New to VPS - A Few Questions?

[LazyD]

Hey all, I recently got a VPS from KnownHost and opted to pay the extra $6 a month for cPanel/WHM since im not 100% comfortable doing everything that I may need to do from the shell.

A few questions I have in terms of setup/everyday use...

Since account creation is being handled by WHM a new FTP account is created for each site. Thats fine and dandy, at some point though, I would like to be able to create a kind of global FTP account if you will that would drop me in the /home directory where all of my cpanel/sites reside - Is this possible or would doing this cause issues with permissions between a global FTP account that and the cPanel account trying to use files it doesnt own?

How much experience is really required to run a VPS/Dedicated Box without a control panel?

Im familiar with handing files, grep, editing files with vi, adding vhosts, etc. But not so much the conventions of creating email addresses, ftp accounts, etc.

Anyone have good resources on tips/tricks/tutorials for everyday VPS/Dedicated tasks and shite?

 

[Bofu2U]

Hey all, I recently got a VPS from KnownHost and opted to pay the extra $6 a month for cPanel/WHM since im not 100% comfortable doing everything that I may need to do from the shell.

A few questions I have in terms of setup/everyday use...

Since account creation is being handled by WHM a new FTP account is created for each site. Thats fine and dandy, at some point though, I would like to be able to create a kind of global FTP account if you will that would drop me in the /home directory where all of my cpanel/sites reside - Is this possible or would doing this cause issues with permissions between a global FTP account that and the cPanel account trying to use files it doesnt own?

How much experience is really required to run a VPS/Dedicated Box without a control panel?

Im familiar with handing files, grep, editing files with vi, adding vhosts, etc. But not so much the conventions of creating email addresses, ftp accounts, etc.

Anyone have good resources on tips/tricks/tutorials for everyday VPS/Dedicated tasks and shite?

Highly suggest you give VPS Tutorials - Web Hosting Talk - The largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet a look. WHT + VPS Tutorials = Win.

 

[Stanley]

How much experience is really required to run a VPS/Dedicated Box without a control panel?

Im familiar with handing files, grep, editing files with vi, adding vhosts, etc. But not so much the conventions of creating email addresses, ftp accounts, etc.

Setting up Apache/PHP is okay, but setting up the latter is going to be a pain in the ass. IMO stick with WHM, you'll save a lot of time.
The only servers where I'm not running WHM are single-task servers geared towards maximum efficiency.

 

[ephasenetworks]

If you're not going to run a control panel, its going to be quite difficult without proper background knowledge.

With something like cPanel, as long as you have a general understanding of how to run the server, it isn't as difficult as writing your own stuff.

 

[champrock]

try Lxadmin. It is a free panel and is rocking , Have been using it for months now.

 

[patrick24601]

Since this is a VPS I am going to assume you have root access. If so then you can create the type of FTP account you are talking about. On a normal Cpanel server you cannot.

Like everybody else said: Use Cpanel/WHM. Unless you are really genuinely interested in getting mad unix skills. I, for one, would rather use cpanel.

 

[Red_Virus]

I suggest paying that small fees for Cpanel/WHM. It really makes life a lot easier if you are new to VPS and root access stuff.

 

[cabron]

With only Cpanel/WHM you won't be able to manage anything dedicated. It needs hardening, optimizing and if something goes bad it won't help you troubleshoot.

 

[sender]

if your vps allows for debian or ubuntu installations, sysadministration is easy with apt-get. that plus vim config editing may be all you need.

 

[patrick24601]

If it is a Virtuozza (sp?) VPS it will be restricted to the host OS.

I'll concur with the other when they say get WHM unless you want to become a UNIX guru. You pretty much have to have the same skillset as if you had a full dedicated.

 

[matthew1471]

Definitely get whm. It's so easy even I can manage a VPS.

 

[LazyD]

I did a re-install assuming I would have cPanel/WHM installed when it redid the install but alas, it didnt.

After a number of hours and numerous reinstalls I have a stable system setup and running completely by hand.

The only thing I still need to setup is IMAP - I tried doing Dovecot/Postfix myself and I think I got it all pretty well done but I need to install a frontend like Squirrelmail....