Automatic Installs Of Turnkey Linux Appliances On Virtual Private Servers

Or How to set up a fully working Joomla, Drupal, LAMP, LAPP, Zimbra, Torrent server etc., in a couple of minutes)

Turnkey Linux comprises a set of free, Ubuntu-based software appliances that are primarily available for server-type usage scenarios, such as setting up database, web, forum, wiki and photo gallery servers. Each appliance is preconfigured to work out of the box, with ease of use being the primary goal behind the Turnkey Linux project.

This is extremely useful in itself, but if you wanted to experiment with these appliances, potentially to evaluate or otherwise test them, it would be great if you could perform installations with the absolute minimum of effort.

Using Turnkey Linux on Virtual Private Servers

A number of hosting providers, including GigaTux and GPLHost, provide Linux VPS services, which usually enable users to have their own virtual server with automatic provisioning of major Linux distributions, such as Debian, Ubuntu or CentOS. Work has been performed by GigaTux in conjunction with the Turnkey Linux team and has managed to take the automatic installation concept one step further to enable this to work with all Turnkey Linux appliances. This is made possible by using frameworks provided by the excellent server open source control panel, DTC.

Turnkey Linux appliances enable users to easily deploy primarily web-based applications within an entire Linux kernel and Ubuntu-based package set. Once a distribution is chosen within the control panel, the install is fully completed within a few minutes and ready to be customised. This enables a rapid deployment of a tested setup, with full update and security support provided by the Turnkey Linux and Ubuntu package maintainers.

Our efforts are available to all using the DTC control panel, with Debian packages for Lenny being provided. Additionally, scripts have been written such that when new or updated appliances are released, new deployable packages for the DTC control panel are created and made available in our repository automatically.

Technical Script Details

It is not actually too difficult to configure images to work for automatic deployment, but performing this manually for every appliance is a time consuming process. The scripts we have written will automatically perform the following steps for each appliance:

Create a new directory with a name similar to the actual release version, e.g. turnkey-core-2009.02-hardy-x86.

Copy across common template files. These include the following:

custom_os: Customises each appliance by configuring basic networking, spawning gettys on the right devices and setting a customised MOTD with the VPS number and hostname.

install_os: Custom instructions to install this appliance, which essentially involves untaring the provided image into the VPS.

setup_network: Custom instructions called when setting up the network. Because Turnkey Linux uses resolveconf for DNS configuration, this reads information from /etc/resolv.conf from the dom0 (this is designed for use with Xen) and copies it to /etc/network/interfaces in the domU.

debian/*: These are the files changelog, control, compat, copyright, files, install and rules which are required to create a.deb packages. These have substitution variables (e.g. for the package name) which are overwritten by our script.

Copy the preinstalled image (a.tar.bz2 file).

Tailor the template files (as above).

Invoke dpkg-buildpackage in this directory to create the actual.deb file.

Call reprepro, a tool we use to manage Debian repository directory structures, to remove old versions of this appliance and add the new one.

It’s as simple as that. If you are interested, the raw scripts are downloadable. They will need some customisation for your setup as there are hard coded directories in there.

I want to play with one!

If you are happy playing with just one appliance, you can of course just download it from the Turnkey Linux website and install it on your PC (or use a Virtualisation solution like Xen or VMWare).

However, if you want to rapidly try out a variety of appliances using the setup we have made, the quickest way would be to rent a VPS. Alternately, you can install the DTC control panel yourself and add our Debian repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list. This setup requires you to run a fully featured Xen setup and requires significant configuration.

Any questions?

Get in touch with us at if you have any questions.

Why Centos Linux For Virtual Private Servers

When we think about to hosting our website, we have a long list of options to choose from and Linux virtual private server or VPS is always a good idea to select and to go with. There are a number of Linux flavors available, but two out of all the flavors are most popular and in use. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS are those two Linux flavors. In many ways, these two server operating systems are so much similar. As a matter of facts, on the surface they are practically alike. But there are fewer reasons to use Community enterprise Operating System over all around platforms for our virtual private server hosting requirements.

