Managed VPS Linux Feature Overview

Managed VPS Linux Feature Overview Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 1

1 INTRODUCTION 3 1.1 Document Contents 3 2 PLATFORM AND SERVER ACCESS 4 2.1 Platform 4 2.2 Server Access 4 3 SERVICES 6 3.1 Web Services 6 3.2 Mail Services 7 3.3 FTP Services 8 4 VPS WEB DEVELOPMENT TOOLS 10 5 DATABASES 12 6 STATISTICS (LOG ANALYZER) PACKAGES 13 7 MORE 14 8 CAUTIONS AND WARNINGS 18 8.1 VPS Linux and Java Applications 18 8.2 Resume Logging and Access Log Files 19 8.3 File System Utilities and Your Online Backup Files 19 Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 2

1 Introduction This release of the platform provides a set of features designed and implemented to suit the value-added reseller (VAR), small hosting service provider (HSP), application service provider (ASP), independent software vendor (ISV), and to any small- and medium-sized business (SMB). This document provides administrators who possess minimal to moderate technical skills with a guide to the latest documentation and other sources of information available at the time of the release. This document also includes any cautions and warnings specific to this release of Managed Virtual Private Server Linux (VPS Linux in the following). For more information, refer to the following documents, which are suitable for print and are delivered, without charge, electronically in Portable Document Format (PDF) Managed VPS Linux Technical Overview Managed VPS Linux User s Guide Managed VPS Linux Getting Started Guide 1.1 Document Contents The sections of this document include the following: Platform and Server Access provides information relating to the platform your account is running on and the featured server access possibilities Services provides information relating to Web, Mail and FTP services your account features VPS Web Development Tools provides information on languages for web development that are featured by your account Databases provides information relating to supported databases Statistics (Log Analyzer) Packages provides information relating to supported log analyzers More provides information relating to other features, such as vinstall utility Cautions and Warnings provides information on known issues. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 3

2 Platform and Server Access 2.1 Platform RHEL Intel Hardware The operating system of VPS Linux is provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux or RHEL (http://www.redhat.com/). The RHEL operating system, including the version utilized by your account, is maintained and distributed by Red Hat, Inc. Hardware maintenance and upgrades are on powerful Intel-based hardware 2.2 Server Access SSH access shell VPS Linux supports Secure Shell (SSH) access security as a preinstalled, default core service for all accounts. The service is implemented by means of OpenSSH (http://www.openssh.com/). The service is maintained by and distributed under the terms of the OpenBSD Project. With VPS Linux, OpenSSH also provides Secure FTP (S-FTP) access for all accounts. FTP Access File Transfer Protocol (FTP) enables you to copy files from one computer to another. As a core service, your VPS Linux supports ProFTPD with the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol as well as anonymous configuration for unlimited users. The software provides secure and configurable FTP, is distributed by the ProFTPD Project (http://www.proftpd.org) and is available for free under the terms of the GNU General Public CPX Panel Control As well as VPSv2 and VPSv3 based on FreeBSD, VPS Linux supports CPX Control Panel. The control panel is a server management Web interface maintained by VERIO and distributed free-of-charge for use on VPS accounts. VPS Linux also includes support for an installation and an uninstall script. With VPS Linux, the following tasks are excluded from the CPX Control Panel: Assigning an IP address to a vhost Installing SSL certificate(s) for vhosts Configuring firewall Settings Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 4

Root Access Port Access Your VPS Linux account provides full root access. It is also enabled to establish security and to limit root access. Your VPS Linux account provides access to all ports. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 5

3 Services 3.1 Web Services Firewall Apache Server Web VPS Linux includes the default, basic software firewall supported by RHEL. The firewall is enabled by default and firewall rule set is empty. It enables you to take advantage of an iptables utility without needing to know the technical details of the rules language. With VPS Linux, Apache Web server 2.x is a preinstalled core service included with all accounts. Web server and Web Server Modules are provided by the Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Server (http://httpd.apache.org/). VPS Linux support for HTTP is enhanced to include Secure HTTP (HTTPS). The mod_php and mod_perl Apache HTTP modules are also pre-installed on your account by default. IP Addresses Podcasting Complete configuration files Raw log files With VPS Linux, your account supports a single, dedicated IP address (IPv4) as well as a host name. VPS Linux supports storage, distribution, and exchange of multimedia files (podcasting). In addition, podcasting is now included in the configuration options presented through the CPX Control Panel. Your VPS Linux account supports full access to configuration files for system and application software. Your VPS Linux provides full access to server log files. Saved Logs (or savelogs) are part of the default, pre-configured installation. Full access cgi-bin VPS Linux support full Common Gateway Interface (CGI) capability. Apache dynamic module support Dynamic module support is one of the key features of the Apache Web Server. The ability to dynamically load modules is known as DSO support. DSO allows you to extend the features and capabilities of Apache by adding the specific module you need, when you need it, without recompiling the Web server binary. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 6

