Virtual dedicated servers (VDS) are designed to host Internet projects with a high level of visits, which are characterized by a very large load on regular hosting. Such a solution allows you to expand administration capabilities, increase resistance to overloads and provide the required security. The use of VDS opens up great opportunities for the implementation of modern technologies for managing website content.

A virtual server is an emulated Calculating machine with the operating system installed. Accordingly, when working with it, the VDS administration and configuration tools are no different from those of a dedicated physical server. VDS operates under OS control Microsoft Windows, Mac OS or Linux depending on choice tariff plan. Like a physical server, its virtual counterpart provides work with root rights, assignment of IP, ports, security policies, etc.

To start using VDS, the first thing you need to do is order the appropriate services from your hosting provider. You can connect to a virtual server using the Remote Desktop utility. A similar application is developed for all popular operating systems - Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux and even Android. In the case of Linux, rdesktop, FreeRDP or Remmina programs are suitable, and in Microsoft Windows they use mstsc.exe.

Connecting to a server may also require certain knowledge - this console commands and parameters without which control of the remote system is impossible. You can find out how to use VDS after connecting in three ways:

• in relevant reference materials;
• yourself - to do this, just download and install the nginx or Apache web server, PHP and MySQL packages and other necessary full-fledged work server software;
• contact your hosting provider, who will give you the necessary step-by-step instructions.

To make it convenient to manage the system, we use special programs- VDS control panels. These include, for example, ISP Manager, a commercial application actively used by Russian Internet agencies.

If you do not want to waste your time searching for information on setting up and managing a virtual server, it is better to immediately order the necessary technical support. In particular, in the 3data data center network you can always count on this service. Thanks to it, you can focus your attention on the site and its promotion, and not on the intricacies of setup and administration.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

As you may have noticed, the vastness of the Internet is full of guys offering rentals of VDS servers.
But not all yoghurts are equally healthy...
I decided to make life easier for novice administrators,
and tell you the basic instructions for choosing a VDS server for your project.

What is a VDS server?
Simply put, this is a dedicated server, much like your computer, but probably still more powerful.
It is divided using a special software, to many other servers (VDS).

Yeah, it’s probably already clear that you are buying a VDS that is in reality
will be less powerful than a real computer.
Yes, in 90% of cases this is true. And there's nothing to be done about it.
But fortunately for you, there are companies that strive high performance VDS
and keep it level.

How to distinguish a good VDS from a regular VDS?
It is enough to carry out a few simple tests, after which you can be confident in the VDS server.

Part 1

Discs

1. How to determine the performance of a disk system?

Let's go to any online store and look at the hard drives.
http://www.apitcomp.ru/shop/hdd_dlya_pk/western_digital/item510797/
Go to the product characteristics, there you will see the parameter:
Steady-state data rate Up to 110 Mb/sec

It turns out that the disk speed is up to 110MB/sec
So tough, gets the job done home computer more or less normal.

Therefore, when you check the next VDS, make sure that the disk speed is
not lower than 110 MB/sec.
If you found a VDS with such a speed, it does not mean that you found a good VDS!
After all, you will not be hosting a desktop, but a real game server!

Personally, I recommend that the disk speed on VDS is at least 160-200MB/sec.
Well, the best is 200-260 MB/sec.
This indicator suggests that VDS is most likely at SSD drives, and the hoster does not cut you off in speed.

Test

Debian OS is suitable for testing.
This is a fairly simple test that allows you to evaluate the performance of a storage system without installing additional special utilities.
dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
Options meaning:

• if=/dev/zero- a pseudo-device that is a zero generator is used as a data source
• of=/test.bin- this is the file where information is written. Don't forget to delete this file after the test
• bs=64k- data block size 64 kilobytes
• count=16k- the number of data blocks written to the file. The result is a 1GB file.
• conv=fdatasync- physical recording to disk to eliminate the influence of write caching

After executing the command, information about the execution speed will be displayed.

Team

Dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync

Conclusion

16384+0 records read
16384+0 entries written
copied 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB), 9.30189 s, 115 MB/s

Click to expand...

