Cloud Storage and Console FTP-Clients.

On the peculiarities of working with our storage via FTP, we have already written. Today we will touch on a more narrow and specific topic and discuss the features of the repository using the console FTP-client, is often used for the organization of backup and archiving.

These customers differ in kind and quite complex command syntax. To ensure our users have experienced difficulties and not waste time searching for the appropriate manual for writing scripts, we decided to make a small crib with examples of commands to perform the most common operations:

• Download files in the repository;
• Download files with the possibility of renewal in the cancellation or disconnection;
• Synchronizing the local files with files in storage and vice versa.

Repeated operation download files to synchronize the contents of the container and the corresponding folders on your local machine: in the store will be loaded only the files that were missing at the time of the previous load.

With -delete option can be removed from the repository files that no longer exist on the local machine. It may be useful for cleaning the storage of files that have lost their relevance.

Support for SFTP protocol

Now our store support and access protocol SFTP - that is in test mode.
We invite all interested readers to try a new opportunity. For connection is necessary to specify the host. About all errors and problems with access for SFTP sure to let us know. All comments and suggestions for improving the service required to take note.

Choosing a Cloud Hosting Control Panel.

Hosting control panel called software tool allows the GUI to manage the Web server and placed it on the sites. C using the control panel, you can perform operations such as managing e-mail services, FTP-accounts, databases, adding and removing domains and subdomains, download files, view traffic statistics, configure predefined scripts, and others.

As a standalone product web hosting control panel have been widely used in the late 1990s. Since that time, since they have changed and improved. Today the market offers a huge number of solutions for hosting management - both free and proprietary. As of this variety to choose a product really worth?

On the Internet you can find publications that compares existing panel (here, for example, a good transfer material, see. Also here). We decided to create its own review in which the accents somewhat differently than previously published. One of the main criteria that formed the basis of our review is to support panels of Web servers, and combinations thereof. In addition, in this article we look at products in a publication on the links above are not included.

ISP Manager

Developer: company ISP System First version: 1997 Last Version: 5.17.4 (July 2014) Supported OS: Linux, Free BSD, Windows License: proprietary Official website: http://ispsystem.com
To install enough of the ISP Manager console download from the official website special script and run it, and then start to provide the required version (4 or 5) and editors (Lite or Pro). In version 4, the installation is carried out via the console, and in version 5 - in another way: when you select a minimum version to the console displays the link you want to open a browser and continue the installation by selecting the necessary components. Note that in contrast to the fourth-fifth version has a modular structure: it is obligatory only component of Core. On this basis can already be used to select other components - for example, ISP Manager Pro or Lite (There are other components that are in this article will not be considered). However, when choosing a console recommended options for installing all the necessary components will be installed automatically.

By default, the web server Apache. Nginx is optional (for this you just need to go to the section "Configuring the server" -> "Features"):

Once installed, it automatically becomes the front end, and Apache - backend. This is done in order to separate the different functions between Nginx and Apache: Nginx is very good at supporting multiple sessions and return static content (pictures, music, videos, etc.), Apache has broad capabilities to support dynamic data.

After that Apache begins to listen on port 81 (in the fifth version - to 8080), which makes it possible to contact him directly without using while Nginx. To do this, simply point your browser to the correct port, for example http://example.com:81/.

For safety reasons, after setting Nginx is desirable with iptables to block access to the server on port 81, leaving as the only authorized local (127.0.0.1) and the external IP-address of the server. This can be done in the panel itself via the GUI under Firewall:

Some users prefer in this case to change the address for your local apache (127.0.0.1), leaving 80 port. Do not modify system settings, which can be returned to the standard in the case of any updates in Control Panel.

Unlike version 4 to version 5 using an independent web server that provides the control panel, and are not connected with Apache, or c Nginx. That is why by using Apache, you cannot refuse. It is only necessary to set up a site to work in conjunction Nginx + php-fpm. It must, however, take into account that php-fpm replace apache cannot. For example, when you go to php-fpm URL mapping function in chelovekoponyatny (implemented via mod_rewrite in Apache) has the form to be processed web server Nginx.

The advantages of the fifth version include the ability to directly edit the configuration files for Apache and Nginx selected domain, allowing for each domain, you can set individual settings that will not be distributed to others.

Also, to the undoubted advantages include support for Web scripting format the APS, with which the selected domain can be set in semi-automatic mode ready CMS. The user just need to select the desired application from the list and specify the necessary parameters for it (created database, user, password, etc.). Among the other advantages of ISP Manager must also include the presence of a wide range of functions for server management, ease of transfer between accounts hosting, user-friendly multilingual interface, detailed and clear documentation.

