hosting.com
Knowledge Base
Hosting Panel

Unmanaged VPS Quick Start Guide

This Unmanaged VPS Quick Start Guide provides the information you need to hit the ground running.

Suggest Edits

Congratulations and thank you for purchasing an unmanaged VPS package from hosting.com! This Quick Start Guide provides the information you need to get started.

🚧

Important

For the Managed VPS Quick Start Guide, please see this article.

Using the hosting.com Hosting Panel

After you purchase an unmanaged VPS package from hosting.com, you receive a Welcome e-mail message that provides information about how to access your account on the hosting.com Hosting Panel. Your hosting.com Hosting Panel enables you to view your account's product information. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to the hosting.com Hosting Panel at https://my.hosting.com/.

  2. In the left sidebar, click Products & Services:

  3. In the list of products and services, click your VPS:

  4. On the Overview tab, details appear for your account, including:

    • Server name.

    • Server status.

    • Server hostname.

    • Server IP address.

  5. Additional options enable you to do the following:

    • To log in to the Virtualizor panel, click Login. In this panel you can view resource usage statistics for your VPS, control the power state, and much more.

    • To change the root password, click Change Root Password.

    • To start, stop, or reboot the VPS, click Power On, Shut Down, or Reboot.

      ❗️

      Warning

      For security reasons, we recommend changing all initial passwords. Please see this article for information about how to create a strong password to protect your account.

SSH

Our Using SSH (Secure Shell) to access your account article covers the basics of how to get started with using SSH, and our Accessing your account using SSH keys article covers how you can deploy a variety of automated processes, such as two-factor authentication and allowing multiple users to transfer files securely using SFTP.

📘

Note

For security reasons, by default we use the non-standard SSH port 7822 instead of port 22.

Pre-installed applications

When you order an unmanaged VPS plan, you have the option to select a pre-installed control panel.

cPanel

cPanel is a fully-featured web-based control panel that enables you to manage your domain through an easy-to-use web interface. Using cPanel, you can manage all aspects of your site, including e-mail, files, backups, FTP, CGI scripts, website statistics, and much more.

For information about how to log in to cPanel, please see Logging in and out of cPanel.

Webuzo

If you have an unmanaged VPS, you can use Webuzo to install a wide range of applications and frameworks quickly and easily. For more information about Webuzo, please see Accessing and using Webuzo on an unmanaged server.

Domains and DNS

If you purchased a new domain from hosting.com or transferred a domain to hosting.com, you can use the following name servers for your VPS:

  • dns1.name-services.com

  • dns2.name-services.com

  • dns3.name-services.com

  • dns4.name-services.com

To set the name servers, login to the hosting.com Hosting Panel. Click My Domains, locate the domain, and then click Manage Domain. To set the name servers, click Nameservers. To create DNS Records for your domain, click Management Tools, and then click Manage DNS. You can create an A record that points to your VPS IP address.

If your domain is with another registrar, you must use their DNS management interface.

Configuring domains

This article walks you through how to configure a domain to resolve to your unmanaged server. This article covers both domains registered with hosting.com and those registered with a third-party provider.

DNS propagation

After you’ve updated your domain settings, DNS propagation usually takes 24 hours to complete. You may not be able to access your site using your domain during this time. However, this article shows you how to access your web site using a hosts file.

FTP and SFTP

Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is available on all unmanaged VPS hosting accounts. This method is more secure than traditional FTP, as it utilizes SSH protocol to encrypt file transfers. Most FTP clients support SFTP. Our article Using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) covers FTP basics, while our article How to use FTP with Linux hosting accounts demonstrates how to use an FTP client and connect to your account.

Need any help?

Do you have any questions about your account? We are here 24/7 to help. You can search the hosting.com Knowledge Base, open a Support ticket at https://my.hosting.com, or chat live with one of our support team members.

Related Articles

Updated about 9 hours ago