(1) VPS Server Plans
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The "VPS Control Panel" (login here) allows you to administer your VPS server (e.g. backup, reboot, or change the root password).
W A R N I N G !!!!!! This is a powerful tool, know what you are doing before you do it. Do NOT use the "Reinstall" link unless you want to start over with a new OS-- this will completely wipe out your domains on the server; it will install a new fresh OS. All your data will be lost. In oder to overwrite all your current data and restore it from an earlier backup, use the "Central Backup" link. Be very aware what you do--first look at the date you last backed your VPS up. "Central Backup" is also the place to create new backups. The "Quick Backup" button, on the other hand, creates a full backup file into your server's account (so it almost doubles the disk space you currently use); this is for later transfer to your home computer.

Suggestion:
For some server admin tasks you will need an SSH program. We suggest the Absolute Telnet/SSH secure terminal client for Windows and dataComet-Secure for Mac OS X. For a listing of SSH programs for all platforms, see the following Wikipedia website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_SSH_clients

(2) Dedicated Servers & General Server Admininstartion
==================================================

Make sure to get a good stand-alone SSH client: we suggest the Absolute Telnet/SSH secure terminal client for Windows and dataComet-Secure for Mac OS X. More at the following Wikipedia website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_SSH_clients

For a good handbook for CentOS 6 see the link below; for web server administration see especially from chapter 28 onwards:
http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/CentOS_6_Essentials
Other Linux guides, see here.

Common SSH Commands - Linux Shell Commands

For an extensive list of Linux commands, see: http://archive.oreilly.com/linux/cmd/

Here is a list of the more frequently used SSH commands or Linux shell commands:

ls : list files/directories in a directory, comparable to dir in windows/dos.
ls -al : shows all files (including ones that start with a period), directories, and details attributes for each file.
cd : change directory · · cd /usr/local/apache : go to /usr/local/apache/ directory
cd ~ : go to your home directory
cd - : go to the last directory you were in
cd .. : go up a directory cat : print file contents to the screen
cat filename.txt : cat the contents of filename.txt to your screen
chmod : EG chmod 640 filename - setts permissions to 'filename' to 640
chown : EG chown root.psaadm filename - sets ownership if file 'filename'
tail : like cat, but only reads the end of the file
tail /var/log/messages : see the last 20 (by default) lines of /var/log/messages
tail -f /var/log/messages : watch the file continuously, while it's being updated
tail -200 /var/log/messages : print the last 200 lines of the file to the screen
tail -f /var/log/maillog : print last messages in mail logs (for cPanel server)
tail -f /var/log/exim_mainlog : print last exim messages in mail logs (for cPanel server)
tail -f /usr/local/apache/logs/suexec_log : look at suexec for nobody perl exploits
tail -f /var/log/httpd/error_log : Apache ERROR log (Plesk server)
tail -f /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log : Apache ERROR log (cPanel server)
tail -f /var/log/httpd/access_log : Apache access log
more : like cat, but opens the file one screen at a time rather than all at once
more /etc/userdomains : browse through the userdomains file. hit to go to the next page, to quit
pico : friendly, easy to use file editor .... or nano we have one of both installed on your server)
pico /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user's website.
resp. nano /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user's website.
vi : another editor, tons of features, harder to use at first than pico
vi /home/burst/public_html/index.html : edit the index page for the user's website.
grep : looks for patterns in files
grep root /etc/passwd : shows all matches of root in /etc/passwd
grep -v root /etc/passwd : shows all lines that do not match root
touch : create an empty file
touch /home/burst/public_html/404.html : create an empty file called 404.html in the directory /home/burst/public_html/
ln : create's "links" between files and directories
ln -s /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd.conf : Now you can edit /etc/httpd.conf rather than the original. changes will affect the orginal, however you can delete the link and it will not delete the original.
rm : delete a file
rm filename.txt : deletes filename.txt, will more than likely ask if you really want to delete it
rm -f filename.txt : deletes filename.txt, will not ask for confirmation before deleting.
rm -rf tmp/ : recursively deletes the directory tmp, and all files in it, including subdirectories. BE VERY CAREFULL WITH THIS COMMAND !!!! If you make a mistake you can delete your entire server within a minute!
last : shows who logged in and when
last -20 : shows only the last 20 logins
last -20 -a : shows last 20 logins, with the hostname in the last field
w : shows who is currently logged in and where they are logged in from.
netstat : shows all current network connections.
netstat -an : shows all connections to the server, the source and destination ips and ports.
netstat -rn : shows routing table for all ips bound to the server.
top : shows live system processes in a nice table, memory information, uptime and other useful info. This is excellent for managing your system processes, resources and ensure everything is working fine and your server isn't bogged down.
top then type Shift + M to sort by memory usage or Shift + P to sort by CPU usage
top then type C to show the processes
ps: ps is short for process status, which is similar to the top command. It's used to show currently running processes and their PID. A process ID is a unique number that identifies a process, with that you can kill or terminate a running program on your server (see kill command).
ps U username : shows processes for a certain user
ps aux : shows all system processes
ps aux | grep httpd : shows Apache processes
ps aux --forest : shows all system processes like the above but organizes in a hierarchy that's very useful!
file : attempts to guess what type of file a file is by looking at it's content.
file * : prints out a list of all files/directories in a directory
du : shows disk usage.
du -sh : shows a summary, in human-readble form, of total disk space used in the current directory, including subdirectories.
du -sh * : same thing, but for each file and directory; helpful when finding large files taking up space.
wc : word count
wc -l filename.txt : tells how many lines are in filename.txt
cp : copy a file
cp filename filename.backup : copies filename to filename.backup
cp -a /home/user1/new_design/* /home/user1/public_html/ : copies all files, retaining permissions form one directory to another.
kill: terminate a system process
kill -9 PID EG: kill -9 4022
kill PID EG: kill 10550
Use top or ps ux to get system PIDs (Process IDs)
EG:
PID TTY TIME COMMAND
10550 pts/3 0:01 /bin/csh
10574 pts/4 0:02 /bin/csh
10590 pts/4 0:09 APP
Each line represents one process, with a process being loosely defined as a running instance of a program. The column headed PID (process ID) shows the assigned process numbers of the processes. The heading COMMAND shows the location of the executed process.
Putting commands together
Often you will find you need to use different commands on the same line. Here are some examples. Note that the | character is called a pipe, it takes date from one program and pipes it to another.
> means create a new file, overwriting any content already there.
>> means tp append data to a file, creating a newone if it doesn not already exist.
< send input from a file back into a command.
grep User /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf |more
This will dump all lines that match User from the httpd.conf, then print the results to your screen one page at a time.
last -a > /root/lastlogins.tmp
This will print all the current login history to a file called lastlogins.tmp in /root/
tail -10000 /var/log/exim_mainlog |grep domain.com |more
This will grab the last 10,000 lines from /var/log/exim_mainlog, find all occurances of domain.com (the period represents 'anything',
-- comment it out with a so it will be interpretted literally), then send it to your screen page by page.
netstat -an |grep :80 |wc -l
Show how many active connections there are to apache (httpd runs on port 80)
mysqladmin processlist |wc -l
Show how many current open connections there are to mysql
rpm -q RPMname : to check is a certain RPM is installed
rpm -Uvh RPMname.rpm : install an RPM named 'RPMname.rpm'
tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz : uncompress a .tar.gz file
service : EG service httpd restart (restart Apache) or service qmail stop (stops qmail) or service httpd start (starts Apache) - restarts, stops or starts services

