Best/cheap Software To Run A Small/med 1St Timer Server?

[JohnnyDoomo]

I currently run 3 servers with CentOS and cpanel/WHM at a host.

 

I am looking to begin hosting a new server myself. While this server won't contain large sites just yet, it may at some point. (Which I'm not sure if that makes a difference on what is recommended?)

 

I recently found out that there is a decent yearly price tag attached to WHM if you want it to power your server, and since I'm just starting this out, I really didn't want to test with that just yet, unless I find nothing comparable.

 

Can an experienced person give me the layers of software I'm going to need to get started at minimal to no cost (software wise)? I have the hardware, and I've heard terms thrown around like apache, CentOS, WHM, etc., but I have no idea, what is sitting ontop of which program, or which is a "module" to which.

 

Can somebody perhaps name the programs and their order that I will need them in? I am not looking for completely free, if it's going to be crap or unsecure though as I'd like it to be more than just a learning server, and would at some point to use the same system and the OS/"panel" that I've learned to have a production site on it.

 

I'm wondering if cpanel/WHM is the way to go, and actually IS the place I should be starting, and progress upwards from it, even though it has the pricetag it does?

 

I know I need something Linux based, and hopefully built for speed. My current host has my 3 servers on nGinx, which from my understanding is a slimed down part of the needed softwares to help the server handle well, and perhaps run better under a higher load. I need to be able to run php, and hopefully not have all the backend software to difficult to learn (IE: GUI and not command based).

 

On a side note, can somebody tell me that if it's Linux based, if that means that it's possible to clone the hard drive, and have it duplicated in another server, even if the hardware differs from the original? This is a feature that is low on my list, but if it's possible, it would be nice to know in advance that it can be duplicated without having to redo all the setup work all over again.

 

If anybody can take the time to help me out with where I should get started, that would be a great help, thanks.

[kicken]

The layers basically break down like so:

 

- Operating system, obviously. There are various flavors of Linux you could use, each with it's own strengths and weaknesses. Pick which ever flavor you are most familiar with and know the most about. You'll probably be needing to hit the command line to change configs, install packages, do updates, etc with some frequency, especially during the initial setup.

- Webserver Software: Apache, Nginx, lighthttpd, etc. There are several options for this. Apache is by far the most common, nginx is getting to be fairly popular these days as well.

- Scripting languages: PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc. You'll need to decide which scripting languages you want to offer and get those setup to work with your chosen webserver.

- Database Engine: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Mongo, etc. You'll have to decide which database engines you want to offer and set those up. DB Engines tend to need a good chunk of ram to work well so you'll probably only want to choose one, maybe two if you have pretty good hardware with lots of ram. If you have multiple machines, you could setup one as strictly the DB server and the other as the webserver.

- [optional] DNS Server. If you're going to be hosting sites you may want to host DNS as well.

- [optional] Email (SMTP/POP/IMAP) Servers. You'll probably be wanting to host email for your sites as well. There are various email solutions out there. Postfix and qmail are popular smtp servers. dovecot is a popular POP/IMAP server.

 

So that's the basic setup you need to get. The most common setup is LAMP which basically Linux (Ubuntu/CentOS are popular), Apache, Mysql and PHP. Some Linux distros have packages or an option during setup to install a "LAMP" system and it will get everything setup initially for you.

 

As far as cPanel/WHM go, they are just management packages which make the process of install, configuring, and managing all the above mentioned software and your clients easier. They are not really necessary but are definitely good idea, especially if you want to be selling webhosting to customers. Many customers will probably be used to using cPanel or WHM if they have ever hosted anywhere else before so there is a benefit to using them from that perspective.

 

There are some open source control panel's out there but I am not familiar with any of them so I can't make any recommendations beyond try some and see what you like. Which control panel you pick may limit your options above regarding software. For example if the panel does not support nginx you won't be able to host using that webserver.

 

I don't do any professional hosting with clients, just my own sites and a couple friends so I don't bother with any control panel software and just manage all my configuration manually. It's more work but will definitely get you familiar with how everything ties into each other to make a functioning server. If you want to learn how everything works I'd suggest at least once trying to setup a complete server from scratch without any of the management control panels. Then go ahead and set it up with a panel before you start offering your services for sale.