Security and protection is very important when it comes to dedicated servers. Firewall basically refers to devices which allow or deny traffic or any incoming or outgoing connections based upon set of rules. It normally operates within a single network or over various networks in large operations. It prevents any network threats. It’s architecture is to block any vulnerable threats to the main server. On a linux server, we can also configure IPtables or csf firewall through cPanel.

It basically filters packets or units of data transfers basically TCP and UDP traffic. Cisco are known for their firewall appliances which ofcourse compete with other appliances such as Juniper. Some of the linux firewall include Cisco ASA, Coyote Linux etc. Windows Operating Systems offer in-built Firewall, famously known as Windows Firewall. However, we can also configure hardware firewall such as Cisco etc.

Security is a very important concept today and it definitely needs implementation on every dedicated server.

You can use Plesk control panel to automatically back up your domains for this you will have to enable FTP Backup on your dedicated server .

You will need to specify your FTP server settings in Plesk, and after that you can schedule automated backups.

Steps to configure Your FTP Server Settings in Plesk are as follows:-

1) First log in to Plesk control panel as administrator.
2) On the Domain administration page for the domain you want to back up, click the Backup icon.
3) Now click the FTP Account Properties icon.
4) In the FTP server field, type in the IP address for your FTP Backup server.
5) Type in the user name (login) and password for your FTP Backup server.
6) Click OK.

Steps to schedule Automated Backups in Plesk control panel:-

1) Click the Scheduled Backup Settings icon.
2) Now select how often you want to create a backup (daily, weekly, or monthly).
3) Select the location for your backup files.
4) Specify the maximum number of backups. When you reach the maximum number of backups, Plesk will automatically remove the oldest backups.
5) Enter the name the backup files should begin with.
6) Click OK.

How to install FFmpeg on Linux VPS?

FFmpeg is an important application software which is used to run a video website with streaming with conversion of video files into various video formats. By following the below steps you can install FFmpeg software easily on linux servers without compiling the files.

yum install ffmpeg

If you will get command not found, then you will have to add few lines in the yum repository for dag installation.

Create a file named dag.repo in /etc/yum.repos.d with the following contents on it

[dag]
name=Dag RPM Repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el$releasever/en/$basearch/dag
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

then

yum update

yum install ffmpeg

If everything works fine, then the installation should proceed smoothly and if not then you will get something like warning GPG public key missing .

To fix rpmforge GPG key warning:

rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm

Most commonly you have GLIB 2.3 installed instead of GLIB 2.4 version. To check the current GLIB version installed on your server. just use

yum list glib*

and it will list all the packages whether installed or not. Try to see whether Glibc 2.4 installed, if not you will need to upgrade your Centos to latest version of 5.

How to check the ffmpeg working?
Finally, check the ffmpeg whether it is working or not.

> ffmpeg
> ffmpeg -formats
> ffmpeg –help
// This lists path of mpeg, its modules and other path information
> ffmpeg -i Input.file Output.file

To check what audi/video formats are supported
ffmpeg -formats > ffmpeg-format.txt

Open the ffmpeg-formats.txt to see the ooutput

D means decode
E means encode
V means video
A means audio
T = Truncated

How to install FFMPEG-PHP Extension?

FFmpeg-php is a very good extension and wrapper for PHP which can pull useful information about video through API interface. Inorder to install it you will have to download the source file and then compile and install extension on your server. You can download the source tarball from : http://ffmpeg-php.sourceforge.net/

wget /path/to/this/file/ffmpeg-php-0.5.2.1.tbz2

tar -xjf ffmpeg-0.5.2.1.tbz2

phpize

./configure
make
make install

Common types of Errors are as follows:-

1)If you get command not found error for phpize, then you will need to do yum install php-devel

2)If you get an error like shared libraries not found problem and the program stops in the middle, then you must specify the ffmpeg installed path explicitly to the ./configure.

