Managed VPS Quick Start Guide
This Quick Start Guide provides all the information you need to get your new Managed VPS up and running quickly.
Congratulations and thank you for purchasing a VPS from hosting.com! This Quick Start Guide provides all the information you need to get your new managed VPS up and running.
Important
For the unmanaged VPS Quick Start Guide, please see this article.
Your hosting.com Hosting Panel
After you purchase a managed VPS 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. The Hosting Panel enables you to view your account's product information. To do this, follow these steps:
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Log in to the hosting.com Hosting Panel at https://my.hosting.com/.
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In the left sidebar, click Products & Services:
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In the list of products and services, click your VPS:
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On the Overview tab, details appear for your account, including:
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Server name.
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Server status.
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Server hostname.
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Server IP address.
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Additional options enable you to do the following:
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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.
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To change the root password, click Change Root Password.
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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.
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Managing your account with cPanel and WHM
You can use cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) to manage your account and your customers' accounts.
WebHost Manager
WebHost Manager allows you to run your business exactly as you see fit and offers unique customization to cater to the unique needs of your clients with the ability to create custom packages. With WHM, there are endless possibilities that you can use to deliver the best experience for your clients. WHM gives you control over the packages and features you’d like to sell and enables you to manage your customers' accounts. The Knowledge Base article How to manage WebHost Manager packages walks you through the process of creating packages so you can best serve your clients’ needs.
Once you have your customers set with packages that will best suit what their sites need, you will want to create accounts for your clients. Our How to manage web hosting accounts with WHM article walks you through creating, modifying, and deleting accounts within WHM. Delivering to clients a customized experience is one of the best WHM features. Our WHM branding guide walks you through how to deliver a personalized experience for your clients.
cPanel
cPanel is the primary administration interface for your individual client’s accounts. For more information about how to log in to cPanel, please see this article.
Billing interfaces
The WHMCS and Blesta billing interfaces are comprehensive billing, support, and automation solutions that can help you streamline how you run your business from your managed VPS plan. To order, install, and configure a WHMCS license, please see these articles:
To order, install, and configure a Blesta license, please see these articles:
Domains and DNS
Domains
Domains are crucial to a site’s success. If you’re just starting, our Introduction to Domains article walks you through all of the basics when it comes to domains. If you would like to do an even deeper dive into the types of domains available, please see this article.
Transferring domains
If you already own a domain that you purchased from a different registrar or hosting company, you can transfer the entire domain to hosting.com. All aspects of the domain, including billing and domain administration, are transferred from the registrar to hosting.com. For information about how to do this, please see this article.
Setting name servers
If you already own a domain that you purchased from a different registrar or hosting company, you can change the domain's name server (DNS) settings to point to hosting.com's servers. Unlike a transferred domain, billing and domain administration remain with the domain's current registrar. For information about how to do this, please see How to set the name servers for a domain to point to hosting.com.
Default name servers
If you would like to use the default name servers for your account, this article shows you how. This article also covers a wide variety of other topics, such as viewing domain information and setting the registrar lock for a domain.
Custom name servers
Custom name servers are yet another way that you can customize your experience with hosting.com’s managed VPS plan. For example, you can use name servers such as ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com, where example.com represents your domain name.
After the A records have been added (or you’ve verified that you already have functioning name servers,) you must register the custom name servers with the domain’s registrar. After completing these steps, reach out to our Support Team, who will add the new custom name servers to the hosting.com DNS cluster. For more information see How to configure custom name servers.
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, our article How to access your web site before DNS propagation is complete shows you several methods for being able to access your site while you wait for DNS propagation to complete.
FTP/SFTP
Secure Shell File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is available on all managed VPS hosting accounts. This method is more secure than traditional FTP, as it uses the 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.
SSH
Secure Shell (SSH) is a protocol that provides secure command-line access to your hosting.com account. SSH is a powerful tool that allows you to automate many processes for yourself and your clients. By using SSH, you can remotely log in to your hosting.com account and run commands as if you were sitting right at the server, and allows you to perform tasks that you cannot do with your account's included hosting control panel. 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.
Important
Please note that for added security, we use a non-standard SSH port 7822 by default.
E-mail
E-mail is an important part of running a web site, and cPanel makes it easy to set up and manage accounts. For more information about how to set up e-mail accounts for your domain, please see Configuring and accessing your e-mail. The article Managing e-mail accounts in cPanel shows you how to add, modify, and delete e-mail accounts. Furthermore, our article Accessing webmail through cPanel walks you through accessing webmail directly through cPanel. These articles will help you and your clients get your sites up and running in no time.
Securing sites
Free SSL certificates
Free DV SSL certificates are provisioned automatically through a server-side program called AutoSSL. SSL Certificates renew automatically to ensure continuous coverage. There are a few issues that might prevent AutoSSL from working as intended. Our article Setting up AutoSSL on your domain will help you troubleshoot any problems that arise.
Migrating sites
If you’re coming from another hosting provider and need to have your accounts transferred over, our Migration Team will be happy to assist you. This article article explains how to request a migration.
The majority of our migrations are completed within a few hours of the request being received. We take great pride in providing fast migrations. However, several factors, such as the current host's network speed, the number of sites being migrated, and migration complexity can all influence the migration speed. Our Migrations team will keep you informed of your migration's progress.
Need more 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.
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