What a Linux server is?

CptCharis

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Good day to all of you.

Could pls somebody explain to me, what a Linux server company is offering?
I have seen so many advertisements in internet where companies offering Linux servers for monthly payment but I can't really understand what they really offering.
Is something like cloud services?
 


Hi mate, hope the winds are fair in treating you? :)

Server questions can likely be answered best by people like our erstwhile Admin @Rob , also Moderator and mate @ryanvade et al (and others).

I can give you a very broad outline on how small businesses, large businesses, and even the Home User who has multiple computers can benefit from having a Server. But I would wait to see what they say, then add some small talk to the Thread.

Very briefly, though. On board your ship, if there are several computers, networked off the one major computer, that major computer is possibly acting as a Server.

You can have a "Dedicated Server", or you might have a "station" that acts both as a Server and as a Workstation.

And on and on.

Cheers

Chris
BTW - the Server does not always have to be the most powerful, fastest computer, sometimes it can be the slowest.
 
I have seen so many advertisements in internet where companies offering Linux servers for monthly payment but I can't really understand what they really offering.
Hi Captain! It is my guess that you are seeing sites that offer "web hosting" using Linux servers. I have seen ads such as this before. If you aren't familiar with this, for a relatively small amount of money you can have your very own website and pay these companies to "host" all the files and do all the configurations so that people on the web can visit your site. You transfer files to the host server using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) usually. There are some special design tools that can help you create the look of the site... the fonts, headings, graphics, hyperlinks to others sites, etc.... or you can make the HTML pages from scratch with a simple text editor.

If you send us some links to what you are seeing, then we can probably confirm what it is for you.

Cheers
 
Hey there,

Mostly people/companies will pay monthly for servers from hosting sites when it makes more sense than housing a server at your own location.

We currently use a virtual machine setup from DigitalOcean for Linux.org. This makes it very easy to quickly add resources like memory, cpu, even add other locations and load balancing.
 
Thank you all guys.
I'm always saying that you will take the correct answer if you ask the correct person.
 
Yes, that is an example of what Stan and Rob might be covering.

The word "server" can be interchangeable between a physical server and a software server.

For example a person with several computers in the home, mobile/cell phones, tablets and a smart TV may have a physical server in their garage which may or may not have a screen/monitor and keyboard attached for maintenance control.

Software servers - one of the best known is Apache, and if you take a look in your Linux Mint's Synaptic Package Manager, search for apache and you will see the entries.

Cheers

Wizard
 
@Rob is spot on with his description... showing a slight difference from what I was describing (and sometimes they are the same). DigitalOcean and Linode are quite alike, but @Rob has this account set up to include a domain name (linux.org) and this is not always necessary, but it is more like what I was talking about. Here is a nice short article about Linode in particular, what it is, and how to setup an account with them. It is indeed an inexpensive way to venture into "cloud computing" and learning more about using a Linux server. And it could be a very good backup option if you can stay within their storage and transfer limits (for the package price you might select).

But for simple storage and backups, a lot of people use Google Drive, Dropbox, or one of those services instead. I don't think this is your goal though.... I think you just want to learn more about Linux and server operations (and maybe maintenance).

My own experience with this stuff is that I have purchased several domain names, and I pay some similar type companies to host those websites. They use Linux servers too, but that is kind of irrelevant to me... I only want people to be able to reach the web pages that I create and store there, and that could be done with Microsoft based servers too. Besides web services, I also get email services too so that I can create my own [email protected] email accounts and I can also create email mailing lists for some small groups that I keep connected that way. You may can do these things on Linode as well... I see that they will do website hosting, but they don't mention email services.

Good question, Captain!

Cheers
 
Hey Captain,
well it´s an Linux server in the cloud. Like the other say most practice is to host an HTTP server/ FTP server or even a mail server. But usually you can do anything you want with your virtual server (e.G. set up your own Proxy / SIP - but that would cost a lot of Traffic. They setting up hundreds of virtual server on one physical server with an software solution like VMWare ESXi, Microsoft Hypervisor or Citrix XenServer. So they can put about 20 or more virtual servers on 1 bare metal host. And usual u will get an static IP adress for your server to make your service public. Most of them also will manage the security in first station like DDoS-Protection. And some of them got an Backup routine for Disaster Recovery.

