Simple Cloudserver

The Simple CloudServer Project is aimed to help novice users or technology hobbyists setup a cloud environment. It is also aimed to help web developers setup a simple easy to manage web server.

One has tried VPS, Shared Hosting and am fed up with preinstalled rubbish. If this sounds like what you are experiencing, then we are in the same boat. This guide is to help you venturing into cloud virtual servers www.rackspacecloud.com and Amazon EC2. Alternatives are slicehost (which are mentioned alot and i have heard good stories). Rackspacecloud has a low pricing structure at 0.01 cents per hour. With Rackspace, I recommend the ubuntu linux series, its fast, does the job and supported by a huge fan base. Why is this good? A simple answer is that bugs get fixed very quickly and new improvements keep happening.

How this guide can help you?

This guide should help you easily setup a sample running website on a cloud based machine. It is designed to be simple and as straightforward as possible. The main installations you can achieve having after following this guide is as follows:

  • RackspaceCloud Hosting [256mb ram / 10gb HDD] / Amazon Micro Instance
  • Ubuntu Linux Server Edition 9.10 / 9.04
  • LightTPD 1.5 (webserver used by youtube meebo wikimedia)
  • MySQL 5.x (www.mysql.com)
  • Php 5.2.x (www.php.net)
  • vsftpd 2.2.x (vsftpd.beasts.org)
  • Python 2.6.x (www.python.org)
  • SQLite 3.6.x.x (www.sqlite.org)
  • WordPress 2.8.4 / 2.9.x / 3.x (www.wordpress.org)

The setups are done simply and mostly default. So it would work if your version is not too far behind or forward in time. Before we start, I assume you have account with RackspaceCloud. (other providers or personal machine may work; but I will be biased towards my installation methods)

Version

  • 0.1.6 Reduced the introduction
  • 0.1.5 Updated structure of guide, Added UFW, Added new problem for lighttpd
  • 0.1.2 Added FTPS with VSFTPD (Very Secure FTP Daemon), Added Chkrootkit
  • 0.1.0 Finalised on creating 3 test sites. Added new commands, Added new notes for wordpress, Added lightly configuration
  • 0.0.8 Add [skeleton], Cleaned up guide to make it more readable, Added [DNS settings], [Created domain user]
  • 0.0.5 Added [vsftpd][Google apps setup], Added [setting local], Added [updating time], Created new instance