The disadvantage is the limited control function firewall and his inactivity by default. Although the control module firewall is activated at the stage of installing the panel, the default rules are inactive. To activate them, you must make at least one change in the list of existing rules from the control panel (such as defined above).

Backup Router Protocol VRRP.

In the previous article, we touched on the problem of redundant network infrastructure and examined how the technology works MC-LAG. Today we tell about another technology, more complex and more reliable and enables you to reserve at the level of the data center. We are talking about increasing the availability of routers using the protocol VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol).
The article will be of interest primarily to those who would like to ensure continuous availability of business-relevant Internet resources, but it does not have sufficient technical capacity: has neither its own stand-alone system or block IP-addresses or connections to providers via BGP.

Choosing a backup scheme
Imagine that we have a business critical Internet resource that must always be available to a large number of users.

Network configuration resource (address, mask and default gateway) are as follows:
ifconfig eth0 address 12.34.56.78 mask 255.255.255.248 gw 12.34.56.73

If .78 - is the address of the host, the .73 - the default gateway address. This address - area of ​​responsibility of the operator, and if the host is placed in the data center - the area of ​​responsibility of the data center. Graphically, this scheme can be represented as follows:

In the final host prescribed address 12.34.56.78, the router - .72, and between organized unified L2-domain (usually a separate VLAN):

To increase the availability of the final host, the reservation is required a network infrastructure.
For redundancy at L2 in the simplest case, a Virtual Chassis / Fabric / MC-LAG. Then of course the host network connects data centers with LAG (Etherchannel):

Possible points of failure are very destination host and a router.
Reservation final host - it is the responsibility of the customer. It is very desirable to reserve the host end and are located in different data centers. This will avoid many problems (with the network structure, the availability of a particular physical server, with power and cooling in individual markets).

To organize the transfer of IP-addresses between the primary and secondary hosts can be different within one segment of the L2-it can be done using protocols CARP / HSRP / VRRP and their analogues:

The end customer and standby hosts are located in different data centers. Routers that belong to the operator, are also located in different data centers. Data centers can be connected to multiple channels of communication.

In the event of a fault in one of the data centers host the final still remains affordable. The described approach can be used for both redundancy L2-, and L3-on circuits.

Backup Routers
An example of a reservation at L3 can serve anycast-routing and the use of the BGP speaker with the higher operator. Each host on the router advertises network operator 12.34.56.72/29 with a different priority. In addition, each host is connected to the router operator separate subnet, a separate VLAN'om.

Virtual Private Cloud – Billing.

General Principles
Using the services of "virtual private cloud", you pay for the amount of resources at your disposal. Once the resources are reserved, the payment for which is removed from the balance of each hour. It will be charged regardless of whether or not the resources are used. When calculating the maximum rate of payment is taken into account each resource per hour. If, for example, within an hour you repeatedly change the quota of the project, calculation of the payment will be calculated based on the maximum values.

In Control Panel, each project has a button "Optimize quota" - clicking on it, you will be able to bring the quota of the project in line with the resources consumed. Because of this you will never have to pay for resources that are not actually used.

System Resources: features payment

Processor Cores
You can rent any number of processor cores. Rentals are available only whole cores, up to 100% load. To avoid an unexpected lack of resources on each host reserved the required amount of CPU time. If you change the number of processor cores, the machine can be migrated to another host.

Memory
For each project, you can request any amount of memory in megabytes. Memory is reserved in full screen when creating virtual machines.

Disks
The cloud can be rented discs of two types: basic and quick.
A basic disk performance corresponds to SATA-drives enterprise-class. It is suitable for use in projects, for which do not require frequent reading and writing information.
Quick drive is a solution based on the SSD-drives. RTT and performance improved over the basic disk in several times.

Store images
We have already mentioned that in our store provided the opportunity to work with ready-made images of virtual machines. All images are placed in special storage. Its usage is charged in the same way as using a basic disk.

Floating IP-addresses
On the floating IP-address we mentioned in the previous article: inside a virtual machine, all ports are listening on the private ("gray") address, and the outside of the machine is available for the public ("white") address. This technology is well suited for light duty projects. Her undoubted advantage is flexibility: the floating IP-address can always be detached from the machine and attached one to the other.

Visitor Subnet
Service users' virtual private cloud "we are able to provide the public subnet of 5 (" white ") addresses in a separate VLAN. This method of access to the internet tested for years and seems to be more reliable. At the start, we offer five subnet addresses.

