VPS access, web hosting, domains and databases.
New servers start getting automated login attempts soon after they go online. The steps below cover the basics. Commands are for Ubuntu and Debian.
SSH gives you a command line on your VPS so you can install software, edit files and manage services.
When you type a domain name, your device asks the Domain Name System where to go. The answers live in DNS records , small entries you manage at…
Running one container with docker run is easy. Running an app, its database and a cache, each with ports, volumes and settings, means a very long…
When a server runs out of memory, Linux has two choices: kill a process, or push rarely used data out to disk to make room. That overflow area on…
A VPS can fail in ways you cannot fix: a disk dies, a provider has an incident, an update goes wrong, or you delete the wrong folder. The only…
A fresh VPS usually gives you one account: root . Root can do anything, including deleting the whole system with one mistyped command, and every…
Let's Encrypt certificates last about 90 days, and Certbot is meant to renew them quietly in the background. When it silently stops, you find out…
You set up nginx in front of an application, and now the browser shows 502 Bad Gateway or 504 Gateway Timeout . These errors have a specific…
SSH is the front door to your server, and the first place automated attacks knock. The default settings accept passwords and root logins, which is…
WordPress runs a large share of the web, and a VPS lets you host it with full control and without paying for a managed plan. It is a manageable…
One VPS can serve many websites. Each visitor's browser tells the server which domain it wants, and nginx uses that to pick the right site. The…
Many websites, bots and games keep their data in a MySQL-compatible database, and MariaDB is the free, widely used version of it. Installing it…
Docker packages an application and everything it needs into a container , so it runs the same way everywhere. On a VPS, that means you can run a…
Look at the login log of any server on the public internet and you will see the same thing: hundreds of failed attempts a day from strangers…
When a server feels slow, or something stops working, you need to answer a few questions quickly: is it the CPU, the memory, the disk or the…
If you start a program in an SSH session, it stops when you log out. If you start it in the background, nobody restarts it when it crashes, or when…
Backups, cleanups, restarts, reports: a server accumulates jobs that should run by themselves at set times. On Linux, the classic tool is cron . It…
PostgreSQL is a powerful, dependable database that many applications and larger bots prefer. It is strict about correctness, handles many users at…
Anyone can put your domain name in the "From" line of an email. SPF, DKIM and DMARC are three DNS-based checks that let receiving mail servers tell…
A password can be guessed, reused, leaked or phished. An SSH key cannot be guessed in any practical sense. Switching from passwords to keys is the…
Most compromised servers were not hit by clever zero-day attacks. They were running software with a known bug that had been fixed weeks or months…
Use your own domain - like yourdomain.com or play.yourdomain.com - instead of an IP address. You do this with DNS records wherever your domain's DNS…
Starting a Node app in your SSH session works until you close the window. Then it stops. This guide sets it up properly: PM2 keeps it running and…
A fresh VPS answers on every port that has a program listening. A firewall lets you close everything except what you actually use. On Ubuntu and…
An SSL certificate puts the padlock in your visitors' browsers and is required for logins, payments and good search rankings. It's free on both web…