A Red Hat enterprise version of Linux is one of the oldest Linux distributions available. While once in the past they offered a community edition of their softwares, but that is not the case at present. Since it is no more available free of cost, open source developers also known as independent developers created Community enterprise Operating System so they can fill up the gap. It is basically the same as Red Hat enterprise Linux, but for free of cost. It uses the same software of packages and format as RHEL. So these two are less or more fully compatible to each other. So we can say CentOS Linux is a re-branded version of Red Hat Linux. So using CentOS Linux VPS you we will get all the benefits of Red hat Linux without using it and we dont have to pay anything for using the CentOS.

As an open source project, we can get more deep support from the online forums, tutorials and webmaster for addressing to any of our problems we may face. Stability is another advantage of using CentOS Linux. For every new release Red Hat Linux Provides 13 months of support while CentOS provides support for the years as well as we dont have any need to update or upgrade Community enterprise Operating System to its next version for a long time. One of the most favorable advantages of using CentOS is that it releases security and software updates by following Red Hats releases by a few weeks due to this reason any bugs and issues that may arise get solved before CentOS releases its own updates.

Community enterprise Operating System can be more useful for any type of website, whether it can be a niche related social networking web platform , a shopping cart, an e-commerce web platform, customize web application or a very simple network of blogs. For what we are selecting CentOS Linux virtual private server it really does not matter. If we are looking a cheap web hosting solution, CentOS Linux VPS is one of the most reliable and secured solution. If you are worrying about your peaceful nights and worried about your server stability and security to host your website, CentOS can be the best solution for us. So choosing Community enterprise Operating System for Linux Virtual Private Server between so many Linux flavors is the most sensible and intelligent decisions for us.

Linux Is Best Operating System For Vps

Linux is best O/S for VPS because it is complete desktop operating system for Professional support. Its user friendly interface provides freedom to user for customize software in any way. It is easily available without any cost and also there is no any extra fee required for its enterprise edition.
Html body:
Linux is complete desktop operating system for Professional support. Its user friendly interface provides freedom to user for customize software in any way. It is easily available without any cost and also there is no any extra fee required for its enterprise edition. Today No. of users choose Linux as O/S for their VPS because it provides accessibility, good environment and free softwares for make Powerful VPS.
Linux is based on principal of open source software development so it is available in local language and despite any disabilities. Open source basically encourage users to use any software without any fee so Linux is best option for reducing cost of any server. Its more than 1000 pieces of software and different desktop applications like word processing, spreadsheet application , internet access application ,web server software , email software , programming languages & tools for lots of games make it most popular and favorite O/S.
For unmanaged VPS, Many Hosting companies offer Linux and windows as an operating system so it is must require knowing that why Linux is more beneficial as compare to windows?
Advantages of Linux Operating System for VPS
Linux is a very secure operating system. A major benefit of Linux is that its very strong support of tools and applications those helpfully for manage VPS. There are many configured version of Linux, those containing tuned kernel (base elements for running a virtualized environment) so it supports a number of virtualization platforms like OpenVZ. This Optimized platform has smaller footprint and it gives better performance as compared to other O/S. It provides free and regularly updates with in every six months, it is very best for VPS to achieving more & advance features. Configuring a LAMP server, apache tomcat and other software in Linux VPS is an easy-to-do task because of its big supporting community, user can find solution for almost every problem in the Linux forums or directly from Linux vendor.
How it is different from other O/S?
Linux is a desktop operating system. Its user friendly architecture, application and reputation for stable installation and reliability make it different from others O/S. The main Six month updating circle is very important feature for VPS server performance and thats kept server up to date with new software innovation.
Linux offers a task based installation process, which allows user to set up different programming languages like PHP, Perl, Java, Ruby and Python, together with Apache and LAMP within minutes as compared to widows and other O/S.
At Present there are many Linux versions available like ubuntu, CentOS, Debain and fedora. Those are effectively very useful for increasing efficiency of VPS.
Many VPS server providers deceive to user about choosing the Linux O/S. they shows that the command of Linux is more difficult, but its not right fact because there are vast amounts of books, PDF, PPT, documentations and videos available on internet for Linux.
There are many records that show as compared to other, Linux VPS is more beneficial and cheap VPS for users.

About Linux Vps

Are you interested in linux vps? Would you like to come across a fantastic company that can offer windows vps hosting? If your answer is yes, then feel free to come to nqhost.com! This ingenious website belongs to a company that offers enterprise class virtual private servers with no ridiculous charges or hidden fees!