A few notable apache modules you may want to use include the following. mod_perl mod_php mod_dav mod_gzip mod_negotiation mod_ruby mod_python mod_gzip 3.2 Mail Services mod_fastcgi mod_auth_mysql mod_auth_postgresql This modular design for adding Web server features gives Web administrators and developers tremendous power and flexibility. A wide variety of Apache modules have been created supporting all kinds of exciting Web server features. Web server speed and efficiency is improved when using Apache modules since your Web server can internally process instruction sets rather than relying on external applications. Mail Services Auto responder Aliases VPS Linux includes email services by means of the following protocols: IMAP Dovecot secure IMAP server software with no limit for IMAP email accounts. POP Without limit for POP email accounts. SMTP Sendmail with unlimited aliases. VPS Linux supports automated responder services. VPS Linux supports unlimited e-mail aliases (forwarding). Mailing Package List In order to enable you to automate the management of internet email lists on your virtual private server, VPS Linux features the following mailing list packages including custom installation scripts: Majordomo (http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/): a communitysupported software you use to automate the management of internet Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 7

email lists. The software is written in Perl and is compatible with the current, stable version of the language. FML (http://www.fml.org/): an open-source mailing list driver maintained by Ken ichi Fukamachi (http://www.fml.org/index.html.en). The driver is available for free under the terms of the GPL. FML requires one mail server software program such as sendmail, postfix, qmail, exim, or zmailer, as well as Perl to operate. Mailman (http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html): free software, distributed under the GNU General Public License. Mailman is written in the Python programming language. The versions of the software and the programming language must both be stable, current versions installed on your virtual private server. Anti-Spam Features SpamAssassin (http://spamassassin.apache.org/) provides a mail filter which attempts to identify spam. The filter is maintained by the Apache SpamAssassin Project and distributed under the terms of the Apache Software Foundation. With VPS Linux, support for the filter is included along with an installation script (vinstall) as well as an uninstall script (vuninstall). SpamAssassin is an important additional feature of your account. It is not pre-installed by default. E-mail (disk limits Dovecot quota space) With VPS Linux, you can define the amount of space reserved on the server to house your customers email messages per user. VPS Linux supports Dovecot, an open-source IMAP server. The server is distributed by the Dovecot organization (http://www.dovecot.org/) under the terms of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) license as well as the GPL. The MIT license (also referred to as an X License or an X11 License) enables developers to reuse the IMAP server for proprietary as well as open source software environments. 3.3 FTP Services FTP VPS Linux supports the following File Transfer Protocol (FTP) features: FTP server (ProFTPd) Anonymous FTP access Unlimited FTP users FTP server features are offered by supporting proftpd Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 8

Upload (disk limits quota space) (http://www.proftpd.org/) software. The software is maintained by the ProFTPD Project under the terms of the Gnu Public License (GPL). With VPS Linux, support for FTP also includes Secure FTP (S-FTP). Secure FTP is offered by introducing support for OpenSSH (http://www.openssh.com/) and is developed and maintained by the OpenBSD Project. The software is distributed under the terms of the OpenBSD license. With VPS Linux, you can define the amount of space reserved on the server to house your customers files per user. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 9