So we found out the speed of execution!
Let's continue:
Team

Echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches #clear cache

Team

Dd if=testfile of=/dev/null bs=64k

Conclusion

2097152+0 records read
2097152+0 entries written
copied 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB), 1.12647 s, 160 MB/s

Click to expand...

So we found out the reading speed.

Now you can safely test the speed of disks on VDS and decide on your purchase.

Remember the numbers: 160MB/sec(tolerable) 200MB/sec(norm), 260Mb/sec(Great)!
With such disk speeds, your server will feel comfortable.

Attention!
Do tests not only before purchasing, but also while using VDS!
Because an unscrupulous hoster will one day sell your speed to someone else!

I'll stop here.

Part 2

Ping

In colloquial speech, ping is the time spent transmitting a packet of game information to computer networks from client to server and back from server to client.

For Online Games, the ping from you to the server is a very important part.

• Normal ping 20ms
• Average ping 30 - 40ms
• High ping 50 - 60ms
• Bad Ping 80 - 100ms
• Very bad from 100ms and higher.

Checking ping is easy.
Windows 7
Let's go Start - All Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt

A black console will open.

We write the command in the console:

Conclusion

Exchange packages with loadcore.ru [ ] with 32 bytes of data:
Answer from
Answer from : number of bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=50
Answer from
Answer from : number of bytes=32 time=76ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for :
Packets: sent = 4, received = 4, lost = 0
(0% loss)
Approximate round trip time in ms:
Minimum = 75ms, Maximum = 76ms, Average = 75ms

Click to expand...

Before buying a server, carefully check the pings!

It is worth considering your audience; people who will play on your server should feel comfortable.

For example, there are 3 people playing on the server:
Vasya - ping 25
Kolya - ping 40
Sasha - ping 80

It turns out that Sasha will not be entirely comfortable, all data from the server will arrive to him with a delay.
And vice versa, all data from Sasha will arrive to the server with a delay.

Why else is ping important?
FPS- The lower the ping, the better FPS servers!
The better the FPS, the more comfortable the game.

A large difference in ping between players causes dissynchronization of the game server.

Try to choose a hosting with minimal ping for you and your players.

Memo:

• Normal ping 20ms
• Average ping 30 - 40ms
• High ping 50 - 60ms
• Bad Ping 80 - 100ms
• Very bad from 100ms and higher.

Click to expand...

Part 3

CPU

Good day to all.
Because we are constantly working to improve virtualization performance,
we have to do benchmarks of this very performance.
Since we have been on the market for several years and have several thousand clients, we are looking for new solutions,
for maximum similarity between the VDS server and the Dedicated Server.

P.S. Here is the table of official tests.

Good luck to all.

To be continued.

This article discusses general issues on working with Cloud VDS from the hosting control panel.

As part of the service Cloud VDS you can flexibly manage the resources your applications need to function properly. At any time, you can get additional resources by creating a certain number of new VDS servers, or increasing the capacity of existing VDS, or vice versa - abandon unused capacity and not pay for it. The cloud VDS billing system calculates the ordered services once an hour, so even if you need a very powerful server, but only for a few hours, it will not cost much, because only the hours of actual use of this server will be paid. For example, the cost of using an entry-level cloud VDS (tiny tariff, 10 GB disk) for one day will be about 8 rubles, and for one hour - about 34 kopecks.

We offer cloud VDS based on many distributions.

Server must select the following option:

You will receive access data by email. If you reinstall, all current data from the server will be deleted.

Those wishing to install VestaCP via the console you can independently use the instructions below.

1. If you use Windows OS on your PC, then download the popular SSH client PuTTY .
If you use Linux or MacOS on a local PC, you can use the SSH console built into the operating system.

2. After installation PuTTY run the program and enter the IP of your server:

We enter the root login and password for the server, you received this data when activating the VDS to the contact email of your account, a request with this data is also available in the section "Tickets". Please note that the password should not be visible when entered. When you have entered it, press the button Enter.

3. Run the commands one by one:

Curl -O http://vestacp.com/pub/vst-install.sh

Bash vst-install.sh

4. We will see a proposal to continue the installation, type "y"


Next, the system will ask you to enter your email and server hostname, do this and wait up to 15 minutes until the control panel is installed along with necessary set software.

5. When the installation is complete, we will see the following message in the SSH console:


Save the data highlighted in red.

