- Affiliate & Partner Program (2)
- General Discussion (13)
- Linux VPS Hosting (2)
- VPS Hosting (5)
- VPS Security (2)
- VPS Templates (1)
- Windows VPS Hosting (2)
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We have just made available several new CentOS 6 VPS Hosting templates for all customers to use. We now have all of the following CentOS 6 VPS Hosting templates available for installation:
CentOS 6.0 x64
CentOS 6.0 x86
CentOS 6.2 x64
CentOS 6.2 x64 LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)
CentOS 6.3 x64
We are continually adding new and updated Operating System and Application templates to ensure you get the most advanced set of VPS Hosting options available on the market.
Login today and build your new CentOS 6.0 VPS, CentOS 6.2 VPS or CentOS 6.3 VPS!
VPS Hosting vs. Shared Hosting
Why choose a VPS over a traditional shared hosting solution? While there are similarities between the two hosting technologies, there are also several significant differences that make VPS Hosting a superior option as compared to shared hosting.
In order to fully appreciate the extended capabilities that a VPS Hosting solution offers you, a quick review of how they two technologies are similar is helpful. Here is a brief list of their similarities:
- Both technologies provide the ability for a single server to provide services to multiple clients or users
- Both technologies provide segmentation of each customer’s data, files, services from the visibility and accessibility of other customers on the same shared server.
- Both technologies offer a much more affordable option as compared to using a dedicated server.
Choosing a Forex VPS Hosting provider can be a confusing and uncertain task. There are many factors to consider like choice of operating systems, reliability, connectivity to brokers and the quality and responsiveness of customer support. Many providers try to achieve all of these by offering low-end, cheap forex vps hosting products that fall short in hardware, speed, uptime and failure to provide stellar customer support after the sale. What features will traders hosted by us have that other providers simply can’t compete with?
LNMP is quickly becoming a preferred alternative to traditional LAMP hosting. The driving force behind this popularity is the NGINX (pronounced “engine-ex”) web server platform as opposed to Apache. Why is NGINX preferred over Apache? NGINX is both an incredibly lightweight web server and it has a reputation of tremendous speed. NGINX is fundamentally different from Apache in that it is event-driven whereas Apache is process-driven. As Apache spins up additional processes to handle increased load, NGINX is handling the same load with few processes and with greater cohesion amongst the processes.
How does this benefit the system that is hosting the server? Processes are handled much faster and as a whole, the web server utilizes much less RAM than a traditional LAMP server would require. Less Ram and utilization of the available CPU resources is a winning combination for any server administrator.
Let’s take a look at how to setup a LNMP VPS Hosting server from scratch on the CentOS platform. There are several automated scripts that are available for this but many admins prefer to install the packages themselves so they know exactly what’s being added and configured on their server.
We have updated all of our most popular affiliate banners to reflect our new plans and pricing! Please download the following affiliate banner set from our downloads area at https://portal.vpsland.com/index.php?/root&action=download&type=downloads&id=6.
To register for our high-payout VPS Hosting affiliate program, please visit our affiliate partner information page at https://portal.vpsland.com/index.php?/affiliates/
Linux VPS Security Basics
Once you receive your Linux VPS Hosting details from VPSLAND, you are going to immediately want to implement some basic security measures to protect your new vps against various security threats targeted at harming or destroying your data. These can come in the form of dictionary attacks, sql injection, php vulnerabilities or unpatched known exploits.
Here are some simple steps you can take to enhance the security and stability of your new linux vps.
1. Installing All Available Software Updates
New vulnerabilities are discovered and exploits created for them on a daily basis. These can be targeted at various linux services, applications and scripts. It’s crucial that you initially and routinely check for and install any available security updates available for these linux vps components. You can keep your server updated using a distribution package manager like ‘yum” or ‘apt-get’.
RPM based Linux distros; e.g. CentOS, RHEL
# yum update
Debian based Linux distros; e.g. Debian
# apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
2. Using Complex Passwords
Brute force and dictionary attacks are one of the most common types of security threats that a Linux server will encounter. It’s essential that you choose strong and complex passwords when creating and maintaining user accounts on your Linux vps. You should never use passwords that can easily be guessed. This would include not using street names, family member’s names, pet names and plain-text dictionary words. Strong passwords will consist of a complex combination of capital and lower case letters, numbers, special characters and have a minimum lenght of 8 characters.
You will first want to change the password for the ‘root’ user. You can do this from the Linux command line:
# passwd
To change any user’s password you can run this command:
# passwd <username>
3. Disable Any Unnecessary Services
Linux servers have many services/daemons set to start and run automatically upon an initial installation or vps build. While this is convenient for administrators to quickly setup a variety of different types of server applications, it can leave you vulnerable to external break-in due to the number of ports that can be left open to penetration. For this reason you will want to stop and disable any services that are not essential to the purpose of the linux vps. This will also result in better server performance with the newly freed system resources.
Run the following command to verify which services are currently running on your server:
# chkconfig –list
The above-referenced command shows the startup status of all system services.
To stop any of these services from starting at boot you can execute:
# chkconfig –levels <service_name> off
4. Disable SSH ‘root’ Login
The ‘root’ account is the equivalent of the default ‘administrator’ account on a Windows VPS. This account has full control and access over the entire Linux VPS. For this reason, allowing the ‘root’ user to login over SSH is a massive security risk. Should a hacker use an internet-based password cracking tool against your linux vps and gain access, then they will have full control over your server. You can easily disable this default vulnerability to only allow ‘root’ logins via your local console session accessible from your VPSLAND customer dashboard.
5. Remove Unused Accounts
User accounts that are expired, not in use and left from prior users are each a potential security risk. It’s always best to keep user accounts to only those that are required and used. Delete any that you no longer require.