4 VPS Web Development Tools Java VPS Linux provides default, pre-installed support for Java Platform, Standard Edition (also known as Java 2 Platform). In particular, the following technologies and packages are supported: J2SE Software Development Kit (SDK) Java Servlet Technology Java Server Pages (JSP) Technology Tomcat Java Servlets J2SE SDK is maintained by the Sun Developer Network (http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/core/index.jsp) and is distributed under the terms of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Your account utilizes Tomcat (http://tomcat.apache.org/) to provide Java Servlet Technology and Java Server Pages Technologies. Tomcat is maintained by the Apache Software Foundation, developed under the terms of the Java Community Process, and is distributed under the terms of the Apache Software Foundation. VPS Linux supports the Java 2 Platform by providing custom installation scripts (vinstall) and uninstallation scripts (vuninstall). PHP 5 VPS Linux supports PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (http://www.php.net/), the widely used, general-purpose, and opensource scripting language distributed with most Linux binaries. As you configure PHP, you must implement only the application features supported by the current, stable production release. The custom installation script for PHP includes prompts for you to include the Zend Optimizer and the Apache Perl Module (mod_php). Perl Perl is pre-installed on your VPS Linux. Your account supports Perl (http://www.perl.org/), the widely used, open-source cross platform programming language distributed with most Linux binaries. As you configure Perl, you must implement only the application features supported by the current, stable production release. Python The RHEL operating system supports the current production (or stable) version of Python. The software is distributed for free by Python Software Foundation (http://www.python.org/psf/) under the terms of the Python license. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 10

Although the software is pre-installed on your server, as you configure Python, you must implement only the application features supported by the current production release. Ruby Ant Ruby (http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/) is an open-source interpreted scripting language primarily developed on the Linux operating system. It is available for free under the terms of the GPL. Your VPS Linux supports the current, stable release. As you configure Ruby, you must implement only the application features supported by the current, stable production release. VPS Linux introduces support for Ant, a Java-based build tool. The open-source software is maintained and distributed by the Apache Ant Project (http://ant.apache.org/). Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 11

5 Databases MySQL 5 PostgreSQL Oracle Gateways Your private server supports the current, stable release of MySQL which provides an open source database server and tool distributed under the terms of the GPL. VPS Linux provides a set of custom installation scripts for the database. VPS Linux supports the current, stable release of PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org/) an open source relational database system distributed by PostgreSQL Global Development Group under the Berkley Software Distribution (BSD) license. The database was formerly known as Postgres and Postgres95. Your account supports custom installation (vinstall) and uninstallation (vuninstall) scripts. Your private server supports Oracle Gateways. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 12

6 Statistics (Log Analyzer) Packages Urchin WebTrends (client license required) The Webalizer Urchin 5 (http://www.google.com/analytics/), the industry leading web analytics software, is used by millions of web sites worldwide. It analyzes traffic for one or more websites and provides accurate and easy-to-understand reports on your visitors - where they come from, how they use your site, what converts them into customers, and much more. Urchin is essential for executives, marketers, webmasters, and web designers. The Urchin 5 Web Log Analyzer installs directly on your VPS Linux and creates HTML-based graphical reports of your web server traffic. It offers several special features such as multilanguage reporting, E-commerce log reporting, and the ability to track up to 100 web sites (or profiles). WebTrends Log Analyzer (http://www.webtrends.com) is an awardwinning, fast, powerful, real-time Web Log Analyzer that will provide you with valuable information about your web site and the users that access it. Reports generated by WebTrends Log Analyzer include statistical information as well as colorful graphs that show usage, trends, market share and much more. WebTrends Log Analyzer works very well with our VPS Linux and is compatible with log files created by the Apache Web Server, as well as many other web servers. Reports can be generated as HTML files that can be viewed by any browser on your own computer or remotely from anywhere on the Internet with any browser. You can also create the reports in Microsoft Word, Excel, text, and commadelimited formats. The Webalizer (http://www.mrunix.com/webalizer/) is a fast, free Web Log Analyzer. It produces highly detailed, easily configurable usage reports in HTML format, for viewing with a standard web browser. Webalizer is included in the /ports/www/webalizer/ directory of the Ports Collection. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 13

