Essential Cloud Server Tools and Projects

When first starting out with your own cloud server, you might feel overwhelmed by all the freedom. You don’t have a cPanel or convenient interface for managing your server, but you do have a wide variety of cloud server tools at your disposal. You have to install and configure all the apps and services you’ll need to complete your tasks. This is an opportunity to craft your own system and fine-tune an ideal server environment. Below you will find a treasure trove of helpful resources no system administrator should be without. Many of these same procedures can also be performed on a VPS with cPanel.

Learning Cloud Server Tools and Practices

As a new cloud server user, you should make sure to bookmark the complete Cloud Server Product Guide for quick reference. This article introduces to some of the fundamentals you will need to grasp to start off managing your server including: some basics about Linux-based operating systems, daemons, and how to choose a different operating system for your server. You will get a better grasp on the basics of using the SSH protocol to manage your server, and best security practices. After that, you can get your command line judo going with some helpful UNIX-style power tools.

Understanding Linux-based Operating Systems

As you probably know, all InMotion Hosting Cloud VPS accounts give you a few different options for selecting a Linux operating system. These articles will help you familiarize yourself with some of the differences you might encounter in different distributions and help inform your decision.

• Understanding Linux operating systems
• Understanding Linux daemons
• How to Re-OS your cloud server in AMP

SSH Basics

Connecting to your server via SSH is a secure way to log in and get things done quickly and efficiently on the command line. When you are setting up your cloud server you will notice that an SSH key is required to log in and begin to administer your system. The articles below will explain how to get your SSH keys, add them to your server, as well as clear advantages you gain in properly managing your SSH security.

• How to generate SSH keys
• How to manage SSH keys for your server
• Complete SSH security and SFTP guide for cloud server
• Advantages of SSH

Essential Command Line Tutorials

Get comfortable moving around your command line, performing various tasks, and getting things done in your server.

• Reliable command line tutorials
• Using the Linux cd command
• 7 ways to find a file in Linux
• Why is grep returning no matches?
• How to check disk space on command line
• How to create “symlinks” (symbolic links) in your file system
• Print command line output with pr
• How to compare files with diff

Advanced Projects

You might be wondering, what can I do with my own private cloud server? Here are some advanced tutorials and projects that you can pick up today. You can accomplish many of these project objectives on a server you already manage or you can launch a new server for each project.

• Create your own git server
• Install and serve Gitweb on NGINX
• Install a private search engine with Searx
• Host a website with NGINX