Windows license
If you plan to create virtual machines in the cloud running OC Windows, you do not need to purchase the license separately: we offer it for rent. The rental price includes and regular updates. Payment for the Windows license is charged at a fixed rate per hour.

Network Traffic
Each account is entitled to three free terabyte external traffic per month. According to preliminary calculations, this should be quite enough for most projects of small and medium-sized.
Once the limit is exceeded, with the balance of each hour will be written off funds for traffic - both inbound and outbound.

To optimize the traffic flow can be purchased in advance at a reduced price. This proposal should primarily be of interest to customers working with large volumes of data.

Balance VPC
When you create a new project or modify an existing quota of the project, a special counter in the control panel will show at what period should be enough available funds on the balance sheet. This will help you avoid unexpected shutdown of all servers due to a lack of funds on the balance sheet.

Conclusion
So, a new service launched - join and use. Please send us your questions, comments and suggestions for its further development and improvement.

Naturally, at the current level, we are not going to stay long. We have big plans for the development of VPC. In particular, in the near future there will be many additional services, new types of discs (even faster than those that are available now), rent load balancers, and more.
We also plan to continue the series of articles on the issue of VPC in our blog. Follow the news!

Virtual Private Cloud - SaaS Customers.

Some companies, for whatever reasons, their own infrastructure in the cloud is not transferred, but would not mind to organize the provision of cloud resources for contractors and clients. Our new cloud is well suited for such a use: it is possible to create virtual workplaces and organize access to corporate information resources from all over the globe.

Work with peak loads
In any organization marked seasonal peaks during which the IT infrastructure lays down the maximum load (in financial institutions it may be periods of preparation and delivery of financial statements, in commercial enterprises - New Year period and the like). During such periods, it may require additional IT resources, but for the purchase of two or three weeks a year, additional hardware and software in this case is hardly justified. It is much easier and cheaper to hire a virtual resources, which are also easily scalable.

Running-in of new projects
It often happens that the organization is launching a new project and it is not clear how much it will consume resources. Of course, to buy expensive hardware for running the new project is irrational. But to carry out experiments on the basis of the available too safe: there is always a risk of a sudden sharp rise in load.

In such a situation rent computing resources of the cloud may be the optimal solution. On the basis of VPC, you can create an experimental platform for load testing and running a new project.
As a result of the project running in the cloud, you can estimate how much resources it will consume, and build a strategy for its further development.

Optimization of the process of developing and testing software
Our new cloud can also be used as a platform for software testing. If the test environment is close to the real conditions of use of the product, the probability of errors in the final version will be significantly reduced.

On the basis of our cloud can quickly create test environments with the necessary parameters. Among the advantages of using the VPC to test the following:

Isolation. Under each product requires a separate test environment, because it makes a separate development team. The VPC can create multiple projects necessary for the test environment each team access to its pool. Due to the insulation significantly increases the productivity of labor: programmers will not interfere with each other, and system administrators will be able to debug the operation of components without causing any inconvenience to developers.

The speed of deployment. With orchestration module Heat can quickly create test environments to any specifications. Even if the test pool will, for whatever reason, is damaged, it cannot recover, and simply deploy new based on existing templates.

The use of virtual machines for testing will reduce the time and cost of deploying and configuring test environments, test environments.

On the basis of VPC is also possible to organize a common access to the product for the development of the team members, and users - this will help speed up the process of finding and correcting errors.

Reselling
"Virtual Private Cloud" offers great opportunities for novice internet entrepreneurs: Web studios, shared hosting providers, gaming and other services. You can build your own projects on the basis of lease we have the resources, and then resell them to their customers.

Especially for resellers, we made ​​it possible to customize the external control panel. You can configure everything so that customers will not know that their virtual machines run on the basis of our infrastructure.

ZPanel Panel Installation on CentOS.

I took quite a cheap VPS in UK, which I, together with an additional IP, cost $ 16 for OpenVZ 2 GB RAM, 100 GB HDD, 2Tb cores. From sockets have proved only CPanel hosting for $ 11 a month, including I began to think how to be a socket, for this server, I would like some options are not available when you install ISP, and buying DA I did not want.

Digging in the list of free sockets, I found quite a pop version in a socket Zpanel. In the demo, it was clear nothing, including I decided to put it.

Put it, like all the other elementary - take the address of the last assembly to off.sayta and run the following command: # yum update # yum install wget # wget https://raw.github.com/zpanel/installers/master/install/CentOS -6_4 / 10_1_1.sh # chmod 755 10_1_1.sh # ./10_1_1.sh
Then we asked about the timezone, and interface IP, as well as the hostname, and then start the installation script.