7 More Accrisoft GCC GnuPG Namazu oscommerce Accrisoft Freedom (also referred to as Accrisoft RBT) provides you with a suite of tools to build and manage your Web sites. The Accrisoft e- commerce software (http://www.accrisoft.com) is available as a feebased, additional feature for your account. VPS Linux provides an installation script to assure the software operates fully and correctly on your account. An uninstall script assures that you can remove the software completely and effectively if you need to do so. VPS Linux supports the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). The collection provides program language compilers developed and distributed by the GNU project (http://gcc.gnu.org/). VPS Linux supports Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG) implementation of the Open Pretty Good Privacy (OpenPGP) standard described in Request For Comments (RFC) 2440. The encryption software is distributed by the GNU project (http://www.gnupg.org/) under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The software is pre-installed on your account by default. VPS Linux supports Namazu, an open-source, full-text search engine maintained by the Namazu Project (http://www.namazu.org/). The software is available for free under the terms of the GPL. VPS Linux supports oscommerce (http://www.oscommerce.com), which provides online shopping cart functionality. The software is available for free under GPL and utilizes the PHP Web scripting language, Apache HTTP server, and the MySQL database server. RPM VPS Linux supports Red Hat Package Manager or RPM (http://www.rpm.org/), an open packaging system for Linux and UNIX systems distributed under the terms of the GPL. The package maintains a database of installed packages and their files. This enables you to maintain and upgrade your private server configurations and customizations with minimal risk of losing them as you do so. Rsync VPS Linux supports Rsync (http://rsync.samba.org/), an open source utility which provides fast incremental file transfer. The utility is available for free under the terms of the GPL. Your account supports the current, stable release. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 14

SSL Vinstall Utility VPS Linux provides privacy and encryption by means of support for the Secure Sockets Layer or SSL protocol (http://www.apache-ssl.org/). SSL features on your account include default multiple, private SSL certificates and SSL email encryption. VPS Linux supports custom installation scripts. Use the vinstall and vuninstall utility to add or remove the following additional programs and packages: ClamAV VPS Linux introduces support for ClamAV anti-virus software. The software is maintained by the ClamAV project (http://www.clamav.net/) and is distributed under the terms of the Gnu Public License (GPL). The software is free-of-charge. CPX Panel Control See section 2.2, Server Access FormMail Java SDK JDK JRE Mailman MySQL FormMail is a CGI program designed to generate email based on the input from an HTML form. VPS Linux supports nms FormMail (http://nmscgi.sourceforge.net/). The software is maintained by the nms Project. The project is hosted by SourceForge and the software is distributed under the terms of the Open Source Technology Group (OSTG) Java Sun Developer Kit see section 10, VPS Web Development Tools Java SE Development Kit - see section 10, VPS Web Development Tools Java Runtime Environment - see section 10, VPS Web Development Tools See section 3.2, Mail Services VPS Linux supports only vinstall, vuninstall is not supported. See section 5, Databases Open Webmail VPS Linux supports the Open Webmail system (http://openwebmail.org/). Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 15

PHP phpmyadmin Postgre Procmail See section 4, VPS Web Development Tools VPS Linux supports phpmyadmin, a PHP software package which enables you to administer MySQL over the Web. PhpMyAdmin is distributed by the phpmyadmin Project (http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php) under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Once the package is installed, your server receives automatic updates which do not require your intervention. See section 5, Databases VPS Linux supports Procmail, a free, open-source mail delivery agent (MDA) distributed under the terms of the GPL. You can configure Procmail to call mail programs, such as SpamAssassin. VPS Linux does not include a custom script to automate the removal of the suite from your account. SpamAssassin VPS Linux supports SpamAssassin, a free, opensource email filter distributed under the terms of the Apache Software license. SpamAssassin applies a number of tests to an incoming message, and each test returns a score. If enough tests return a combined score that is high enough, the message is tagged. The default setting is five (5). Once a message has been tagged, there are a number of possible actions that can be taken with the message. Both tagging and actions can be handled either as a system-wide or as a user specific filter. SquirrelMail Swish-E VPS Linux supports SquirrelMail for Web mail processes. The open-source software is distributed by the SquirrelMail Project Team (http://www.squirrelmail.org/) under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). VPS Linux supports Simple Web Indexing System for Humans - Enhanced (Swish-e), an open source system which enables you to index Web page and other types of files. A Swish-e development community (http://swish-e.org/) distributes the system under the terms of the GNU General Public Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 16

