Here are some great past tutorials we have featured here on the Dedicated Sever Hosting blog.  Enjoy!

Does High Price Mean a Better Dedicated Server?

That is not always the case. When shopping for dedicated hosting or a dedicated server, there are many factors that should come into play.  You want to look at the support team behind it, the number of services you get, the ratio of “good deals” in comparison to the price you are paying.  Simply picking the cheapest one will not do.

Best of the Forum and Message Board Scripts

There are a lot of message board or forum scripts out there, which are the best of the best?  Well here are a few of my favorites. Vanilla – Vanilla is a unique forum script from Lussumo.com. It is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the Web.

Professional WordPress Plugins for Advanced Webmasters

Webmasters don’t have to use WordPress to host a blog or family/personal website. Many professional webmasters are using WordPress to run fully functional websites, as there are thousands of free WordPress plugins that will assist in helping webmasters make the most of their WordPress web hosting site.

If you have another favorite, feel free to leave a comment and let us know about it.

One popular choice when it comes to Linux-based operating systems out there on your dedicated hosting server is CentOS.

What is it?  CentOS is well known for being an enterprise level Linux distribution and this freely provided across the Web.  The entire thing is managed by a network of developers, system administrators, network administrators, and core Linux contributors and enthusiasts from around the globe.

Where can you go for CentOS support?

• CentOS Wiki
• CentOS 5 Forums

CentOS 2, 3, 4 and 5 are built from publicly available open source SRPMS provided by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policies and aims to be 100% binary compatible. (CentOS mainly changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork).

Hope this look into CentOS is helpful!

How can you use APF to ban a IP address or domain?

You can use “apf -d ip.address” command to block bruteforcing ip addresses in APF permanently. I would also recommend looking at the following anti-bruteforcing solution called BFD that integrates into APF and will be blocking malicious IPs on itself:

http://rfxnetworks.com/bfd.php

As for the address of complains, it is usually the abuse address that is taken from the whois query on the IP behaving maliciously.

Finally, basic APF information is contained in the README file that comes in APF archive. It is also available online as http://rfxnetworks.com/appdocs/README.apf

The question is one that many web hosting customers have.  If you get dugg or slashdotted (in other words get hit up with an enormous amount of traffic, how will a dedicated hosting setup help in that process?

It is very hard to give a definite answer to your question because a dedicated server is not the only thing that is required for a very popular site. The server settings as well as the site itself should be highly optimized to meet critical demands.

For example, 1 query to DB per request doesn’t seem too much, but  providing 1000 concurrent request at any time, this results in 1000 simultaneous DB queries per each moment of time. It is a serious load even for a super-duper server with 4 CPUs, Gigs of RAM and SCSI hard drives assuming that the server also has to handle web requests at the same time and maybe it requires a some type of caching of query results or script outputs.

However, an upgrade to the dedicated server would be a strong requirement for site expecting a popularity increase since it makes all server resources available for the site to use as well as gives the site owner the control under all settings of the server.

How can you access phpMyAdmin via the Plesk or cPanel control panels?

In order to access phpMyAdmin if you are using Plesk you must follow the steps listed bellow:
You must first login to your control panel via:

https://www.yourdomain.com:8443/

and enter your username and password.

Once the database is created:

1. Click on the “Database” icon in Plesk
2. Choose your database you want to manage
3. Click on the “DB WebAdmin” icon

A popup window will open for phpMyAdmin (make sure you do not have a popup blocker installed to prevent this).  You can now edit tables, fields and data as well as perform backups of your MySQL database from within phpMyAdmin.

and if you are using cPanel then you must follow the steps listed bellow:

1. To access the MySQL Account Maintenance Menu, click on the    icon above the words
2. MySQL Databases on the main screen of your cPanel interface.
   Click on phpMyAdmin

Now you should have no problems editing your database files.

Windows web hosting and MS SQL databases go hand in hand, just like Linux web hosting and MySQL are the most compatible. But what happens if you’re looking to use MySQL with your Plesk control panel in your Windows Server Hosting account?

Here’s a simple tutorial that should help you access phpMyAdmin using Plesk.

First, you’ll want to login with the username and password you got from your dedicated web host.

In order to access phpMyAdmin, you must first have created a MySQL database, so if you have not done that yet, do so now before you proceed.

Once the database with MySQL has been created, click on the “Database” icon in your Plesk control panel and choose whichever database you want to manage. Finally, click on the “DB WebAdmin” icon, where a popup window will open for phpMyAdmin.

NOTE: If nothing pops up, your popup blocker might be preventing this, so double check your settings and proceed once you can access the phpMyAdmin popup.

From there, you can edit tables, fields, data, and perform backups and delete your MySQL databases, right from phpMyAdmin!

If you’re using cPanel, it’s a bit easier: simply click on the icon above the words “MySQL Databases” on the main cPanel interface screen and then you’ll see phpMyAdmin and you can go from there!

So either way, whether you’re using Plesk or cPanel, you will be able to access phpMyAdmin with your dedicated server.

You want to be the next Facebook or MySpace, you had better have a deep pocket.  Now putting aside the fact that you would need a lot of users, social praise and traffic to make this all work – according to one web site resource these are the current stats for Facebook on the hosting side of things:

30,000 databases & 1,800 db servers

1200 dedicated servers

805 caching servers

Now with any dedicated hosting provider out there you could get a good start if nothing else.  Many of the social network clone scripts will run on a VPS or dedicated hosting plan too.  This is just to give you a little insight on what you may be getting yourself into.

After yesterday’s article I thought I would also list an alternative way to help secure the SSH.  You can also secure your ssh changing default port (22).  Change the port that SSH listens for connections on:

      #Port 22

      Port XX    (where XX = your new portnumber)

You can choose something like 22202 or something you can remember.

You are now done editing the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file (save your changes, and quit your editor).
Another important thing dont forgot to allow the port you choose from firewall:

      /etc/apf/conf.apf

Then you add there your new ssh port.  Hope you enjoyed.  Any good dedicated hosting provider should be able to provide you with additional help if needed.

Apache, or sometimes known as Apache HTTP server is one of those magical things that make the web go around.  If your server hosting was a picnic at the park, then Apache would be the blanket under that picnic meal. 

It is used to serve static and dynamic content from a server on the web.  Many of the Web’s applications are designed with Apache in mind or thanks to what it provides.  It is the web server component also of the popular LAMP (linux, apache, mysql, perl).  The biggest competitor to Apache is Microsoft’s IIS or Internet Information Services as it is sometimes called.

There is some debate as well on how Apache got it’s name.  Some people say it was named after the Indian tribe with the same name and others say that it was due to the project’s roots as a set of patches to the codebase of NCSA HTTPd 1.3 – making it “a patchy” server.

Database Servers are becoming more and more popular these days, as technology professionals not only need a server to run their website for web server hosting but they also require the functionality and performance of a reliable database server. And in setting a database server up, you not only need affordable dedicated web hosting but also a database management system.

So what is a database management system?

A database management system (or DBMS) is more or less a piece of software that helps you organize, store, manage, edit, and retrieve of data in a database or databases from your server. Like content management system (CMS), it is setup to do these things as easily as possible for you.

There are many database management systems around, but here is a quick list of some of the most popular choices for dedicated server hosting:

• Oracle
• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Firebird
• PostgreSQL
• MySQL
• SQLite