I saw that there were a lot of posts on how to get a dedicated server up and running. I have just started with managing servers so take everything with a grain of salt. If you have the money of course get a managed server, we are trying to be marketers not sysadmins. Specialization and division of labour, and all that good stuff.
Server Choice: Cloud Servers
For me this was a no brainier, dedicated was too much money especially with a low volume at first. Cloud servers give you a dedicated allotment of the total server processing, memory and storage space for your server. You can start small and scale upwards in size and complexity as you need more processing power. VPS (Virtual Private Servers) function similarly but won't have the robustness of a full fledged Cloud Server - Read More Here You can also do some review of hosting options at WebHosting Talk
I chose Gigenet because of their cheap hosting and their incredible feature list. Other webhosts such as Rackspace were considered but lacked the 10Gps backbone and the upcoming backup imaging for your server. Also your server comes partially configured and the root password changed (Root is the main admin for your server), nice to prevent instant hacking of your server for all the newbies out there. Do your own comparisons but this is what worked for me.
Server Setup
You most likely want to go with a Linux based server which is what I did. This is only a weeks worth of learning but hopefully the pros can correct me where I went wrong.
I had three OS choices: Debian, CentOS and Ubuntu. I choose Debian because it's known for it's stability but really you can't go wrong with any of those choices. Rather than explaining what I did, I post the exact guides to setting up my server.
Instructions - Gigenet Setup on Debian5
1. Purchase Credits to Activate Server
Gigenet is a big vending machine, you pay as you go and get charged on the hour. Pay with your credit card, and drag the sliders to determine how much cpu/memory/hard drive space you need. It's a pretty simple task. You need to purchase a dedicated IP address. Once all that is done load your preferred OS and you are good to go.
2. Connect to server
SSH (Secure Shell) is the preferred means to connect to your server. Download the putty ssh client and stick in root as your user, password is listed and the port is 22. You can see what the interface looks like below.
3. Setting up your LAMP server (Linux - Apache - MySQL and Php 5)
You need all three in order to get prosper and in general have a dynamic server. Follow the instructions and you are basically good to go. PHPmyAdmin is a useful tool for managing a MySQL database, easier than learning console commands.
Changes to the Tutorial I made:
I have yet to get a working firewall up and running but with the low profile of my system and all the passwords changed that can be dealt with later. I did install Fail2Ban to ensure that my computer would not be hammered by bots looking to brute force my password. Intrustion reporting and backups will probably be dealt with later but this is something you should look into. Finally changing your SSH port would be useful to prevent some attacks
4. Installing Prosper202
You can now install Prosper202 assuming your server is up and running. It requires it's own subdomain or domain, for subdomains you are going to have to find a working tutorial for that as I have yet to figure that one out. Follow the directions they have on the website, there is nothing more I can really say about it.
Profit!
Future Steps:
1. Install Firewall (probably a user friendly frontend for managing IP Tables which is one the best ways to keep your system secure)
2. Improve performance by install memcache
3. SSL layer to encrypt my connection with Prosper202
Feedback
I could definitely use some feedback to make sure what I am doing is right. I also would be delighted to hear some of your opinions of what I should do next to make sure my backend is all nice and tight.
Server Choice: Cloud Servers
For me this was a no brainier, dedicated was too much money especially with a low volume at first. Cloud servers give you a dedicated allotment of the total server processing, memory and storage space for your server. You can start small and scale upwards in size and complexity as you need more processing power. VPS (Virtual Private Servers) function similarly but won't have the robustness of a full fledged Cloud Server - Read More Here You can also do some review of hosting options at WebHosting Talk
I chose Gigenet because of their cheap hosting and their incredible feature list. Other webhosts such as Rackspace were considered but lacked the 10Gps backbone and the upcoming backup imaging for your server. Also your server comes partially configured and the root password changed (Root is the main admin for your server), nice to prevent instant hacking of your server for all the newbies out there. Do your own comparisons but this is what worked for me.
Server Setup
You most likely want to go with a Linux based server which is what I did. This is only a weeks worth of learning but hopefully the pros can correct me where I went wrong.
I had three OS choices: Debian, CentOS and Ubuntu. I choose Debian because it's known for it's stability but really you can't go wrong with any of those choices. Rather than explaining what I did, I post the exact guides to setting up my server.
Instructions - Gigenet Setup on Debian5
1. Purchase Credits to Activate Server
Gigenet is a big vending machine, you pay as you go and get charged on the hour. Pay with your credit card, and drag the sliders to determine how much cpu/memory/hard drive space you need. It's a pretty simple task. You need to purchase a dedicated IP address. Once all that is done load your preferred OS and you are good to go.
2. Connect to server
SSH (Secure Shell) is the preferred means to connect to your server. Download the putty ssh client and stick in root as your user, password is listed and the port is 22. You can see what the interface looks like below.
3. Setting up your LAMP server (Linux - Apache - MySQL and Php 5)
You need all three in order to get prosper and in general have a dynamic server. Follow the instructions and you are basically good to go. PHPmyAdmin is a useful tool for managing a MySQL database, easier than learning console commands.
Changes to the Tutorial I made:
- apt-get dist-upgrade <- type this in as it updates debian to the current version
- Virtual Hosting - Copy over the default configuration on the ports.conf in order to create another virtual server. Gigenet has stuff setup in there that I didn't want to tinker with.
- Mysql_secure_installation - I didn't lock out remote root access since I didn't setup a user account with all permissions
- Installed PhpMyAdmin as mentioned
I have yet to get a working firewall up and running but with the low profile of my system and all the passwords changed that can be dealt with later. I did install Fail2Ban to ensure that my computer would not be hammered by bots looking to brute force my password. Intrustion reporting and backups will probably be dealt with later but this is something you should look into. Finally changing your SSH port would be useful to prevent some attacks
4. Installing Prosper202
You can now install Prosper202 assuming your server is up and running. It requires it's own subdomain or domain, for subdomains you are going to have to find a working tutorial for that as I have yet to figure that one out. Follow the directions they have on the website, there is nothing more I can really say about it.
Profit!
Future Steps:
1. Install Firewall (probably a user friendly frontend for managing IP Tables which is one the best ways to keep your system secure)
2. Improve performance by install memcache
3. SSL layer to encrypt my connection with Prosper202
Feedback
I could definitely use some feedback to make sure what I am doing is right. I also would be delighted to hear some of your opinions of what I should do next to make sure my backend is all nice and tight.