3)“configure: error: ffmpeg shared libraries not found. Make sure ffmpeg is compiled as shared libraries using the –enable-shared option”

How to fix these errors:

1) First find out the ffmpeg path with ffmpeg –help command. The prefix default path should be like /usr/local/cpffmpeg
2) Configure the FFmpeg-php with –with-ffmpeg option

./configure –with-ffmpeg=/usr/local/cpffmpeg

There are multiple reasons why someone would want to have multiple domain hosting. For example, if you are running more than one affiliate websites, you will require a different domain name for every single one. or, someone who has many blogs on different topics may also want more than one domain names. If you have a need for multiple domain hosting, you will want to be careful when choosing a Web host to purchase from.

Many companies make it difficult or impossible to have multiple domain hosting with one Web hosting account and may require you to purchase separate Web hosting space for each domain name. The problem with this is that you may receive 5GB worth of space per account and only use 1GB. This means that, with five separate domain names, you will be paying five times as much as you would be without this rule.
With Bodhost you will not face such problems.You can host multiple domains on one single VPS or Dedicated server.

Why do multiple website builders use Linux web hosting?

Most of the people uses Linux OS because of stability. Linux is perhaps the most stable OS(operating system) in the world.

Why is Linux Operating System is stable?

Servers running Linux web hosting just might be more stable because Linux is an open source OS. The code is open to the public so that anyone can read it and suggest improvements or point out bugs. Over the years, Linux has been developed in many flavors such as Red Hat and Debian. Large number of people have contributed their time and effort for making Linux web hosting run faster and to provide simpler, more efficient and bug free code. With an open programming environment, improvements are made on a continual basis and problems are seen relatively quickly and solved with a minimum of difficulty.
When you are starting a new website, one of your chief concerns about it is stability. Any time that the website spends offline as a result of technical problems is time that your customers are unable to use your website, and this is bad for your bottom line. Businesses tend to want the most stable OS for their web sites to minimize the dreaded server crash.

Another issue that you have to consider when setting up a new online website is whether the OS they are using will be able to use the full range of software and scripts that they require. Again, Linux web hosting is a winner in this regard. Lots of major web hosting companies offer Linux web hosting and with so many people using it around the world anything that you can do with Windows hosting can also be done with Linux web hosting. Many of the most popular script packages on the web today are available in both Windows and Linux web hosting versions, with the Linux web hosting version generally being more stable and having all of the same features as their Windows cousins. This is of course my opinion and I am sure that there are some who may disagree.

Linux web hosting is typically available at the same price as Windows web hosting. So consider that for the same price you can get an operating system for your website on the world wide web which is:

1) stable
2) runs popular script packages
3) considered the best operating system in the world in terms of these criteria by many of the internet’s most well respected independent sources of judgement.

So getting your web server with the Linux operating system is particular important for companies which require to set up eCommerce websites. When customers depends on your website for sending in their orders, you need to make sure that you website is running twenty four hours a day.

PHP also includes GD library which is utilized to edit graphics. it can create thumbnail images or even drawing graphs. Many edits can be done easily and we can also apply photo filters. We can create GIF, PNG, JPG from the code. Once it is enabled on the server, we can easily download it and create thumbnails and many more.

GD library is supported on VPS Hosting packages.

Dedicated Servers were originally sold at very high prices due to the hardware cost and setup of huge datacenter which had servers which were size of a mid-size fridge. However, with time and technology, they turned over-time and they were much easily affordable by price. Combination of good hardware, network connections, processors and many more combine to result in dedicated server which were always dreamed of. Their sleek size and fit-to-space advantage took over all the other aspects. Newer technology such as Dual Cores, AMD X2’s and then Quad Cores and Dual Quad Core’s were introduced for responsive and dynamic performance. Many Brands also provide high-end corporate servers which range upto 2TB of RAM or above. Their processors are designed to provide optimal performance.

Every Aspect of a dedicated server should be understood before it has been bought. Setup of Load-balancing servers were brought in soon after the requirements itself demanded much more than what a dedicated server can provide. Client’s required to run their services on parallel nodes. There have been many changes that we brought-in within the infrastructure of a server.

Today, it’s reliability and individuality is well known and still remains unmatched to any other hosting package. Bodhost has been providing quality dedicated servers which are fully managed and monitored 24×7 round the clock by special dedicated team of experts. Not only this, all servers are setup on branded Dell or SuperMicro Hardware Chassis to ensure the hardware are rebust.

