VPS Hosting Stuff

OpenVZ:
Advantages: allows overselling. Very light weight. Can accommodate more Virtual Machines in a server.

Disadvantage: There is no per vps swap.

Why this is important:

OpenVZ will KILL your application if it goes beyond the limit, and this can cause some trouble. There are people out there who want to host oracle on a 64MB vps, and with such customers, using openVZ will lead to constant application crashes, which ultimately will be blamed on the provider. (This is actually something that is common with openvz/virtuozzo hosting in general; you can check some threads at wht).

With Xen, each vps has its own swap, and thus you get an EXACT dedicated server like environment, but with lesser resources. So here, the customers applications will NOT crash, but rather it will become slower. Also, majority of the applications, like apache, spamassassin expects a lot of memory, and openVZ makes memory a very valuable commodity.

So generally my recommendation is that: For friendly customers use openVZ, and use a lot of burst memory. For not-so-friendly customers, use Xen. And that is why we are providing transparent migration. You can start a customer on openVZ, and see how it works out, and if he is getting too many application crashes, you can move him to the SAME configuration on Xen, and he should be able to do fine, though his application would be slower.

Latest offering provides a number of new advantages and makes it even easier to manage virtual private servers.

Host Color, a provider of Virtuozzo VPS Hosting, today announced that it has made available Plesk 9.0 web hosting control panel to its VPS hosting customers.

The company claims that it has recently upgraded VPS Hosting services, and now powers them with the latest version of Virtuozzo Containers - Virtuozzo 4.0. The new Virtuozzo offers a number of new advantages and makes even easier the management of a virtual private server. It has better design interface that provides access to templates and sample virtual environments, plus a streamlined installation. The new release also offers “high availability” through a several new options to ensure maximum uptime and new backup enhancements, it adds.

“We are ready to provide stable VPS Hosting services with the new Plesk 9.0 web hosting control panel”, said Host Color’s Managing Director Alexander Avramov and advised the company’s customers to use the days before Christmas or vacation period to upgrade their software.

“There are many great features in Plesk Panel 9.0 such as enhanced interface for efficient navigation and the addition of a Reseller mode which enables our Resellers to better manage their VPS and to better organize their offerings”, said Mr. Avramov.

Bodhost.com, a renowned Dedicated Server Hosting and Virtual Private Servers provider announced the launch of its new VPS Hosting offering “Guaranteed 100% Uptime Fail-Over VPS Hosting!”. The Fail-over VPS plan is a fully managed solution which combines the flexibility of Virtual Hosting with the luxury of 100% uptime guarantee at the most economical price.

This 100% Uptime guarantee VPS hosting is primarily aimed at corporate customers who need high uptime solution of a dedicated server mirroring setup but without the high costs usually associated with these setups. The fully managed VPS features 2 GB RAM, 60 GB disk space and 800 GB data transfer per month.

The company says it’s technical team has carried out in-depth research and development work to come up with a viable solution thereby making sure that their customers receive the most reliable VPS hosting service.

Each Fail-over VPS is created on two servers, a primary server and a secondary server which is setup on a separate part of the network. Data is continuously synchronized between the primary VPS and the secondary VPS to ensure that the secondary VPS is constantly updated with the latest files/configuration as the primary VPS. The secondary VPS is basically an identical copy of the server the primary VPS is setup on. If for some reason the primary server goes down, IPs would automatically be assigned to the secondary server which would allow a VPS to carry on functioning, without exposing it to any downtime.

Mark Philips, Chief Marketing Officer, Bodhost says “Over the years our clients have frequently asked for a VPS Hosting solution with some form of redundancy.”

He states further, “We were very conscious about creating a solution which is completely redundant but cost effective at the same time. With these views in mind, we set about creating a redundant Virtual Private Server solution. After many attempts, our technicians finally came up with a viable solution.”

About Bodhost :
Bodhost is a quality U.S. web hosting company incorporated in San Jose, CA. The company’s VPS Hosting and Dedicated Servers range is backed by superior network connectivity, branded server hardware, 24x 7 technical support (Email, Live Chat and Phone) and round the clock server monitoring.

###

New VPS hosting plans using CentOS 5, include latest versions of all Applications.

eApps Hosting, a hosting provider, today announced the immediate availability of new virtual private server hosting plans using the CentOS 5 operating system and offering up-to-date versions of all application services.

The company states that VPS Hosting plans now run on CentOS 5.1. It includes the Apache 2.2 web server, which offers many new features over the prior version. Furthermore, the new hosting plans have been built with a repository-based application delivery system which makes it easy for Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails developers to take advantage of the latest versions of their programming environment, database servers and related applications. It also states that the application repository contains up-to-date versions of Java, Tomcat, JBoss, PHP, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, PostgreSQL, WordPress, graphics libraries, mail services, Joomla!, Drupal, streaming media servers, and many other applications. The company avers that all applications included in the their Application Repository can be installed by a single click, are kept up-to-date and are covered by a 24/7 phone support program.