7. After entering the login and password that we received in step 5, we proceed to adding our domain. This can be done in the section WEB using the green button in the form of a sign "+" , base MySQL data create in the same way, but in the section D.B.. Detailed information on working with VestaCP You can visit the developers' website.

8. To download files from the added domain, you need to use any convenient FTP client and username/password admin, we received this data in paragraph 5 of this instruction. How FTP server indicate the IP of our VDS, upload site files to the directory /web/YOURDOMAIN/public_html/
If necessary, you can add new users to VestaCP.

9. Information about which NSs to use for a domain can be found.

Control is carried out using command line. For these purposes it is most convenient to use free program PuTTy. It does not require installation: after downloading and running the utility, you can immediately connect to the VDS via SSH by entering the IP address (the default port number is 22) and clicking on the “Open” button. After this, a console window will appear on the screen with an invitation to authorize “login as:”. Enter root, press “Enter”, then enter the password received when ordering the service and confirm the action again with the enter key. Now you can start working.

The VDS setup procedure itself involves entering text commands into the console, with which you can perform almost any operation on the server. Below is a sequence of basic actions that must be performed immediately after launch virtual machine, and step by step installation software bundles necessary for hosting websites. The examples are adapted for the two most common Linux families: Debian (which includes, for example, the popular Ubuntu) and Centos (which includes Centos itself, Fedora and a number of others).

Attention! For OS version Bitrix 6 installed on VDS, LEMP installation is not required!

Initial VDS setup

Software update

You need to start setting up VDS with a global update. You can run the update on Debian-like operating systems as follows:

Apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

for Centos the command is different:

During the update process you will be asked if you want to install new packages. Answer yes using the Y key and confirm your choice by pressing “Enter”.

Adding a new user

Work with the server under account root is strongly not recommended - it is best to create a new user and give him the necessary rights. On Debian-like systems this is done with the command:

Adduser username

where username should be replaced with the desired username. After completing it, you will be asked to set a password, and then asked to fill out additional fields (this is not necessary - you can leave them blank).

When working with Centos, the command is also used:

Adduser username

However, the password is set separately:

Passwd username

Transferring root privileges

After creating a new user, you need to assign super administrator rights to him, otherwise you will not be able to fully configure VDS. This is done by adding the newly created account to the appropriate group. For Debian-like:

Gpasswd -a username sudo

for Centos-like:

Gpasswd -a username wheel

SSH management

For safety reasons, it is necessary to perform a number of manipulations with configuration file sshd_config, which, as you might guess, is responsible for configuration remote connection to the server via SSH. Different Linux distributions use different utilities for editing, and accordingly, the commands for them will be slightly different. Debian-like ones use nano:

Nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

To save the changes you have made, press the key combination Ctrl+X, then Y and “Enter”. Centos includes a vi editor:

Vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Saving information is carried out with the command: x, after which you must press “Enter”.

In sshd_config you should disable root logins by replacing

PermitRootLogin yes

PermitRootLogin no

and also change the default SSH port by replacing

for example, on

It is better to choose a port number from the range 49152-65535 - this will avoid possible conflicts with various Linux services. After the described manipulations, you need to restart SSH. In Debian this is done like this:

Service ssh restart

Systemctl reload sshd

Now you need to reconnect to the server via the assigned port under a new account, after which you can continue setting up VDS.

Installing and configuring LEMP

Most modern CMS are written in the PHP programming language. This means that to host almost any website, regardless of type and functionality, we will need LEMP. This abbreviation stands for a combination of a modern and very fast Nginx web server, the php-fpm interpreter and the MySQL database management system. The installation procedure is quite simple and will not take much time.

Installing Nginx

Let's start by installing Nginx. In Debian-like distributions this is done in one line:

Sudo apt-get install nginx

after which the server will be automatically started.

On Centos, you first need to add the EPEL repository:

Sudo yum install epel-release

and only after that carry out the installation:

Sudo yum install nginx

The final stage is launching Nginx:

Sudo systemctl start nginx

Installing MySQL

On Debian-like operating systems, the database service is installed with the command:

Sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

During the process, you will be asked to set a MySQL administrator password.

