is no mouse and no windows, but three tools solve almost everything a beginner...
VPS & Servers 56 Your first hour on a new Windows VPS: updates, users, firewall and backups The short answer: a new Windows VPS is ready to use but not ready to expose. In the first hour there are six things...
VPS & Servers 54 Remote Desktop will not connect: the usual errors and what each one means The short answer: the error message almost always says what is missing. There are two groups: it does not reach the...
VPS & Servers 58 Upgrading Ubuntu to a new release on a VPS without losing the server The short answer: updating packages (apt upgrade) and upgrading to a new release (for example, from one LTS version...
VPS & Servers 60 Uptime Kuma on a VPS: watch your sites from a server of your own The short answer: Uptime Kuma is a free program that checks every minute whether your sites are up and warns you (by...
VPS & Servers 55 Vaultwarden on a VPS: your own password manager, and what you take on The short answer: Vaultwarden is a free server, compatible with the Bitwarden apps, where you keep the team’s or the...
VPS & Servers 57 Gitea on a VPS: your own Git server with Docker Compose The short answer: Gitea is a light, free Git server, with a web page like the well-known services’: repositories,...
VPS & Servers 46 Choosing a control panel for your VPS: what to decide before you install one This article is for people with a VPS or a dedicated server with root access. On shared plans the panel is cPanel,...
VPS & Servers 46 HestiaCP and VestaCP on a VPS: what the panel gives you and what stays your job This article is for people with a VPS or a dedicated server with root access. On shared plans the panel is cPanel,...
VPS & Servers 39 Webmin and Virtualmin on a VPS: a server admin tool and a hosting panel, explained This article is for people with a VPS or a dedicated server with root access. On shared plans the panel is cPanel,...
VPS & Servers 35 CyberPanel, aaPanel and CloudPanel on a VPS: free panels and the questions to ask first This article is for people with a VPS or a dedicated server with root access. On shared plans the panel is cPanel,...
VPS & Servers 41 Running a VPS without a control panel: what the panel did and how you do it by hand This article is for people with a VPS or a dedicated server with root access who work from the command line. A panel...
VPS & Servers 33 First steps with VoxStream: signing in and getting your radio on air The short answer: after payment, our team sets up your station by hand and sends you an e-mail with the details:...
VPS & Servers 41 Switching from SonicPanel to VoxStream or back: what changes and what to take The short answer: you choose the panel when you order. If you later want to move from SonicPanel to VoxStream, or...
VPS & Servers 57 AAC+, MP3, FLAC or OGG: audio formats and quality on each streaming panel The short answer: the format decides how the sound is compressed; the quality (the bitrate, in kbps) decides how...
VPS & Servers 46 Scheduling your radio on VoxStream: playlists, time announcements and jingles The short answer: on VoxStream your radio runs itself with the AutoDJ, which plays whatever is on the schedule when...
VPS & Servers 43 VoxStream shows and short segments: what they are and when they fit your radio The short answer: shows (Programas) and short segments (Programetes) are ready-made VoxStream content that drops...
VPS & Servers 43 Going live on SonicPanel and VoxStream: BUTT, Mixxx or SAM with server, port and password The short answer: to go live you need a broadcasting program (the encoder) on the studio computer, and three...
VPS & Servers 36 DJ accounts on SonicPanel: permissions, the live DJ widget and automatic recording The short answer: on SonicPanel each presenter or DJ can have their own account, with the permissions you give them....
VPS & Servers 32 Putting your radio player on your website: the player options on each panel The short answer: both panels on our Streaming Server give you a ready-made player to copy into your website....
VPS & Servers 34 Shoutcast or Icecast on SonicPanel: the differences and which to pick The short answer: on SonicPanel your station can run on a Shoutcast server (version 1 or 2) or an Icecast server....
VPS & Servers 42 Broadcasting your radio on YouTube and Facebook with Live Stream Streaming Ultra plan only. Live Stream to YouTube and Facebook is part of the Ultra plan and is not available on Pro...
VPS & Servers 50 Relay, broadcast recording and studio camera: what each streaming panel does The short answer: these are three advanced features, and each panel has its own. A relay makes your station...