(3) Hosting Control Panels
=======================

cPanel/WHM

cPanel/WHM server admin level and user level guides:
https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/ALD/cPanel+User+Documentation

A great resource are the cPanel Forums at:
https://forums.cpanel.net

Login to your VPS or dedicated cPanel server's admin level WHM interface at:
http://<Your Server's Main IP>:2086/ or the SSL port https://<Your Server's Main IP>:2087/
USERNAME: root
PASSWORD: <Your Password>
Same username and password will work for root level SSH access to your server's main shared IP. We installed "pico" and/or "nano" (and always also "vi") as a basic text editors to be used in SSH.
After logging in to WHM for the first time, please follow the on-screen instructions for the basic setup. More info here. We suggest you to click on pretty much every menu link (except HDD formatting) in WHM to decide what settings you want.

We suggest to install Zend Optimizer for faster PHP / MySQL processing:
run as root:
/scripts/installzendopt
We also suggest to run these two scripts for very basic security (to
hinder someone from abusing your /tmp directory:
/scripts/securetmp
/scripts/secureit
Also note that message boards like phpBB2 get regularly hacked. You might want to update them as often as possible.
Many of the usual smaller problems (e.g. with file permissions) are fixed running this script:
/scripts/fixeverything
(It will run a long time, maybe an hour .. do not interrupt after you start it.)

cPanel add-on: Fantastico DeLuxe

If you also ordered a Fantastico license, please note: activation of the license at Netenberg's licensing server usually takes 6 to 24 hours. Please install Fantastico following these very simple instructions from below link (via SSH, root level).
https://www.netenberg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=950 (install instructions)
IN CASE you get a download error, that means the license isn't active yet ... try later again.
For Fantastico related problems and questions, consult the Netenberg forums at:
https://www.netenberg.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5

cPanel add-on: Softaculous

Same as Fantastico, Softaculous is a script installer. But it is installs over 250 scripts and is more often updated than Fantastico, and easy to install and maintain.
Home Page: http://www.softaculous.com
Install instructions at: http://www.softaculous.com/docs

DirectAdmin

For DirectAdmin server and user level documentation, see:
https://www.directadmin.com/support.html

Very helpful are also the DirectAdmin forums at:
http://forum.directadmin.com

Login to your DirectAdmin VPS server at:
http://<Your Server's Main IP>:2222/
USERNAME: admin
PASSWORD: <Your Password>

DirectAdmin add-on: Softaculous

Softaculous is a script installer. It is installs over 250 scripts and is easy to install and maintain.
Home Page: http://www.softaculous.com
Install instructions at: http://www.softaculous.com/docs

Plesk

Plesk documentation can be found at:
http://www.odin.com/support/

Consult the Parallels Plesk forums for all Plesk related issues:
https://forum.parallels.com

Login to your Plesk server at:
https://<Your Server's Main IP>:8443/
USERNAME: admin
PASSWORD: <Your Password>

Plesk add-on: Softaculous:

Softaculous is a script installer. It is installs over 250 scripts and is easy to install and maintain.
Home Page: http://www.softaculous.com
Install instructions at: http://www.softaculous.com/docs

(4) Security
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Security is a never ending job, and it should be one of your main concerns as a server administrator, especially if you are hosting business sites. It is a very complex and constantly changing field. As a very minimum, we suggest to install a firewall from your VZPP control panel. Please also read our security advice. We also suggest you to visit the above listed cPanel, Plesk, etc. FORUMS for tips on how to secure your server. If you have further questions, please contact us by email. For serious business sites and database hosting we suggest to go with one of our customized, fully secured and fully managed dedicated servers.

(5) e1000e ERROR
=================

Instructions to fix the e1000e ERROR on new Supermicro servers are here.