Tomcat Servlet Urchin Webalizer Java License (GPL). Java Servlets and JSPs are made available on VPS Linux by means Tomcat, a software package distributed by the Apache Jakarta Project (http://jakarta.apache.org/). Tomcat is an implementation of the Java servlet and Java server pages specifications. See section 6, Statistics (Log Analyzer) Packages See section 6, Statistics (Log Analyzer) Packages WordPress VPS Linux supports WordPress (http://wordpress.org), which is an open-source software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). WordPress utilizes PHP and MySQL. The software is highly customizable and provides you with the capability to deliver information by means of audio, video, and other media, including blogs and podcasts. Zend Optimizer VPS Linux supports Zend Optimizer (http://www.zend.com/), which is maintained and distributed by Zend, Technologies. The software enables you to run encoded files and enhance the performance of your PHP scripts. The package is a passive module which runs within the framework of PHP and uses multi-pass code optimizations to potentially double the running speed of current PHP applications. This add-on is appropriate for all PHP users, who can benefit from the better response time featured by the package. The increase in speed for running PHP code reduces the CPU load for the server, and cuts latency time in half. The option to install Zend Optimizer is integrated into the custom installation script for PHP. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 17

8 Cautions and Warnings Following are cautions and warnings regarding the following VPS Linux features: 8.1 VPS Linux and Java Applications Many Java applications consume significant CPU and memory resources and may not be appropriate for use on a VPS. Java applications on a VPS should be restricted for use only on websites with a low expected workload. In addition, some larger Java applications may not be suitable for use on a VPS even with low workloads. There are a wide range of Java-based applications. Some are designed to handle multiple services and others focus on a smaller range of services. As an example, Zimbra (http://www.zimbra.com/) is open-source server and client software used to process email, group calendaring, and contacts. In addition, the software supports Web document management and authoring. The software offers a wide range of services, some of which duplicate applications included with the default configuration of some VPS Linux account. The software offers these services by drawing on Java and its own, duplicate installation of Tomcat. These factors make the software better suited to a more powerful, dedicated server offering such as MPS. Alternatively, JSP Wiki (http://www.jspwiki.org/) uses standard Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) components such as Java, servlets, and JSP. The software enables collaborative authoring for Web sites. The software enables visitors to comment upon, add to, or remove from Web page (or wiki) content. The open-source software focuses on providing a singular, unique service. It does this by utilizing the Java components which are part of the default configuration of VPS Linux. And the software does not duplicate services which are also supported by VPS Linux, such as email. JSP Wiki is an example of a Java-based application which is well-suited to VPS Linux only when put under low to moderate workloads. Results will vary by application, but JSPWiki running on a VPS Linux will potentially handle up to tens of thousands of wiki page views per day. Should hundreds of thousands of wiki page views per day be required, upgrading to a dedicated server such as a Managed Private Server (MPS) is recommended. VERIO strongly recommends sufficient performance testing of your Java application on a VPS Linux before relying on it for critical business needs. VERIO also recommends building contingency plans in case your Java application does not perform as expected; alternative solutions may include: Extensive optimization of the Java application. Moving the Java application to a dedicated server Implementing an alternative solution to using Java (For example: moving away from Java to an optimized C program.) Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 18

8.2 Resume Logging and Access Log Files After you save system logs by running a savelog command for /var/log files, you can expect that savelog files are created and original system log files are deleted. In order to access original log files and to resume logging, you must restart the syslog daemon by issuing a signal hang up (sighup) command, as follows: # kill -hup syslog In addition, there are variations of the signal hang up command and you can issue a restart command such as # service syslog restart. For more information about these commands and other restart and/or signal hang up commands, refer to the inline RHEL command reference (man pages). 8.3 File System Utilities and Your Online Backup Files Caution: During the time period the file system utility is backing up your account s files and directories, it is possible for any user with root access to your account to inadvertently alter or delete those files and directories. System administrators use a file system utility such as clonedir to duplicate directories of files (or backup files). In addition to creating backup files, the utility also preserves timestamps and reproduces ownership and permission levels. By performing all of these tasks, the utility builds a reliable mirror of the hierarchy of files and subdirectories. In general, your account s backup files are classified as read-only. However, during the backup process, the utility might change the mount to read-write. And, during that time, any user with root access to your account can inadvertently alter or delete the online backup files. The utility replaces the backup files the following day when the utility runs again. However, once altered or deleted, the backup files are no longer accurate until the next time the utility runs. The remedy for this concern is to strictly limit the users you provide root access. Copyright 2006 VERIO Europe page 19