In Centos-like distributions, instead of MySQL, a fork of MariaDB is used, which has the same functionality. After installing it:

Sudo yum install mariadb-server mariadb

The database server must be started and also added to the startup list:

Sudo systemctl start mariadb sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Setting up MySQL

The initial setup of the database server is carried out using a special script included with the main software:

Sudo mysql_secure_installation

After launch, you will be asked to enter the MySQL administrator password that we set in the previous step, and then will be asked a series of questions, which must be answered with the Y (yes) and N (no) buttons, confirming the choice with the “Enter” key:

• Do you want to change your password? (Change the root password?) - No (N)
• Delete anonymous users? (Remove anonymous users?) - Yes (Y)
• Deny remote authorization with superuser rights? (Disallow root login remotely?) - Yes (Y)
• Delete test database? (Remove test database and access to it?) - Yes (Y)
• Reload the privilege table? (Reload privilege tables now?) - Yes (Y)

Adding a new database

Database management is carried out through MySQL console. To enter it, you must enter the command:

To host a dynamic site, you need to create a database with which the engine will work. Typically, a separate database and a separate user who can manage it are created for each project. Let's create a sitedb database, a site_user user, and then give sitedb management rights to the latter (you can replace the suggested names with any others).

This is done as follows:

Create a database:

CRE ATE DATABASE sitedb;

Create a user (instead of password, enter a unique password)

CREATE USER site_user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY "password";

We transfer sitedb management rights to the site_user user:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON sitedb.* TO site_user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY "password";

Updating privilege data:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

When all operations are complete, exit the MySQL console:

Installing PHP

An important step in setting up VDS is installing and configuring the PHP interpreter. The commands for different Linux distributions are different. Installation in Debian is carried out like this:

Sudo apt-get install php5-fpm php5-mysql

In Centos it's a little different:

Sudo yum install php php-mysql php-fpm

PHP configuration

The first step is to edit the php.ini file. On Debian and Ubuntu it is located here:

Sudo nano /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini

On Centos-like distributions - directly in the etc directory:

Sudo vi /etc/php.ini

In both systems, you first need to uncomment and change the value in the following line:

;cgi.fix_pathinfo=1

Cgi.fix_pathinfo=0

Thus, we have closed an important vulnerability that could have been used by attackers to gain unauthorized access to the site. This completes the setup of the interpreter on Debian; all that remains is to restart the PHP processor:

Sudo service php5-fpm restart

In Centos, you also need to edit the www.conf file:

Sudo vi /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf

Here you need to find the line

Listen = 127.0.0.1:9000

and replace with

Listen = /var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock

We also change

Listen.owner = nobody listen.group = nobody

Sudo systemctl start php-fpm sudo systemctl enable php-fpm

Creating a directory

Now you need to create a directory in which your resource files will be located. At any operating system On Linux this is done with the following command:

Sudo mkdir /var/www/sitename.ru/public_html

IN in this example sitename.ru must be replaced with Domain name site. As for CMS files, they should be uploaded to the public_html folder. Once the download is complete, you must transfer control rights to the web server. There are differences in the names used to refer to Nginx. For Debian-like distributions the command will look like this:

Sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/*

It's different in Centos:

Sudo chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/html/*

Adding a new Nginx host

The last step in setting up a VDS to host a website is adding an Nginx virtual host. We just need to edit the default. In the Debian family this is done like this:

Sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Sudo vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

After opening the file, remove all information from it, replacing it with the code presented below (instead of sitename.ru, substitute the current site name), and save the result:

Server ( listen 80; server_name sitename.ru; server_name_in_redirect off; access_log /var/log/nginx/sitename.access_log; error_log /var/log/nginx/sitename.error_log; root /var/www/sitename.ru/public_html; index index.php index.html index.htm default.html default.htm; location / ( try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args; ) error_page 404 /404.html; error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html ; location = /50x.html ( root /usr/share/nginx/html; ) location ~ \.php$ ( try_files $uri =404; fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; ) )

All that remains is to restart Nginx. Command for Debian distributions:

Sudo service nginx restart

Sudo systemctl restart nginx

Now virtual server completely ready for use, and you can start working directly with the web resource. Further steps depend on the selected CMS.