Greetings,

Scoobithepirate
 
Gentlemen you are incredibles.
Thanks all for your answers. I think that I'm covered so far but probably, I will return to the subject in the future.
 
It is always open for you Capta, and for others, eg newcomers, whom may have questions of a general nature on servers (questions of a more specific complexity would be better served with their own Thread).

Who knows, this thread may become "Server Central"? :D

Wizard
 
Greetings to y'all!

It's been some time again, I hope all is well :) I am trying to read up once in a while and couldn't help but hijack this post! (If you believe I should open up a new topic let me know)

Say I want to host my awesomewebsite.com on my machine, can we clarify how I would go about it? If I understand correctly I would have to pay up (damn) to grab the domain name, then do some awesome stuff to configure server settings "locally" to show my files when someone pings "awesomewebsite.com" (crudely put).

That sounds like it's different from setting up something locally with a lampp stack or something akin to that, but I am, simply put, oblivious as to how I would try to do it. I know looking up stuff is the way to go but it's chaotic and a peculiar issue so I would prefer the 2 cents from this place if possible. :)
 
Greetings to y'all!

It's been some time again, I hope all is well :) I am trying to read up once in a while and couldn't help but hijack this post! (If you believe I should open up a new topic let me know)

Say I want to host my awesomewebsite.com on my machine, can we clarify how I would go about it? If I understand correctly I would have to pay up (damn) to grab the domain name, then do some awesome stuff to configure server settings "locally" to show my files when someone pings "awesomewebsite.com" (crudely put).

That sounds like it's different from setting up something locally with a lampp stack or something akin to that, but I am, simply put, oblivious as to how I would try to do it. I know looking up stuff is the way to go but it's chaotic and a peculiar issue so I would prefer the 2 cents from this place if possible. :)

Hey Dimitris,
well lets take a look. If you want to host something on the internet within your private enviroment you need : 1. An public static IP or either some dyndns magic. 2. Open ports in your firewall. 3. you have to rent the URL and point to your public IP address (or dyndns) . You also get familiar how to hardend your server otherwise there will be some script Kiddys which gets over it. So it would be better for you to pay some more money (I know ... have to pay ... ;) ) and get some space at an hosted server outside your local area. There you will also get an static IP and start to develop your awesomewebiste.com :).

Greetings
Scoobithepirate
 
Thanks for the answer! First off, I have used hosting services and maybe that incited the curiousity of how I would do it on my own instead and could do it as a pet project and, not work-related or something like that. Thus, the hardening part is something less needed for me from the get-go but surely something I'm interested in seeing first-hand.

Abstract-ly put, I understand that I would have to do the following:
a)direct awesomewebsite.com(which i've rented) to my static ip or dyndns (either of which i've also rented).
b)tell my firewall "when it comes to port 3307 chill with the security".
c)configure my access settings so that pings towards my static ip dont lead to 123.456.78.90 but instead lead to /my/local/dir:3307?
Is that remotedly correct? :p

Thanks again.
 
Hey Dimitris,
alright lets talk about your project. To realise we should talk about some more things. Do you get an hardware standalone firewall? Then the best way would to place your server in an DMZ. It is always the best way to encapsulate public servers from the LAN. Would you want to reach the server also from LAN? Then you should do the ACE for the LAN traffic. Otherwise only any outside traffic on port 3307 to DMZ server xy . Also create the nat rules like you said (translate all traffic/pat traffic from public ip to local server) . And please keep in mind to hardend the server otherwise may he will get an zombie at an bot net or something similar ;)
Give it a try and if you need help let me know.

Greetings

Scoobithepirate
 
Simply, the server with Linux distribution (RHEL,CentOS,Ubuntu) operating system means Linux Server. When you think to buy a Linux server it means hosting(shared,vps,dedicated). Hosting
specifies the server in different aspects. In shared and vps hosting, one main node(server) resources is shared by many clients whereas in dedicated hosting, you have dedicated(in other way you can say it as physical) resources.
 

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