{"id":919,"date":"2020-11-30T14:42:44","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T12:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/?p=919"},"modified":"2022-06-21T16:36:28","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T13:36:28","slug":"getting-started-with-self-managed-cloud-vps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/getting-started-with-self-managed-cloud-vps\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Started With Self-Managed Cloud VPS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Self-managed Virtual Private Server (VPS)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> web hosting plans can be difficult to handle. We advise all customers to opt for our Managed VPS hosting, which is, in fact, a cheaper option with ScalaHosting. However, under some circumstances, <\/span><b>you may still prefer to work with<\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/cloud-vps-hosting.html\"><b> self-managed VPS<\/b><\/a><b> instead<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Table of Contents: Getting Started with Self-Managed VPS Hosting<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is Self-Managed VPS hosting<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Choosing and Customizing Your Plan<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Account Activation<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Handling the Initial Server Setup<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Logging in to Your VPS<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Creating a New User Account<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Basic Account Security<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The LAMP Stack<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Deploying Apache<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Installing MySQL\/MariaDB<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Setting up PHP<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Setting Up Your Domain Name<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If You Need Help<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>What is Self-managed VPS Hosting<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">VPS plans come in two main variations &#8211; <\/span><b>Managed or Self-managed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The latter is where you get complete customizability of your VPS account. Aside from the choice of <\/span><b>Operating System (OS) <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">you make during sign-up, you need to handle everything else on your own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This includes installing a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/spanel.html\"><b>web hosting control panel<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (if you choose to use one), a database, web applications, and anything else you might need to run your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite needing to do this, <\/span><b>Self-managed VPS accounts<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> offer you greater flexibility in customizing your environment. You can set it up to fit your exact needs while omitting anything else that may needlessly take up resources.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>Choosing and Customizing Your Plan<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All ScalaHosting <\/span><b>Self-managed VPS plans<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> come completely configurable. From the <\/span><b>Self-Managed Cloud Server Hosting page<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you can choose your exact configuration. Here are your options:<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Resources<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Using the slider bar, you can adjust how much of each resource type you will need. This includes <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CPU cores, RAM (memory), and SSD Space (storage)<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The resources are not tied to each other, meaning you can choose to only adjust one of them when needed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Data Center<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: ScalaHosting operates self-managed servers out of <\/span><b>three data<\/b> <strong>centers<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. We have two US locations &#8211; in Dallas and New York, and one in Europe. We recommend you pick a location that is closer to your target market. The closer the data center is to your visitors, the lower the latency (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">delay caused by data having to travel over distance<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Operating System<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: We offer a <\/span><b>choice of <\/b>Linux distributions<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You can choose between Ubuntu, Debian, Rocky Linux, Alma Linux, CentOS, and OpenSUSE.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bandwidth: <\/strong>You can choose how much bandwidth your VPS will have. The options start at 3,000GB and go all the way up to 10,000GB.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Additional services: <\/strong>Although you have root access and can set up anything you want on your self-managed VPS, you can opt for having a few useful tools pre-installed upon deployment. These include cPanel\/WHM, R1soft backups, and the LiteSpeed web server.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>Account Activation<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you\u2019ve made your selections and completed the payment process, you will be sent a confirmation email. This will be followed by a separate welcome email containing information about your <\/span><b>VPS account<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, including access links and other important notes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The entire account activation process should take no longer than a few minutes since it is mostly automated. In some cases, a user may be required to <\/span><b>undergo manual verification to complete the process<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but this is relatively rare.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>Handling the Initial Server Setup<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><b>ScalaHosting Self-managed VPS plans<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> come with only your choice of OS in place. When you first receive your welcome email, it is recommended that you handle a few initial configurations as part of your <\/span><b>setup process <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to increase the security of your server and make it more user-friendly.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Logging in to Your VPS<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your welcome email will include the credentials for <\/span><b>Root Access to your VPS account<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This powerful administrative access will give you very granular control. If you don&#8217;t have any previous experience, it\u2019s advisable to avoid using it for now. However, you will need root access to do the initial setup for <\/span><b>Self-managed VPS plans<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because of this, the first thing you should do with the root access is to create a regular account. To do this, you will need an application such as <\/span><b>PuTTY<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to create a secure <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/access-server-ssh\/\"><b>connection to your VPS server<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you\u2019ve installed the application, use the <\/span><b>Root User credentials <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">provided in your welcome email to log in.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Creating a New User Account<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you\u2019ve logged in, you can use<\/span><b> common Linux commands<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to create a new account. This is a three-step process and includes creating the user account, associating it with a password, and granting the appropriate permissions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The exact commands and process may vary depending on the OS you\u2019ve chosen. For example, in CentOS:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"># adduser newusername\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Creates a new user account called \u2018newusername\u2019)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"># passwd newusername\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Allows you to assign a password to the \u2018newusername\u2019 account)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"># gpasswd -a newusername wheel\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Adds \u2018newusername\u2019 to the \u2018wheel\u2019 group)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Linux has a few user groups with various permissions by default. To understand the permissions that each user group has, refer to the documentation for the distribution of <\/span><b>Linux you\u2019ve chosen as your OS<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Basic Security<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you\u2019ve created your new user account and granted it the appropriate permissions, you should take steps to<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/blog\/is-managed-vps-secure\/\"><b>secure your VPS account<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Again, the process for this will vary depending on which OS you\u2019ve chosen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, in <\/span><b>CentOS,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> you will need to set up <\/span><b>Public Key Authentication<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, while Debian will require you to manage the<\/span><b> UFW Firewall<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> settings. It is recommended that you initially disallow all connections aside from <\/span><b>SSH<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Once this is done, remember to add access for the new user you created earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you have completed these steps, you will be ready to log in with your newly created user account.