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I have no idea if this is the right place to ask, but I'm a bit desperate.

I have been working for a few days now to set up a EC2 instance with cPanel. I realized fast that this was not easy, especially because I know almost nothing when it comes to server administration (if anybody have a simple guide of how to go through the initial whm setup on EC2, please let me know).

My Question is simply what is the best place to learn the basics (and maby a bit byond the basics) of administrating a dedicated server.

I need to learn how to work with the SSH access, how DNS records work ++

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  • What do you want to be able to do? Run apache? The best bit of virtual environments like EC2 is that if you break it, you can just delete it and start again :)
    – AliGibbs
    Feb 4, 2012 at 16:40
  • I need a basic course on how to start a server install applications like cPanel and fix different issues with SSH. The problem im often facing with documentation is that it assumes you know how to connect to you server with ssh, how to write/delete information and so on. I have never used a bash tool before so I'm blank on alott of this stuff. Also i have absolutely no idea what all the different DNS records do so is there any courses on these subjects? Feb 4, 2012 at 17:49

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I would suggest downloading a "Live CD" of a linux distro, say Fedora or Ubuntu. You can run the CD on your computer without overwriting your existing OS.

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  • Thank you, i have ubunto installed, But does it exist any courses like lynda.com offers or something similar? it seems like this server stuff is some kind of black magic :p Feb 4, 2012 at 17:34
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Rob Berkes suggestion of a live CD is a good one. Personally I like Ubuntu which you can download here. Once you are up and running go to the menu in the top left and type "terminal" which should bring up a Terminal icon to click on. Once you have the command line you are in good shape to start looking around, installing packages, and trying things out.

This page lists a number of common server configurations and how to set them up with Ubuntu. Try installing some server packages, like Apache:

$ sudo apt-get install apache2

Once that's in place, open up Firefox on the machine you are on and visit "http://localhost". Try a bunch of things out, and don't be afraid to screw up. You can't break the system with a Live CD. If things get screwy, you can just reboot, and you'll be back to square one.

As you start to feel more comfortable interacting with the command line and package manager, you can start looking into what it takes to set up a DNS server (it's not the easiest thing for a newbie, but don't get discouraged!). And finally check out Linux System Administration, which runs the gamut of technologies you should at least be familiar with the existence of.

Good luck, and when you run into problems, don't hesitate to ask about them here!

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  • thank you, i will try to fire up my Ubunto partition. however iwas more looking for good courses on the subjec(s). Got any tips for stuff like that. Feb 4, 2012 at 17:46

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