managing an offsite virtual Private server (VPS)

I'm thinking of setting up a VPS for a startup company that currently has no business location. There's 4 or 5 of us working from home who need access to a centralized server to store & share files.

First of all, is a VPS the best way to do this?

How much knowledge does it take to manage a VPS? (need to understand linux?). I have setup a couple of websites but that's about it. I have no formal training in IT.

Any guides for beginners or server companies offering VPS for dummies?


thanks

 

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I'd suggest rather than climb a steep learning curve stick to what you know. by saying this by all means experiment with other OS's etc, just don't rely upon ones you are unsure of in a production environment.

Any Dedicate servers or Virtual Private Servers are going to cost in regards to bandwidth and of course monthly rental. You might want to get quotes on the cost because it might be cheaper actually hiring an Office for you guys to meet in. (This negotiates bandwidth usage, monthly hire etc, however you then need to look at using your own equipment, renting an office, paying any bills for utilities etc.)

You might want to check out somewhere like http://telehouse.com/ they actually hire *Rack slots*, basically meaning you can supply the hardware and they will run it on their network (Which is a major internet backbone). This means you'd be able to run whatever OS you want although it would be up to you to go check on it, maintain it etc. Otherwise they do have companies that hire systems they've got housed there.

 

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I just need something simple for setting up e-mail accounts and an FTP for sharing files. But it must be VERY secure. I don't think we need a lot of bandwidth. There are VPS hosting sites offering hundreds of Gigabytes bandwidth for about $30/month.

 

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Obviously email accounts will require a domain name unless you are using an already created service like hotmail/hushmail etc.

In honesty the best bet if you get a domain name is to make sure you get a Registrar that allows you to not just have webspace but point to your own DNS servers if necessary. (I'm not saying you'd do it right off the bat, but having the ability to point to your own DNS server means you can pretty much setup your own Mail gateway, own webservers, Ftp servers as well as a whole host of other potential server applications.)

If you go with a dedicated then you are better offing the FTP for SSH 2 as this will Tunnel encrypt your connections, FTP can expose your passwords into plaintext over the network. Something like FreeBSD or Fedora could handle the FTP server/Email gateway, it would just require configuring and getting someone to install it if you don't have Access to the box itself. (Installation and Updating of the FreeBSD OS is "Difficult" but not impossible from a terminal. As the OS requires you to be logged in at the Box to do installs usually. If installing *BSD I'd suggest loading Webmin on the system too, handy Web interface for configuring servers and settings.)

 

Buy an old computer (cheap ones are about 20 bucks) a PIII can handle what you want to do.

Install perhaps FreeBSD. Read documentation on FreeBSD on installing an ftp/http server. And you can literally do it out of your own home.

Stryder explained the entire proccess well. It's the best option I would think.

 

I think the problem with a system from home is the upload speeds are going to be nowhere near what is necessary for large file transfers. I did consider the notion of a Torrent ring that the OP and his colleagues could all run, however that would require specific policies on how people change files and make them available to one another otherwise the results would be chaos with something that's not been altered being sent twice or an altered version overwriting a version that everyone is suppose to keep etc.

 

Howtoforge.com may help

Howtoforge.com

Lots of tutorials here with security and best-practice in mind for production servers.

I'd suggest setting the server up first, a step-by-step guide - with pictures

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here


Then the VPS setup

VPS how-to on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

Have a look around for other server related topics

 

If that's all you require, a basic web hosting package will do you fine. Get a domain registered, and get someone to host that for you. Use the space allocated to your Web Site to store any shared data, and map to it as an FTP folder in IE. Encrypt your data, and bingo, you are secure.