After a while it will give PROMT turnout and passwords for the database server, mySQL and the login panel.

We rewrite all and agree with the fact that the server is overloaded.
Thereafter, ZPanel will be available at the main IP addresses.

But it should be noted that I did not like the panel, as not very convenient in terms of working with databases mySQL - cannot be directly downloaded from the panel, such as CPanel or in the DA, including it is necessary to go into phpMyAdmin.

Pretty dull process of backup, because they are created in dop.okne mode ontaym (interestingly lope wait for my main gig lytbyra 2), where files and download, but if you close the window, when you open the master back up again- links to the archive will not be created.
Several retarding statistics on the same database and the creation of domains, including flooded base for 10 minutes is shown as 4K, and a new domain created for 2-3 minutes.

This hardly eats memory
Although, for example, setting up mail aliases is much easier than in the DA, and the socket itself looks pretty functional, the presence of, for example, the same Weblizer. The general impression about both the Pleks, though certainly pay much more functional panel. But, for example, to control the mail server is fine.

Resistant Canadian Hosting.

Some time ago, I engaged in catching domains CY, found that people start dropping pumped domains tits10 and, more interestingly, pyrom 3, so that the total was their greed buy, wondering what to do in the future.

Thus gathered mesh of fat drops of medical topics, as there were no current tabletosy and brands, but also all sorts of different Keys on Halsey. At first I thought that the domains were by Google, but the first three of them flew as a home, so that was a question where I hang this grid of satellites.
The point is that most of my hosts - this states where farming is prohibited, and even despite the fact that I just poured informative articles on the tablets, there was a probability of ban the account that I was certainly not very happy about it.

So that talks with a couple of web hosting, I realized that it is necessary to look for a server either in Sweden or in Romania or Poland. In Romania, I already have a VPS, but by ADA is that of the states he is not particularly joyful response.

So stay Sweden as Polish hosting I immediately rejected. Of course you can still entitled Baltic hosts, but frankly Swedes impressed me more as the response time they are even better than in many hosts.
About Swedes I unsubscribe separately, but the point is that looking for hosting for doubtful projects left on the Canadian web hosting, which is positioning itself as a limited bulletproof, that is to host it is forbidden basically am, and everything else you can, including the Farm, adult and other things. At the same time a support vows and swears that problems can arise only if the complaint comes directly in DC, and there will be an instant ban the account and offered to carry a document or move a site that is naturally not the same thing as instant lock your account, followed by sultry graters "uncle Well, give it. " Moreover, all decisions taken in hosting carried out only by a decision of a Canadian Court.

And instantly it comes fully configured and ready to work. For 16 bucks, you can already take a plane, but there was a problem with the additional IP, since they are granted only on dedicated servers, which start at $ 62 ($ 68 with RAID1). On a VPS additional IP are not provided, but given the cost of VPS and it is not necessary, since I took 2 VPS $ 17 and I have enough for their eyes to host the entire grid. If you decide to place guest posts, and it is possible to increase the number of servers, or even take a wholesale package because they do have such a service - 4VPS with 4IP 4gigami and opera will be released in $ 50 with full administration.

Functional Hosting Control Panel VestaCP.

There is an alternative web hosting socket VestaCP. Attracted me to it is that, unlike most commercial and panels, it puts the whole program minced format LNAMP, ie among the standard is put a bunch of Nginx + Apache, where Apache serves the dynamic back-end and performs the role of Proxy donating static content to the client.

Put elementary, just two commands: # curl -O http://vestacp.com/pub/vst-install.sh # bash vst-install.sh

At the same time, we must pay tribute to her sends all appearances and passwords to e-mail, but does not offer a record of the console.

The very socket is very lightweight, but it should be noted that all have: domains, setting proxy, support for SSL, additional statistics webalizer and awstats, statistics use services and cores, lightweight management postman under Exim with screwed antispam / antivirals / DKIM, the scheduler cron, backup (which is taken directly from the admin), management iptables (which is delivered fail2ban configured to protect ssh).

In the form of a web-mail client it is Roundcube, which is nice, because many people are clumsy protein.

With the bases a little convenient to operate, because it is necessary to climb in pre phpMyAdmin, but on the other hand have to pay for lightness. And while rich enough functional mail: aliases, forwards, limits box, auto-replies.

As a nice addition to the primary IP system hangs plug default.domain, incl do not have hemorrhoids yourself to redirect the domain or IP on the config settings.
Even if you do not take into account a great bunch, the socket head and shoulders above a heaped ZPanel not so much inferior to the ISP functionality.