Guaranteed memory is defined as the usable memory out of the memory available in VPS. This is available for the user at all time. Very often this guaranteed memory can be changed to burstable memory by the VPS.

Burstable memory set a maximum limit for the memory available where as guaranteed memory is a minimum limit. That is, even if the guaranteed memory is exhausted, the users of VPS can use the memory up to the limit of burstable memory. The simplest example to understand the difference is: if the guaranteed memory of a VPS is 256mb and the burstable memory limit is 1024 mb, the users can use the remaining 768MB RAM once their guaranteed memory is completely used up. This is possible only if the host server has that much memory available with it.

It is always a procedure to keep certain part of the memory in host server as burstable. This can be used by the virtual servers when they are in need of extra memory. Also the guaranteed memory unused in any virtual server can be used by other virtual servers when they want burstable memory. It is known that guaranteed memory should be available for use for the virtual servers. So when they are in need of guaranteed RAM, they usually kill the processes that use their memory as burstable to get the memory released. So it is always better not to use the burstable memory unless it is so needed.

When trying to get a VPS server, it should be clearly understood that the memory availability that they demand is not burst memory. The guaranteed memory must be available in sufficient amount to get proper working in VPS. The memory burstable is not readily available always as it can be obtained only on a lapse of guaranteed memory by other virtual servers in the system.

Virtual private server is the technique of splitting the physical server into many virtual servers to get multiple servers. This is mainly a cost effective technique. The physical servers are really very costly. So when these can be split to many logical servers, the cost remains the same of getting a physical server. But at the same time, there are many servers available. This is mainly useful in the hosting of web sites. So the users often come up with the doubt of whether VPS is a best choice for them. It is essential to understand the scenario to answer the question.

VPS is ideal for those web developers who are technically advanced. Those who require access to the root server for their administrative purposes can go for a VPS hosting service. They aim at getting total control over the system.

Those who want a control over the resources in the server can opt VPS. The control over space and the programs necessarily requires the system to be VPS. The users can allocate the resources as per the availability when he can carry out the administration of the environment.

If you want to start a hosting company aiming at making profit in your business, then VPS is a right choice for you.

A virtual private server (VPS, also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS) is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers such that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted.

VPS Advantages
==============

The main advantage of VPS is the ability of each server to execute independently. The servers run on their own OS and resources. Each server has no access to the resources or software running on any other server connected to the same physical server. So when there is any problem in the working of one of the servers, the total performance is never affected. Only the affected server needs to be halted and all others continue delivering their service.

One of the main advantages of using VPS is the reduced cost in obtaining multiple physical servers. The expense required to get multiple resources and network can be lessened as the physical server is virtually partitioned. Each server has all the functionalities of a real server but at the same time there is no need of getting the real server for use. This is mainly beneficial when the servers of architecture like mainframe are too costly to buy. There you can emulate the servers and reduce the over all expense.

Each server has its own share of CPU, memory and bandwidth. They need not compete for these resources. The end result is a high performance system capable of doing multiple tasks for any number of users. The virtual servers never get access to the resources of other virtual servers in the system, though they can access the physical server through proper access requests.

The users can install their own software in their virtual server. The update or integration of this software in no way will affect other servers in the system. Users can never look into the data existing in other servers of the system. No transparency is available to the data or resources of the servers from another server of the system. Thus privacy and security is ensured in the system.

The servers have their own operating system. This allows for their rebooting without affecting the physical or virtual servers in the system. The highly efficient control panel helps in the up gradation of software in the virtual servers.

The traffic at the physical server can be divided into the virtual servers. This helps to get rid of the issues related to the demand for resources and servers in the system. The traffic at one of the servers will never slow down the performance or execution time of another server as complete isolation is provided in the virtualized environment.

Because of these advantages of virtual private servers, they are in great demand in the business sectors. Those who are web hosting resellers use this technology to help their clients to get a server that has all the functions of the root server. This will help them to get more money at the expense of little cost from their pocket.

STEPS TO TAKE BACKUP :
You will need to install the perl Lchown module on the backup server. So on the backup server run this:

perl -MCPAN -e “install Lchown”

To add a central backup server, first go to  admin home -> central backup servers  and add the servers by providing the parameters there. The parameters are:

Backup Server Name/Ip

Slave-ID Slave ID is needed if you want the browse backup feature, that allows the end user to browse and restore his own backup files individually. To enable browse-backup, you have to add the backup-server into the hyperVM cluster, and then provide the slave-id of the backup-server here.

