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I just bought a VPS on Jaquar PC. I am web designer migrating due to high usage and the need to upgrade. While I understand DNS, MX records and various tech stuff setting up VPS was a fairly a different ball game. I bought a WHM-cpanel . Not sure if I need other top layer software to manage the rest.

its a centos based VPS with 128RAM. I have set up DNS,Few domains, ftp etc.
Now the problem
1. What are things I need to take care - security? domains setups? permissions? attacks?
2. Where can I find and learn only whats required not overload my self with all the jargons of the world.
3. Basically be a SERVER ADMIN

PS: I am newbie. Sorry if I wasted your 45secs with the above explanation. But I just didn't know where to learn from. Thanks a bunch!

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  • Questions relating to professional education are off topic per the revised FAQ.
    – sysadmin1138 ♦
    Oct 10, 2012 at 21:53

2 Answers 2

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These are some areas/questions you should concern yourself with:

  1. Security. Is the firewall locked down? Is there a strong root password? Do users have the lowest level of permissions possible to accomplish what they need?

  2. Backups. What happens if my hard drive crashes? Can a hacker delete my backups?

  3. Disaster Recovery. What happens if my host is unavailable due to an extended power outage at their NOC or a natural disaster? Will my clients understand or will they expect me to have another solution. If so, what is my plan?

  4. Monitoring. If I'm not the road, how will I know if my server is down? What can I do about it if that happens?

  5. Patches and Maintenance. How do I know if there is a new patch available for my OS or one of my key applications? What is my plan for applying those patches? What other maintenance tasks do I want to do weekly or monthly such as archive log files?

So, armed with those areas and sets of questions, your next task will be figuring out how to answer those questions to your satisfaction.

I would recommend you purchase a beginners books such as Linux Administration: A Beginner's Guide to start, and if you want more information on various aspects (security, disaster recovery, etc.) either ask more pointed questions here or look at some other books.

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You should be looking up tutorials for the various systems you will require. howtoforge is a great place for this.

Also, you should secure your SSH access as soon as possible. I recommend changing the default port, using key-based authentication and disabling password authentication and root logins (basically create a standard user account for you to log in with).

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