Undeniable Discovery

The Linode Library does a great job of explaining how to get up and running.

Let me explain how things have been going so far. First of all, Linode has a great collection of tutorials and documentation called the Linode Library. Many of the guides contained within this library don’t even apply specifically to Linode, so they’re great resources if you’re running a Linux server at home or an another VPS provider.

Picking the datacenter

The “Getting Started” article does an excellent job of explaining how to get up and running on Linode. This is where I recommend you start. One of the first choices you’ll have to make is the datacenter. This is something you didn’t have to worry about with shared hosting, because the company you were hosting with chose it for you ¹. If you’re not familiar with datacenters or the inner workings of Internet hosting, the datacenter is the physical location where your server will reside. Generally, you want to pick the datacenter that is closest to you and the core audience that your website will receive. If you’re hosting a website that is targeted towards users in the United Kingdom, you’ll want to put your Linode in the London datacenter. While the choice of datacenter isn’t mission-critical, you will experience a slight difference in network latency ² and possibly network speed ³ from datacenter to datacenter. Continue reading →

Well, here it is. My first blog post. On the brand new, shiny WordPress 3.0.¹

I will miss you, giant blue alligator.

But that’s not important. I’m jumping right to it for my first post, so stay with me. I recently purchased a brand-new VPS from Linode, and I over the next week or so I plan to migrate all of my webhosting projects to it (Completely self hosted! Yeah baby!) as well as set it up for use as a development server and perhaps some other cool stuff. The thing is, going from a shared hosting environment to a full-on VPS (which functions like a dedicated server) is hard. You have to learn essentially how to configure a server from scratch, how to keep it secure and updated, and generally how to keep it running and working well for the foreseeable future. These are unmanaged servers, so while you get ultimate flexibility, you also get ultimate responsibility. Linode manages the hardware and network infrastructure, and that’s it. It’s up to you to take care of everything from the OS and up.

As such, my plan is to post a series of articles that will serve as an extended guide for migrating from a shared hosting environment (in this case HostGator) to Linode. From what I’ve seen so far, Linode’s guides do an excellent job of explaining what you need to know to get up and running, but as I’ve already found out, there are parts that need clarification or could perhaps use more explanation. It’s these types of things that I plan to elaborate on. In cases where Linode documentation is more than enough, I’ll simply link to or quote the documentation.

Along the way, I hope to add a bit of personal insight and opinion on Linode and the transition process in general. So while those looking for a guide will find what they’re looking for, you’ll also find insight and opinion on the process of transitioning from a shared hosting environment to Linode, and maybe you’ll even pick up a couple of tips about Linux system administration along the way.

I hope you enjoy the next few weeks. At the very least, I hope I do.