Setting up a server in Linode (part 1)

To begin with the posts in this blog, let me start by showing how you can have a server running from "the cloud" in minutes and in a very easy way (but investing a few dollars).

We will use Linode (www.linode.com/) to create a VPS (Virtual Private Server) running, of course, a GNU/Linux distribution.

A VPS is a server running in a virtual machine (Linode uses Xen as the virtualization tool). From the point of view of the operating system and the administrator/user, the server has no big differences from a 'traditional' server, ie one installed directly on a dedicated hardware, and is an excellent way to mount our servers without worrying about having to manage also the hardware.

Once we have the server up, we will have full access to make and break. Through a web interface we will set the parameters and create the server, and then log into it using ssh to administer and have fun.

To see all the features offered by Linode: www.linode.com/linodes/

Signing Up
To begin,we must first register with Linode. Accessing the 'Sign Up' link we will see a form where we will need to fill with our personal data, including the credit card number.

There are different plans according to the features. For 'playing' we can start with the most basic, Linode 512, which includes 512MB of RAM, 4 CPU, 20GB of storage and 200GB of monthly transfer, all that for $ 19.95.

Choosing the Datacenter
The next step is to choose, from the six possible locations, where we want to host our virtual server.

To select the best location, Linode offers in www.linode.com/speedtest/ a 100MB file located in each of the datacenters. If we download and record the time it takes to download these files, we could select the datacenter more 'close' to us (in terms of network peering) .

Another faster way to test is pinging each of these servers, and see which one has the lowest latency.

For example, from my location the datacenter which gives me the best latency is located in Dallas (though Newark is not far behind either):

--- speedtest.tokyo.linode.com ping statistics ---
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 402.049/408.116/420.893/6.887 ms

--- speedtest.london.linode.com ping statistics ---
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 282.915/283.168/283.620/0.250 ms

--- speedtest.newark.linode.com ping statistics ---
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 175.328/176.695/179.838/1.606 ms

--- speedtest.atlanta.linode.com ping statistics ---
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 201.412/201.505/201.674/0.412 ms

--- speedtest.dallas.linode.com ping statistics ---
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 176.135/176.225/176.279/0.271 ms

--- speedtest.fremont.linode.com ping statistics ---
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 239.187/239.440/240.282/0.749 ms

However, all the datacenters have reasonable latencies, and if needed we could move our server from a datacenter to another later.

After selecting the location, we have to check if there is availability in the choosen datacenter (www.linode.com/avail/). If not, as discussed above, we could select another location and move the server in a future date.

Upon completion of the registration process, finally we can create our server. We will discuss that in the next post.

Disclaimer: Im not affiliated with Linode, just a happy user of their services. If you plan to sign up too, please use my referal link so Linode can reward me :D
 http://www.linode.com/?r=22ccfbc14a1d823a075657d2bdd503496e499965