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I just purchased dedicated hosting for the first time and had CentOS installed on the server. The server engineer sent me an email with the IP address, username, and password. I tried going to the IP address, but I was not given a log-in box. I'm obviously missing something.

Please let me know how I can log on. I'm trying to set up a Magento ecommerce store on the website, so I'll need access to FTP and phpMyAdmin. Any advice on steps I should be taking with my new dedicated hosting would be much appreciated as well.

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Not to be rude or anything but does the service provider have a guide to this? And/Or could they have mis-configured the server? – RobM Mar 30 '11 at 20:00
Robert - They don't. Since they sell server administration as a service, I don't think they want it to be too easy for you to set it up. I've found some guides on GoDaddy that I'm trying to follow. This one to be specific: help.godaddy.com/article/6012?locale=en#access – Nick Mar 30 '11 at 20:39
Have you contacted the provider and asked them to verify if their settings are in fact the ones you were sent? It's wouldn't be the first time such an error was made. – John Gardeniers Mar 30 '11 at 22:25

4 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Nick - have you used Linux before? If so, then you should be familiar with logging-in via ssh to the ip address given to you, along with the username and password.

If not, I'd highly recommend finding someone you know who's experienced with the platform and learning from them!

A quick SSH howto: http://kimmo.suominen.com/docs/ssh/

To install ftp - yum install vsftpd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vsftpd)

as for phpMyAdmin: http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/docs.php - yum install phpmyadmin

The vsftpd.conf I use.

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Warren, I've dual-booted Ubuntu 10 for a short period of time on my laptop, but that's the extent of my experience. I don't have any knowledge of ssh unfortunately, but I'm looking into it now. If you have any good resources you can provide, it'd be appreciated. EDIT: Also - I don't know anyone who has experience with Linux, so you guys and google are my only hope! :) – Nick Mar 30 '11 at 19:14
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@Nick - generally it's good form to ask one question per, uh, question (you specifically only asked for help accessing the server, your comments about phpmyadmin and magneto were just that - comments, not questions). So if this question was about how to access the server, then you should keep this question as answered and then ask a different question for how to install php etc. You'll probably find that each question has been asked here before anyway. – Mark Henderson♦ Mar 30 '11 at 20:40
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@Nick - Give @warren the check. He answered your question. This isn't a discussion forum, if you have a second question, ask a separate second question. – MDMarra Mar 30 '11 at 20:54
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Sorry guys. I'm new to stack exchange. I was under the impression that if I gave a check mark, it would take my question off of the active list and therefore no more people would see my question. When I asked for access to my server, it was more of a question of "How do I start installing Magento and working on my website." My unfamiliarity with dedicated servers led me to believe that once I signed in I'd be good to go, but I now realize there is a lot more involved. I'll keep your comments in mind in the future. And @warren - thanks for all the excellent help! :) – Nick Mar 30 '11 at 21:22
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@Nick - no worries, it's a new system that takes some getting used to. Feel free to ask as many questions as you like though, just as long as each one is its own question :) – Mark Henderson♦ Mar 30 '11 at 21:57
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up vote 1 down vote

Most FTP clients (such as Filezilla) support SFTP - just type in the server's IP address, 'root' for the username, and your root password, then change the port to 22. This will give you full access to all your files on the server.

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Have you tried FTPing to the IP address that you were given, using the username and password that were provided to you?

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I tried this, but it did not work. – Nick Mar 30 '11 at 19:16
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this might be that FTP is not installed or the firewall from the hosting provider is by default restricting port 21, give them a call and have them open it to your server from X network to Y server (x=your network) (y=the servers ip) Managed hosting might be something you will wont to look for later on. – Nick O'Neil Mar 30 '11 at 20:08
up vote 0 down vote

If they just gave you a dedicated server with a base install of CentOS, it sounds like there is going to be a good amount of configuration required before you're able to use it as a webserver. I'd check with the provider to see what features they installed and what they allow through their firewall.

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