If you have a website you may be familiar with a hosting account. For others, a website requires some space on the web to store the website files, code and images to display the website. A server is a centralized resource of computers connected through a high-speed internet network that can store users files and share it over a network.
Do you need a server?
If you are planning to build your website, you need some space on a server to host your website’s files. There are different types of hosting available. Shared hosting, VPS hosting, and Dedicated hosting. Shared hosting is the most popular option among first-time website makers. In shared hosting, multiple websites can host on a single server. Each user has a limit on the total amount of server resource that they can use, usually available as hosting packages. It is the cheapest hosting available to host your website, you can upgrade your package at any time. The server is maintained by the hosting provider, so you don’t worry about the technical and maintenance issues. But it has some disadvantages. Some times server may be overcrowded and the server can become overburdened by other websites that are also sharing the same resources. Another thing is you don’t know how many sites are there on your server and who is your neighbor. Sometimes another site may pose a risk on your site or to your server.
What is VPS?
The Virtual Private Server (VPS), is a private server that will be exclusively yours. It is like a virtual dedicated server, so the resources allocated to you don’t need to share with anyone. In addition to this, you may get root access to the server, you can install your preferred operating system and control panel to your server. The hosting provider manages the physical server for maximum uptime, speed, and stability of the server. A VPS hosting is a type of dedicated shared hosting. You may be familiar with VirtualBox or VMware. VirtualBox helps you to run Linux or other operating systems on your Windows computer without needing to restart your computer. The hosting provider uses some tools to virtualize the operating system. Each VPS hosting environment is known as a container. On a VPS server, you have dedicated amounts of CPU, RAM, disk space and bandwidth available to you.
After purchasing your VPS account, you can install an operating system from your hosting control panel. You can use RHEL, CentOS, Debian, and Ubuntu Linux. If you are using Hostinger as your VPS provider, they offer a readymade Linux operating system with Vestacp installation option. You can choose the Linux version with VestaCP to install on your server. It is a straightforward option, as it installs everything for you and sends the login details to your email after installation.
The Vesta Control panel can be installed on an RHEL, CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu server. The installer categorizes the servers into four groups. Micro server- less than 1Gb of RAM. Small server – less than 3Gb of RAM. Medium server – less than 7Gb of RAM. Large server – more than 7Gb of RAM. Antispam and Antivirus packages are only installed on a medium and large server. Microserver also does not support phpfcgi template.
If you want to install by yourself, first install a supported Linux OS from the operating system list from the VPS hosting panel. Then login your account using SSH. In Windows, you can use PuTTY, PuTTY is a free SSH and telnet client. In PuTTY enter the SSH IP as your VPS IP address, then SSH port number. You will get SSH details from your hosting panel. Note the SSH IP, SSH Port, SSH Username. You can create a new root password for your VPS account. Enter a strong root password that can also easier for you to type. Now open PuTTY, you will get a screen like this, enter the IP address of your server (SSH IP), SSH Port (22), then click Open. A new window will open up (see the last picture). There at login as enter the SSH user name (I just gave it as root). Then it will ask for the password, enter the root password and hit enter (you cannot see the entered password, just type the password correctly and hit enter). You will reach the root directory. Now connect to your server as root, enter the code in step 2 carefully. Check the installation script is downloaded or not, if showing any error, once again enter the code to download the installation script to your server. now the script is in your server. Run the script using the code in step 3. The installer will show the list of items to be installed, enter Y to continue. After that, you must enter your email (login credentials sent to this email) and a name for your VPS server (you can change it in Vestacp panel). Sit back and relax, wait for the installer to finish its job. After the installation, the Vestacp login details are displayed. Note down the details to log in to your Vestacp panel.
To install VestaCP control panel
Step 1: Connect to your server as root via SSH using PuTTY.
Step 2: Download the installation script from Vestacp (enter the following code). wget is used to download files from the internet.
wget http://vestacp.com/pub/vst-install.sh
Step 3: Run the installation script (enter this code)
bash vst-install.sh
Ensure to enter a valid email address, as the installation script will send the login details and password to this email address. You can see the login details at the end of the installation process, an email is also sent to the email address that you provided. Login to your Vestacp panel to check everything is installed properly on your server.
If you find the entire process a bit difficult, there is an easy way to do it. If you are using Hostinger VPS account, log in to VPS hosting panel, then under Server Management, in Other Settings, choose the Operating system you want. Here you can choose an OS with Vestacp control panels like Centos7 64 bit with Vestacp control panel or Debian 8 64 bit with Vestacp control panel or Ubuntu 16 64 bit with Vestacp control panel. After selecting the required os click Save changes to install the OS on your server. It will overwrite current settings and installed new os on your VPS account. This is a straightforward option and best for non-technical users. You can purchase a Hostinger hosting account from here.