<\/span><b> Disconnect your SSH application<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and reconnect with the new user account before proceeding further.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>The LAMP Stack<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The LAMP stack is what most servers use to handle web hosting accounts. It stands for <\/span><b>Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and is the combination that most web applications need to run. Since the <\/span><b>\u2018Linux\u2019 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">portion of the <\/span><b>LAMP stack<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is already taken care of, you will have to install the other portions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Note<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: This is a manual process and will involve multiple steps. If you would rather skip this and use a web hosting control panel, we highly recommend you opt for one of our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/managed-cloud-hosting.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Managed VPS Hosting<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> accounts instead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Deploying Apache<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the most important parts of your VPS will be the web server. This is the engine that will power<\/span><b>\u00a0the sites you create on your VPS<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Among the choices available, the Apache web server is extremely popular and one of the most widely used.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Installing <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/blog\/apache-server-latest-versions-and-version-history\/\"><b>Apache<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on Linux OS is relatively simple. Like Windows, Apache has its own application installer called a <\/span><b>\u2018Package Manager.\u2019<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0These will allow you to retrieve and install various applications from a repository maintained by the various <\/span><b>Linux OS distributions<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>We will be demonstrating an example of the Apache installation using CentOS:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sudo yum install httpd\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sudo systemctl start httpd.service<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first command will install Apache, while the second starts the Apache <\/span><b>web server service<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. To verify that it\u2019s working correctly, use your web browser, and navigate to the IP address <\/span><b>assigned to your VPS account<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You should see the result of the Apache server installation displayed there now.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Installing MySQL\/MariaDB<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While you can technically choose from a variety of database servers,<\/span><b> MySQ<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">L (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the MariaDB fork of it<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) are very popular choices. WordPress, for example, will require the use of this. The installation process is, in fact, <\/span><b>similar to Apache<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sudo yum install mariadb-server mariadb<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sudo systemctl start mariadb<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sudo mysql_secure_installation<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first command <\/span><b>installs the <\/b><b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/blog\/mariadb-latest-version\/\">MariaDB server<\/a>,<\/b> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">while the second starts the service. The last command is technically optional but highly recommended. It serves as a first line of defense by <\/span><b>handling some of the basics of securing your database for you<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finally, you will need to make sure the database server will restart on its own if you reboot your VPS server. To do this, enter:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<h3><b>Setting up PHP<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With your OS, web server, and database server in place, the last step of the <\/span><b>LAMP Stack deployment <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">will be to install and set up PHP. This is the engine that will help process the programming code, which is one of the elements needed to<\/span><b> configure dynamic content<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sudo yum install php php-mysql<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sudo systemctl restart httpd.service<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This basic procedure will install the PHP engine as well as start it as a system service. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do note this is only the<\/span><b> default installation of PHP<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. If you have specific requirements for your site, you may need to <\/span><b>install additional PHP modules<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> later on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>Setting Up Your Domain Name<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So far you&#8217;d have been <\/span><b>accessing your VPS server through its IP address<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Your next move would be to assign a domain name to your server for easier access to the website you\u2019ll be setting up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How this is done depends on where you obtained your domain name. If your <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/domain-names.html\"><b>domain name was registered from ScalaHosting<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you do not need to do anything &#8211; it will be done already. If not, you will need to change your domain nameservers from the registrar.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The nameservers are what point the domain name to the right website content location. This is done from the control panel where you obtained the domain. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Simply log in to your <\/span><b>control panel dashboard<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>change the nameservers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to the ones provided to you in your ScalaHosting welcome email.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bear in mind, nameserver changes can take between 24 to 48 hours to propagate completely. During this period, your domain name may not still properly point to your server.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If You Need Help<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Setting up and maintaining a <\/span><b>Self-managed VPS account<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> can be intimidating, especially for first-time users. If, at any point during the process, you need help or even simply some advice, do get in touch with the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/contact-us.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ScalaHosting customer support team<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The best way to do this is either via<\/span><b> Live Chat<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or using our <\/span><b>Ticket System<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Live Chat offers<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> near-instant access to first-line support<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> but may not always be able to resolve your query in the most comprehensive manner. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For greater depth in response, we recommend you make use of our internal ticketing system. The <\/span><b>ScalaHosting operators take pride<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in a <\/span><b>15-minute average response time<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, so you will always get technical assistance promptly.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Self-managed Virtual Private Server (VPS) web hosting plans can be difficult to handle. We advise all customers to opt for our Managed VPS hosting, which is, in fact, a cheaper option with ScalaHosting. However, under some circumstances, you may still prefer to work with self-managed VPS instead. Table of Contents: Getting Started with Self-Managed VPS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-get-started"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3372,"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/3372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scalahosting.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}