Set Up a Linux Distribution for Newbies - VPS Bible Pt 2

Once you've decided to go for an unmanaged virtual private server, you'll set up an account and launch a Linux distribution. In this tutorial - Part 2: Set Up a VPS Linux Distribution - I'll walk you through those basic steps, advising on the Linux systems available, configuring some options and illustrating a typical unmanaged VPS control panel.

It takes 5 minutes, from sign up to booting the box for the first time. OK, it'll take you longer the first time.

You can watch the video for a walk-through of a typical control panel and Linux distribution setup. For that, and throughout this tutorial and series, I example Linode - of whom I am a client, but not a reseller - but the same will apply for Slicehost and many other VPS providers, near as damn it.

How To Set Up a Linux Distribution on Your VPS

Goto Linode.com

... or Slicehost.com, or wherever else. I'd suggest you read Part 1: VPS (Virtual Private Server) vs Shared vs Dedicated for some handy tips about choosing your unmanaged VPS provider, and to see if that really is the best route for your requirement.

Sign Up & Choose Your Plan

OK, so if you have a real hustle-bustle site you may want a big ol' chunk/rack of server(s), but for most the basic will do, as detailed in Part 1. For guvnr.com and a bunch of other sites and blogs, I chose the Linode 360, with 360MB RAM, 12GB storage and 200GB transfer. That kicks in at $20 a month. You can always upgrade later, either to a bigger plan or just with extra RAM, space and so on.

Login to Linode Manager

... with the password they emailed you. You'll be directed to the Linode Manager homepage, where you can manage your Linode (or Linodes, if you strap more into the one plan), your DNS settings, your account, and where you can submit support tickets. Should you so require, you can add more Linodes or upgrade them from here too.

Check Out Your Linode

Feel free to get a bit excited. Click on the Linode...

...and that takes you to the Dashboard, where you can create/delete configuration profiles, disk images and Linux distributions (distros), shutdown/boot/reboot a distro, check various stats and generally salivate.

From here you can also click through to your:-

• Ajax Console, really handy if you lock yourself out of the command line interface, which we'll come to in Part 3: Set Up the Command Line Interface (CLI) using PuTTY
• Network Manager, where you can check network settings, set reverse DNS for email and, for multi Linodes, add and move IPs, and configure IP failover
• Graphs, to check CPU, Traffic and Disk IO
• Settings & Utilities, where you can set root passwords, set alerts and the Shutdown Watchdog, and clone a Linode
• Extras, where you can buy or remove extra resources, rather than upgrade a plan

But ignore all that for now! Instead, on the Dashboard, click on "Deploy a Linux Distribution". Far more fun.

Select Your Linux Distribution

OK, so there are 20 Linux variants. Choices, choices.

I chose Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (that's Hardy Heron) because I've had some experience of Ubuntu, like it, and because it's widely regarded as a stable, well-supported server. If you've been to Ubuntu.com you'll see the community is active and helpful, and that's very important to a Linux newbie (like me ).

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex is available too, and for a PC I'd have that, but not for a server, for this reason; Hardy Heron is an LTS distribution, which means it's a Long Term Support edition, until 2013. Plus, from my research, many say it's a faster performer than Intrepid, which is not a LTS edition and, in any case, will be replaced by another edition again soon. Dunno about you, but I don't plan to rebuild this again, any time soon.

As well as the Heron on which I launched this site, I've built an Intrepid distro using the exact same procedure as outlined in this series, including installing the super sexy Nginx web server. So if you do want either of these two distros, I can confirm that this tutorial works for both. Probably, it works for other distros too, but I cannot personally confirm that - there may be a tweak or two to Google.

With both Ubuntu editions, and others, there are 64bit versions, which many would prefer to 32bit. Not me, I think 32bit is faster, using less resources. Some will disagree but, researched, most folks concur.

So, if you like what I say, for your needs, check the radio box next to "Ubuntu 8.04 LTS".

Select Disk Image Size

I set this to 6000MB, or 6GB, because I wanted to play with other distros too. (You can have as many distros as you want, but only have one booted, per Linode, at any one time.) By default, your distro will be set at your maximum VPS size, 12,288MB. Really rather personal, init. If you don't want to play with other distros, leave as default or, if unsure, maybe leave a couple of gigs spare. You can resize a distro later, whenever you want, but have to boot down to do that.

Select Swap

"We recommend a swap partition not exceed 256-512 MB." That's what they say. For most, 256 is fine. That's what I chose. Of course, we've got 360MB of regular RAM to eat up first.

For secondary distros, you can create another swap or share the existing. Generally, you'd share.

Root Password

Pop in whatever you like. We'll be changing it from the command line interface anyway, soon enough.

OK, here's what I have...

Back to the Dashboard

And now you have something to work with; a configuration profile, complete with main disk image and swap image.

Boot it up

Click on "Boot". It will, and we'll have something to play with in Part 3.

That's that for now.

In The Works ..

In Part 3: Set Up the Command Line Interface (CLI) using PuTTY of this series Set Up an Unmanaged VPS (4 Newbies) .. The V-P-S Bible, we'll create remote access to our shiny new Linux distro and, from there, after a generous sprinkling of security, crack on installing the heavy-lifting apps to turn this baby box into a cute-as server. Meantime, I'll be down the pub. Here's the index...