Together with the obvious technological advancements, there has also been an explosion of bandwidth, memory, as well as web hosting. All the valuable and perhaps less known resources which were available only to users of dedicated servers are now attracting more and more people who can purchase them with a limited budget. In the past, any business had to spend a small fortune for computing resources, yet now all the companies can afford it thanks to the rise of windows vps.

It is true to state that shared hosting manages to fulfill its purpose by dividing a server into dozens or perhaps hundreds of small independent parts, thus suggesting that there are different entities with different goals when it is actually only one server. What is absolutely amazing about windows vps is the fact that it uses virtualization in order to split a server into virtual entities in a manner that makes the illusion complete. Each and every part is indistinguishable from a real standalone server and, due to the fact that the number of splits is limited, there are enough resources for everyone (unlike those in shared hosting).

Windows VPS Hosting is without a shade of doubt the best and the most highly spoken of solution for any business. If you are wondering how come so many individuals choose VPS Hosting, then you ought to know that this represents the best possible solution for education, development, testing, as well as low resources applications at a low cost. Furthermore, it can cater to absolutely any need and provides a great deal of benefits to those who have varied needs and requirements.

VPS can be split into two categories, namely Windows and Linux. Windows vpshosting can be more common than linux vps due to the fact that it is based on Graphical User Interface (abbreviated as GUI). What is more, it is extremely reliable and efficient, being compatible with many applications and catering to numerous needs. Linux VPS is most certainly increasingly being chosen by more and more businessmen, as well as web developers. Despite the fact that in the past its options have been rather limited (to just shared server or dedicated server), VPS nowadays provides us absolutely all the benefits of a dedicated server without high costs which usually come with a such a server. High performance, better flexibility and control are just a few features that you can enjoy with linux vps!

Why Bluehost Is A Best Linux Hosting Provider

From newbies to web masters for launching website looking for a best Linux hosting provider rather than windows hosting because of four reasons. They are stability, reliability, innovative technology, and dedicated support. The first foremost reason for why you must choose Linux hosting for basic level website to high level business websites is because of the stable server with enough resources and applications from the open sources community for all needs. Year on year, there are so many changes in the way of developing a website and you can find every week there is something new is invented especially in Java which is most secure than all other website languages. If someone wants to grow in business along with their fully satisfied customers, then the only thing that you need to invest is your dedication on finding the best web host with reliable hosting server.
For a business website, reliability is must than all other and if the website is down on peak hours of traffic from the clients and customer side then there is no use of running business and the customer may sometimes gets frustrated with the online service. Generally, online services are expanded by the business organization in order to reduce the effort needed to do some process such as paying money, buying products and so on. If the users feel tough and spending huge of their time in the doing that process due to bad performance hosting server and less loading time then the result decreased number of customers. Make sure that the web host has well proficient and incorporated with advanced technology to support you and your business in all the ways towards making more profit from your online business. So, to run secure online business website, the need of Linux hosting is important where you can find flexible options and tons of supporting tools as well as software.
For fast performance hosting server and quality superior customer support, the best web host you must go for hosting is BlueHost who is popular for more than a decade. BlueHost is famous for providing Linux hosting solutions in reasonable affordable price. It is well known for Linux because of good quality support and excellent hosting service. In past, this web host particularly has encountered lot of problems regarding hosting due to various new security issues and reliability problems. But after diagnosing closely and has invented various prevention techniques, as a result it is now running their hosting server fast with high performance without any data loss due to security threats. Today”s BlueHost team is really strong and very skillful in providing high quality web hosting service in low price. It is one of the standard webhosting server providers in the world and everyday huge number of new customers subscribing their plans.
It is expected that BlueHost outgrowth with their outperforming capability soon in the future by surpassing all other top hosting companies. To get VPS level protection in shared hosting plan, then the best web host you must prefer is BlueHost hosting company where you can find few new innovative additional features to increase the performance of the server and that cannot be shown in other hosting company plans. The skillful BlueHost team always used to update all the hardware and software with the latest proven versions and so you need not to worry of the uptime criteria. After deep research and comparison, BlueHost is finally decided as best after go through some of the real BlueHost review of thousands of customer on Internet, then there is nothing wrong being with BlueHost for website hosting.