Dedicated Servers: My experience renting an unmanaged server with no experience

Everett Level X⁴

December 22, 2016, 10:12 am

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Dedicated Servers: My experience renting an unmanaged server with no experience

Why I initially bought a dedicated server (the back story).

Generally I buy cheap hosting packages. And when I mean cheap.. I mean cheap! For instance, currently I have a shared hosting plan that costs, wait for it, .. $1.50 a month.

Here's the specs for my $1.50 a month plan:

2GB Disk space
40GB Bandwidth
5 Addon Domains
99 Other Features

Now, this plan works for small blogs, or small websites with not a lot of traffic, but if you have multiple websites, and use cron jobs like I do then it causes your hosting account to max out. My little hosting account got maxed out due to 2 websites which use cron jobs, they are a MMORPG text based game that requires time intrevals.

So, I had to get off of their host because with that little plan my games wouldn't function properly. This lead me to buying a dedicated server for $19.95 a month, and cPanel WHM(web host manager) dedicated license at $65 a month. So that is a total of $64.95.

Experience with a dedicated server from one who has no idea what they are doing.
Upon purchasing a dedicated server, I was already aware of unmanaged, versus managed. I bought the unmanaged server. The reasoning behind this is because it generally costs less, and you get to learn how to manage the server yourself.

However, for me, someone who never used a dedicated server let alone an unmanged one, is really confusing. For instance, if I want to shut down a particular service, I have to run a program called PuTTy and enter commands. Never have I ever entered commands into a server before.

One thing you need to do is quickly learn what command does what. I'm still trying to figure all of this out. I am only surviving by using tutorials to turn a certain service off, or on, or restarting the entire server. The commands for me, are the hardest part, because there is a LOT of commands.

Another thing is, it's unmanaged. If you need to update something, like updated versions of Kernal, then guess what.. you have to do it yourself. This isn't too hard, but if you fail to update the kernal system then you could actually ruin your entire server. Like if you're updating, and your internet goes out you're basically screwed. And this has already happened to me. I had to wait for the server company's support team to get back to me to fix it.

It's so confusing, but fun at the same time. Hopefully after all of this confusion is gone, or well most of it, I will be able to run my dedicated unmanaged server without the help of online tutorials, or the server company's support.

If you ever want to get a dedicated server, research is key. Find the best company for your needs. Don't shop for the lowest price on servers, you will truly get what you pay for. Get managed servers if you can, if you can afford the price of them. And try using a Web Host Manager (WHM) like cPanel.

Closing thoughts
Servers are like children, if you neglect them your server will 'die'. It's a pain, and there's confusion at first. But if you stick with it, you learn, and won't have any future problems.

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I tend to work windows based (yes i know) and these servers offer the earth but they are using virtual servers and they only give you about 0.5% of CPU time-slice and you can get into lots of trouble because i've seen server-side VB script in the old ASP pages running some real strange version of script that would not even compile to run.

Once i was using ASP-Net to host pages for me and a fake email from the FBI got me closed down because i had upset a very big household name and they sent the gang after me, well professorial and to read the email you would be convinced yourself but after i asked them to check it out they put me back on line and a week later they fell for another scam letter so i gave in paying for services like that.

Can you not host your site from home ?

Mine runs red-hot at times, like 1tb of BitTorrent seeds a month and now and then one million hits an hour on my proxy -server that does some heavy caching to keep up plus someone here is always watching something on Youtube and then we have X-Boxes too and all using a domestic 80meg link with no limit's else i would not be doing it.

You can fudge domains using Dynamic DNS to keep your traffic hitting the right box

9 years ago

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Everett

Oh wow, what you mentioned is definitely not something I use my dedicated server for.. I run a game, and was using a really basic hosting plan, as I described above. The hosting plan was very limited, and I couldn't grow the game any longer due to the restrictions on the plan I got. I mean the plan is perfect if you have a small blog, but to run a game it is not the best.

Basically, I needed to run cron jobs, or crontab for timed intervals and it used up so much of my resources i had no choice but to upgrade to a dedicated server. So not torrenting, etc for me.. ever.

9 years ago

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Dedicated Servers: My experience renting an unmanaged server with no experience

Dedicated Servers: My experience renting an unmanaged server with no experience

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