Before migration you should warn your customers plenty of time you can call it a server upgrade.

The major advantage of having a VPS is that you have more control of your websites. You probably have root access and you can do things like shutting down the mail server during the transfer however, if you are hosting domains for others, then there is the problem of passwords. When you move to the new server you will need to re-create domains and user accounts, but you won’t have access to the passwords set by your customers. Generally you will need to issue your customers new passwords.

For example if your VPS uses Plesk then migration becomes more easier. This software includes a great tool called the Migration Manager which supports migrating from remote servers using Plesk 2.5.x, 5.x, 6.x, and 7.x, as well as Confixx 2, Ensim 3.5.x, and cPanel 9.

To use the Migration Manager you will need to enter the remote host address , the login name (normally root) and the password. After that you set the remote system type (Plesk, cPanel, etc.) and click Next. The Migration Manager will then send an agent to the remote server and offer you a list of domains and clients on the remote server.

If you will migrate a client it will bring over the client data (like username and password) and all the domains belonging to that client. If you import a domain you will have to have a client account ready on the new server to take ownership of the imported domain.

By moving data through Migration Manager you will not face any problem.

Important things you should remember before Migration:-

1) When moving a servers you need to keep downtime to a minimum.

2) Plan properly so that your users may not even notice that you have switched servers.

3) If possible, perform a trial run of the actual move.

4) No one will see your new website because you won’t update DNS yet. To enable you to see your new site, edit the /etc/hosts file on your client and add your domain name (including the www) with the new IP address. You should also restart your browser. Don’t forget to remove this entry when you have finished experimenting.

Moving your servers data is not difficult if you plan accordingly.

A complete migration of a website involves transferring the website data itself,it means all the HTML and possibly PHP and MySQL files and CGI programs. For this you will also need to modify the DNS (Domain Name System)information for the website and for the routing of the website email. DNS (Domain Name System) keeps the information that translates IP addresses to human-readable domain names. For any Website migration, the two important DNS records are the address (A) record, which says the browser the IP address of the Web server, and the mail exchange (MX) record, which guides mail servers how to route the email.

When you wants to migrate your Web site to another hosting provider, you will need to update DNS to point browsers to the new location of your website. However, it can take as long as 12-48 hours for DNS updates to propagate to all DNS servers on the web.

Many times your domain name has been registered through a 3rd party domain name registration company. When you move the website, your domain name and company remains the same, and only your Webhosting company changes. If your domain name originaly came with hosting, you may need to contact your old hosting company to see if you can separate the hosting package from the domain name.

The keys to a successful migration are preparation and planning. Before moving you should inform your users or customers of the forthcoming upgrade. Prepare a “server down for upgrade” page for your old website. Please note the IP addresses of your new and old servers; these will come in handy when DNS is still in flux.

First decide the time when you wants to upgrade, meaning when your server is least busy. If you have website statistics, use those to determine the best time. To reduce down time, it is best to make the DNS changes several hours before you actually move the domain. As long as your mail server is running on the new server, you will not lose any email messages. If you have a static website, you can copy over the data before you switch DNS and no one will ever know your hosting provider changed.

The DNS changes you will need to make involves updating the MX and A records to point to your new server. For that, you will need to access the control panel provided by the domain name registration company from which you obtained your domain name. new MX record will need to point to the new server. For example A records, MX records can take some while to propagate through the Internet. To avoid mail loss you will need to check your old mailbox at least once a couple of days after the move. You will also need to use the IP address of the old mail server rather than its domain name, as you won’t be able to rely on mail.domain.com to check the old mailbox, as that will point to your new server. Depending on how much control you have of your old server, you could shut down the mail server after modifying the MX records, in which case incoming mail would queue up until the new mail server is running, at which point it would be delivered without problems.

How to move a website files?

Once you have changed the DNS information, after that it’s time to tackle the data itself. HTML and PHP files are not hard to move; just use a good FTP program and copy the data from one server to the other. If you have SSH access to both of the servers you can copy the files directly. If you don’t, you will have to download the files to a local machine and then upload them to the new server.

How to move Database from one server to the another?

