I’m currently working on setting up a website for a client; and it’s turning out to be a whole lot more challenging than I first thought. I was originally going to host his site on a shared web server, which I have done several times in the past. However, the need to run a proprietary communication protocol means that we’ll require access to the operating system. The sensible solution is a virtual private server (VPS).
Now, I have never had to manage a publicly available system before; so this is a bit daunting but very exciting at the same time. In less than two hours after signing up for a VPS, I was emailed the details about a virtual machine sitting somewhere in a data centre. The email included the IP address of the machine, the root account credentials, and a link to a Virtuozzo Power Panel for managing the machine. It came pre-installed with Debian. I chose Debian for its stability and long list of packages.
I have operated Linux before, but that was mainly back in my uni days. In the course of two days, I have managed to get the machine to a decent state; learning heaps in the process. It now has a secure firewall configuration, a MySQL database server, and an Apache2 web server capable of running PHP scripts; all done via SSH.
I decided for security reasons to expose as few services as possible on the machine. This means only SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS are publicly accessible. I use ZoneEdit to provide DNS service, and Google Apps to provide email service; both of which are free.