How to Setup a VPS with Ubuntu Server

[Micah J Berman]

Table of Contents

Part 1 - Intro

Part 2 - No-Ip

Part 3 - Gui

Part 4 - Admin Panel

Part 5 - Summing Up

What You Will Need

TightVNC

Basic Knowledge of Linux

Part 1 - Intro

I know many of you understand what a VPS is and how to operate it, but until recently i had almost no idea how to work with them correctly. A VPS is a Virtual Private Server, most of the time hosted by dedicated server companies. However you can use your home computer as a virtual server as well. To do this you need to install Ubuntu Server and for those of you using a vps through a hosting company or computer that is inaccesable at the moment you need PuTTy. To connect via putty you need to know the IP address and port, the usual ports to connect are 22, 1022, and 80. The default username for a VPS is usually root when you are using a dedicated host from another company. I registered with www.delimiter.us which offers unlimited bandwidth and a variety of server locations for just under $20. At the moment you have not installed the desktop gui so when you connect with PuTTy all you will see is what we call the "Console". It is the equivalent of a Terminal in Ubuntu's gui.

Part 2 - No-Ip

We will be taking a slight detour to setup the server's hostname. You will need to go to www.no-ip.org and create an account. After you have done all of that come back to this tutorial and do as instructed. Now that you are finished registering go to your account and create a host. Now you HAVE to fill in what is marked on this picture, for the IP address just put your server's Ip.

Overview your selections and hit "Create".

Part 3 - Gui

Now we come back to the server, login to your console via PuTTy. We are going to install a Gnome Gui for ubuntu which will look like the normal ubuntu releases. First though we need to install the tightvnc server by typing this code into PuTTy

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

Now to execute the Gui and make it usable on your VNC viewer type this code

vncserver :1 -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 -pixelformat rgb565

where it says 1024x768 just change that to whatever screen dimensions you have if you would like to use it in fullscreen. Now the VNC server might not recognize Gnome as the default GUI so you need to type this command to change the default GUI

sudo nano ~/.vnc/xstartup

and where it says

Gnome-Session &

above that add a # in front of

x-window-manager

Now you have fully set up your GUI! Now when you download tightVNC you will need to open up the VIEWER, not the SERVER, this would be located in the program files under tightVNC.

Part 4 - Admin Panel

We will be using "Webmin" for our admin panel, if you want to use something different then please follow the instructions of the website for your alternative. So first we will want to go to the Webmin website (http://www.webmin.com/) and locate the latest verson which happens to be "1.570" save this number. Now to install Webmin you will need to open up terminal and do the following command

sudo aptitude install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl

Now to install Webmin you will need to locate your file version and do a quick modification of my command

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.570_all.deb

Where it says "1.570" on the code, make it your current version number. Now to install the package type this following command

sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.570_all.deb

again replacing 1.570 with your current version. Now to view the administration panel you will need to open your web browser and type this url

http://localhost:10000

This is usually the default, if not change it to your ip address.

Part 4 - Summing Up

Now that you have your server set up you can now access it directly at

http://yourno-ipdomainhere:10000

Also if you want to create a website using your server you will need to figure out where the public files go. The directory would be

var/www

go there and add every file you have that you want to make viewable to the web. When you finish go to your no-ip domain and from there you will be able to view your website! I hope you have learned alot from this tutorial and i would also like to thank my friend Saphire' for helping me setup my Server. This tutorial is subject to change and i would recommend looking at the versions of the software i used before continuing, i have posted them bellow.

SOFTWARE VERSIONS

Ubuntu Server 10

Webmin 1.570

PuTTy Beta 0.62