1)Moving databases is a bit difficult. For example if you are using MySQL, there are many ways to copy over the data. One is to do a dump of the data into a file and then copy that file to the new server and populate the new database. To do this you use the mysqldump command:

$ mysqldump -p -u username mydatabase > mydata.sql

Once copied onto the new server your can populate your new database with the mysql command:

$ mysql -p -u username mydatabase < mydata.sql

2) If you do not have SSH access to your servers than you would not be able to use these MySQL commands, but you can still use a tool such as phpMyAdmin which handles MySQL administration over the Web. phpMyAdmin has excellent dump and restore features, though for the restore there is a maximum upload file size of 2,048KB. You can use compression to maximize your chances of squeezing all of your data into 2MB.

3) If you lack SSH access and you have too much data for phpMyAdmin to handle, look into a MySQL synchronization tool called SQLyog Job Agent (SJA).

4) If all of the above fails you will need to ask the support team of your old hosting company to dump your database for you. Then you will need to ask the support team of your new hosting company to populate the new database.

If you have a website with dynamic data, such as an e-commerce website, you will need to make special provisions for the DNS update delays. As the DNS changes propagate through the Internet some people will see your new website and others your old. This could cause problems for you. Imagine if a customer placing an order on your old website after you have moved all the data over to your new website.

You can deal with this problem by 2 different ways.

First, stop taking orders from the old website once you have started the move. At the checkout stage display a polite notice asking customers to come back in a couple of hours, after which they should be taken to the new website. If you don’t have that kind of control over your website then the best thing is to close down the old website by replacing its index.html with a notice saying the server is down for upgrades and will be back soon. An alternative solution is to use a synchronization tool like SJA to make sure any changes made on the old website get propagated to the new one.

Finally, watch out for incompatibilities between the software on your old server and that on the new. Try to make sure that any difference in versions of crucial software like MySQL and PHP won’t cause any problems.

It is assumed that you have OpenVZ installed on your server.

How to get OpenVZ templates?

OpenVZ uses a OS(Operating System) template system, ie every single VPS created with OpenVZ can have its own Operating System template like Fedora Core, Debian,CentOS.
You can download OpenVZ Operating System templates from OpenVZ template website. Note that each OS templates has its own hardware version . Make sure that you are choosing the right OS template for your server hardware.

The templates has to be saved in /var/lib/vz/template/cache in compressed format (gzip, tar). You need not decompress them.

How to create a VPS with OpenVZ?

The syntax to create a VPS in OpenVZ is
vzctl create vpsid –ostemplate ostemplatename

Replace vpsid with a number (above 100) and
Replace ostemplatename with the name of the preferred OS template you want for that VPS.

for example
Quote:
vzctl create 105 –ostemplate centos-4-i386-default
This would create a VPS with VPS_ID 105, with centos-4-i386-default OS template

After the VPS is created, you will find its
File System at /var/lib/vz/root/vpsid (example /var/lib/vz/root/105), and
Private Area at /var/lib/vz/private/vpsid (example /var/lib/vz/private/105)

Adding ip address to a VPS and creating networking

The command syntax below to add networking to the existing VPS

Quote:
vzctl set –ipadd ipaddr –nameserver nameserverIP –hostname hostname –save
The –ipadd parameter assigns the IP address to the first venet interface in the guest OS, the –hostname assigns the VPS its hostname, and the –nameserver parameter provides the first nameserver.

Hpw to Assign fixed amount of RAM for the created VPS?

Here is an example of setting the VPS with a guaranteed 256 MB RAM and a maximum of 1GB RAM.
Quote:
vzctl set vpsid –vmguarpages 65536 –save
vzctl set vpsid –privvmpages 262144 –save
vmguarpages ->The memory that is ‘guaranteed’ to the VPS
privvmpages -> The ‘maximum’ amount of memory that will be granted to the VPS

Replace vpsid with with the VPS_ID. Example:
Quote:
vzctl set 105 –vmguarpages 65536 –save
vzctl set 105 –privvmpages 262144 –save
Start your VPS with the command
Quote:
vzctl start vpsid
As an example
Quote:
vzctl start 105