To delete a user account from the command line:
# userdel <username>
6. Use a Firewall to Block Unwanted Network Traffic
Please note that VPSLAND has a multi-tier firewall and intrusion prevention in-place to protect all customers from as many internet-based threats as possible. However, we encourage further measures to be taken by server administrators as an extra layer of security precaution.
While disabling services and unnecessary processes are definite ways to prevent internet-based attacks, some ports are required for server functions and applications to work as designed. You will want to implement a firewall strategy to protect services, ports and applications as strictly as possible. Ensure that the only ports accessible from the WAN (Wide Area Network) are the ones you intend to be accessed and none others. Even then, monitor system and web server logs closely and routinely to look for signs of attempted break-ins. Block any ip addresses or ip ranges that are attempting to hack into your server.
Block inbound traffic on sensitive ports to only allow traffic from trusted ip addresses.
For more information on our Windows VPS Hosting and Linux VPS Hosting products, please visit www.vpsland.com.
Be sure and take advantage of our RECURRING COMMISSION AFFILIATE PROGRAM! We are continuing to grow and expand our affiliate vps hosting program to new and existing customers. With the addition of additional vps hosting server templates and appealling hosting plans, affiliates are posititioned to rake in more commission payouts than ever.
A few reminders about our program:
Q. Who is eligible?
A. Anyone! You don't even have to be a customer to be an active affiliate reselling our world-class vps hosting services.
Q. Does it cost anything to join?
A. No! It's completely free and costs you nothing to get started?
Q. Are the commissions one-time?
A. No! We are not a one-time payout company and instead, we are in it for the long-term with all of our affiliate partners. ALL COMMISSIONS ARE RECURRING for the life of the customer's subscription with us.
Q. What is the payout percentage?
A. 25% of all sales you refer to us, recurring of course.
Q. How can I get paid?
A. Getting paid is incredibly simple. We pay on the first of the month, every month any accrued commissions that total atleast $30!
Sign up TODAY and start earning big $$$ HERE!
Securing Your New Windows VPS
All of our Cloud VPS Hosting plans are fully protected by a multi-tier enterprise firewall and intrustion prevention system. However we understand the need for customers to want to deploy further host-based security measures to further strengthen their windows vps security. Here are some basic security steps we recommend after you have launched your VPSLAND windows cloud vps.
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Choose a secure Administrator password. We recommend choosing a password using a password generator tool that consists of random numbers, letters, characters and punctuation. A minimum suggested lenght is 8 characters or more to ensure maximum protection against brute force dictionary attacks.
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Install a reputable Antivirus program, e.g. AVG, Kaspersky, AVAST.
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Configure the Windows firewall to only required services and ports inbound. Disable all unnecessary allowed inbound rules.
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Lock down certain Services to YOUR IP. Within your advanced firewall settings, doubleclick your inbound rule for RDP (port 3389), click scope and add your IP address into the “Remote IP Address” section.
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Keeping both the operating system and software up to date with the latest versions/hotfixes/patches/updates ensures that any known vulnerabilities are not exploited on your server.
Configure Windows Updates to Check for updates but let me choose when to download and install them.
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Take regular backups before running the lastest update, so you can easily roll back if it breaks something.
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The Password Policy can be set to define rules on passwords for Windows users, while the Account Lockout Policy defines rules on locking an account after multiple failed passwords entered. This is great for ensuring that all users choose strong password and/or choose new passwords after a specified length of time and also to prevent against brute-force login attempts through Remote Desktop.
Click Start -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy
Double-click Account Policies
Choose either the Password Policy or Account Lockout Policy to start configuring security settings.
For additional information on our windows vps hosting plans, visit www.vpsland.com.
VPSLAND is continuing to seek out ways to better serve our customers and give them what they ask for. Well, you all asked for a new entry-level / budget vps hosting offering and we have delivered! We're pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new cheap vps plan with the following specs:
0.5GHZ CPU
512MB RAM
10GB Cloud Storage
125GB Bandwidth
The best part of this plan is the price! We're offering this new plan at an incredible value, just $12.49 per month for the lifetime of the subscription with us. This new plan is the perfect option for an individual or small business looking to host a single website or application with low traffic requirements. We are offering both a linux vps hosting and windows vps hosting option with this new plan.
Find out more about this new offering as well as all our vps hosting options at www.vpsland.com.
Are you a Forex Trader?
VPSLAND is proud to announce that we have been diligently working on a new cloud-based Forex Metatrader hosting solution for our Forex trading customers at www.pipcloud.com!
We have officially launched PipCloud.com at www.pipcloud.com for this revolutionary new trading solution. We have received a great deal of feedback and requests from our Forex clientele to develop a more robust, distributed, accessible, web-based product as an alternative to a traditional windows vps solution. As a result, we've created a completely cloud-based, web-accessible Metatrader Forex VPS product that users can access from anywhere worldwide, with no software installation necessary.
No Software? You got it, all you need is an internet-connected device with a web-browser in order to access your MetaTrader VPS, perform trades, monitor the Forex market, upload and manage your expert advisors and robots.
No more worrying about rebooting your windows vps, worrying about applying security updates or managing your server. With that being said, we do encourage anyone wanting to run custom Forex trading software to continue to use our traditional vps hosting plans as they will have the full versatility of a windows desktop to run their platform on. Our new product is designed for those who want to easily access Metatrader, not have to worry about accidentally closing their instance or session and want to access it via a web-browser worldwide without having to use remote desktop software.
This solution is entirely Unix / Linux based and is running on a new, dedicated, route-optimized Forex network so that you can connect with lightning-fast speed to your broker of choice.
All plans offer 24x7x365 support by our expert Forex team.
Head on over to www.pipcloud.com today to secure your new Forex VPS! Hurry as spaces are limited with our initial launch.