SSH Port :
Backup Root Directory : This is the core root directory where the backup will be stored. For instance, /mnt/backup/hypervm/ . The backup of the vps will be stored inside this directory.
Number of Backups : This is the total number of backups to be taken. The default is 3, but you can set upto 7. This many backups will be permanently stored on the backup server.

You can add many backup-servers here.

After adding the backup-servers, go to server home -> central backup config and then set the central Backup Server for this particular slave. Many slaves can share one backup server. If you want the old setup, just add one backup-server, and then set this as the backup-server for all the slaves.

To enable backup for a vps, you will need to set the central backup feature, by going to vps home -> limit and checking the enable central backup

The steps required for backup:

a) You have to create a passwordless ssh channel from the master to each backup server. This is the only ssh access you will need to configure. This can be accomplished by running the scpid.sh script that comes with hypervm.

cd /usr/local/lxlabs/hypervm/httpdocs/
//foreach backupserver
sh ../bin/common/scpid.sh root@servername

The username has to be root, since you need to replicate entire userids on the backup server.

b) Setup Osimages on each backupserver.

cd /usr/local/lxlabs/hypervm/httpdocs/

//foreach backupserver
lphp.exe ../bin/backuposimage.php –backuplocation=root@servername:/full/path/to/backup/directory/ –sshport=$sshport

The above will automaticaly setup all the Osimages from the master in the backup server. The backuplocation is a composite string of the form user@server:/full/path, where ‘full/path’ is the location on the backupserver which is going to the root directory for the backups. Please note that you have to provide full paths, since otherwise the rsnapshot program will not work. The vps backups will be taken relative to the Osimage the vps is created from.

cd /usr/local/lxlabs/hypervm/httpdocs/

lphp.exe ../bin/vpsbackup.php –newarg=true

d) Schedule it everyday in cron. Or whatever period you want the backup to happen.

The central backup flag is managed via the resource plans and also in vps home -> limit . You can enable/disable central backup for VPSes by changing them either in the limits or in the resource plans.

The –newarg=true is to distinguish the current configuration from the old one. If you don’t provide the newarg=true , the backup script will fail and send a warning message to admin.

SOURCE : lxlabs.com

Create backup

cp -vr /vz/private/101 /vz/backup/

or

rsync -vaP /vz/private/101/ /vz/backup/101

Restore backup

tar -cvzf backup/101.tar.gz backup/101
scp backup/101.tar.gz host:

HyperVM is a web based application that will allow you to create and manage different Virtual Machines each with each vps having its own Operating System. HyperVM also allows you to run multiple HyperVM servers linked together providing a tree of host servers.

HyperVM advanced features allow you to manage your vps hosting from a single console. HyperVm has been optimized for allowing you to have HyperVM clustered servers from anywhere in the world. These are some of HyperVM features:

Downloading HyperVM

1. hypervm-install-master.sh
2. hypervm-install-slave.sh

* Getting Ready for Install

1. disable selinux (edit /etc/sysconfig/selinux <– change to [SELINUX=disabled])
2. setenforce 0
3. chkconfig libvirtd off
4. reboot

* Installing HyperVM

1. cd DIROFHyperVM/
2. sh ./hypervm-install-master.sh –virtualization-type=xen

If this errors during install just rerun the command and if HyperVM is already install just type yes

* Once server is booted

1. ssh into the server
2. ssh back into server cd /usr/local/lxlabs/hypervm/httpdocs/
3. Type in command prompt: lphp.exe ../bin/common/setdriver.php –server=localhost –class=vps –driver=xen
4. This can take a few minute’s to become enabled sometimes we have had issues and use service xend restart
5. In web browser to http://IP:8887 or http://IP:8888 of the host computers IPLogin is admin password is also admin change once inside
6. Once you have logged in as admin add the extra IP address on the servers to HyperVM IP POOL list
7. Go the VM tab
8. Click ADD XEN
9. Set the name vm name
10. Password
11. Number of IPs allowed to use
12. Hostname of the server
13. Gateway IP of the HOST network
14. IF you have multiple VMServers you can now select from which gateway the IP class is on
15. If you only have one leave localhost
16. Select OS
17. Click ADD
18. Select Disk quota
19. Number of backups allowed of the vps
20. Skip the next 3 they are for Openvz
21. Set VPS real memory allowed from Hosting server example: 128 256 512 all are in mb
22. CPU usage allowed from host computer in percent example of on core host: 10 20 25
23. With Single Core host you are allowed 100% if you have Dual or Quad core you are allowed 200%-400%
24. Traffic monthly in mb <— TRAFFICinGB x 1024
25. Number of IP address allowed to use
26. Check or uncheck if you allow backup schedule or backups allowed
27. Click add
28. Hypervm VPS will be installed.