One of the newest tools we’ve started using to increase the speed of sites is a drop in MySQL replacement, Percona Server. Percona’s been around quite awhile, and like us, they’re also obsessed with speed. They’ve developed a drop in replacement that is compatible with MySQL databases and also cPanel servers.

We’ve found that while MySQL works amazingly well for most sites, sites that see over 20-30 visitors online at a time, Percona accels. Performance is more consistent, while also being sometimes upwards of 30-40% faster. Percona has published benchmarks themselves, which we’ve found to be inline with our own tests. Enough about it the server though, lets get to installing it!

Since almost all of our users will already have MySQL installed, we’ll start with removing it first. We can remove the MySQL service, without effecting the existing databases. Our first step will be to stop the running services to avoid corruption:

/etc/init.d/httpd stop ; /etc/init.d/exim stop ; /etc/init.d/pure-ftpd stop ; /etc/init.d/cpanel stop ; /etc/init.d/crond stop ; /etc/init.d/mysql stop ; /etc/init.d/exim stop ;

Next we’ll want to find out what MySQL packages are currently installed. We can do that by running the following command:

yum list installed | grep -i mysql

In almost all circumstances, we’ll see something like the following:

root@server1 [/]# yum list installed | grep -i mysql

MySQL-bench.x86_64                       5.0.92-0.glibc23              installed
MySQL-client.x86_64                      5.0.92-0.glibc23              installed
MySQL-devel.x86_64                       5.0.92-0.glibc23              installed
MySQL-server.x86_64                      5.0.92-0.glibc23              installed
MySQL-shared.x86_64                      5.0.92-0.glibc23              installed

We can then remove the packages, as they’ll no longer be necessary. As a note, when we remove these packages the databases will still be intact, however, when performing any service maintenance, it is always wise to backup all data. We can remove the packages by running the following command:

yum remove MySQL*

We can now work towards installing Percona. First we’ll need to add the repository:

rpm -Uvh http://www.percona.com/downloads/percona-release/percona-release-0.0-1.x86_64.rpm

We can now install the RPMs by running the following command:

yum install Percona-Server-client-51 Percona-Server-server-51

After successful installation, it is safe to restart all services.

/etc/init.d/httpd start ; /etc/init.d/exim start ; /etc/init.d/pure-ftpd start ; /etc/init.d/cpanel start ;/etc/init.d/crond start ; /etc/init.d/mysql start ; /etc/init.d/exim start

Some users may need to recompile PHP in order for dynamic pages to work properly. cPanel users will want to login to WHM, and go to the Update preferences. From there, simply choose for cPanel to never update MySQL. It should be noted that you will be responsible for maintaining Percona in the future, and will be required to manually update it.

Enjoy the increased performance, and we’ll continue to do what we can to make sure your website is online and fast. If you’re using Percona, you may want to look into using LiteSpeed, which is another way to increase the speed and stability of your site, and is available from VPS.NET for $14 a month.

                          

Kendall Weaver – Peppermint OS is a Linux distribution derived from Lubuntu 10.04 Alpha 3 using integrated web applications and some system tools sourced from Linux Mint.  Probably the biggest distinguishing factor regarding Peppermint is that, unlike many other web/cloud centric operating systems, we’re trying hard to keep a familiar desktop experience with the shallowest possible learning curve, all while concentrating on speed and stability as our foremost targets.  One thing we did not want to do was make it difficult for users to install and use local applications.

We see Peppermint as a form of hybrid that offers many of the features of the new “cloud” operating systems coming forth, but without sacrificing the familiarity and extensibility of more traditional “desktop” operating systems.  Modern computer users, both at work and at play, are now using a combination of both local and web applications in order to get things done and we’re wanting to give the world a system that doesn’t punish the user for choosing one over the other.

Personally, I envision Peppermint being used in any situation where someone depends on a combination of local and web applications in order to be productive.  We’ve already received great praise for our integration of web applications using Mozilla Prism and in the future I see more people demanding this sort of functionality in their operating systems.

:: How long as the Peppermint Linux project been underway?

Kendall Weaver – Peppermint technically started back in January at the local pub after Shane and I got into a conversation about the future of desktop Linux, what has kept certain distributions from becoming more mainstream, and what we would do differently if we had the opportunity.  We thought up the name almost immediately and it came from us wanting to do something in a similar vein as Linux Mint, but a lot “spicier” if you will.  I fooled around with a number of different ideas and did a lot of research as to exactly how to go about building Peppermint.  I finally had a solid game plan in late March which led to our Private Beta a few weeks later.

:: Obviously you have some relationship to Linux Mint. How close is that?

Kendall Weaver – This past November I was perusing the Linux Mint forum and saw that their Fluxbox edition was without a maintainer at the time.  I kind of took it upon myself to just dive in and start working on it, and in December I was welcomed to the Linux Mint development team as the new maintainer for the Fluxbox edition.  Shortly after the release of Mint 8 Fluxbox I kind of took it upon myself to restart work on an LXDE edition that had originally been talked about for (I think) the Mint 7 release cycle.  I’m still actively involved in Linux Mint and I have no plans to stop at any point.  It’s been a little more difficult for the Mint 9 cycle as I have my day job and Peppermint taking up a large chunk of my time.  Due to the popularity of Peppermint thus far and the maintenance workload associated with it I feel that at some point I will have to step down as a Mint maintainer, simply because I don’t feel that I’ll be giving the Mint releases the attention they need, but when this happens I don’t want it to affect the good working relationship we have at this point.

:: July 19th you release Peppermint Ice … nervous at all?

Shane Remington – About a couple of weeks ago we started getting nervous due to the fact we were overloading our server space at MidPhase by massive amounts of downloads of Peppermint One !! But, now that we have migrated to VPS.net there is not one speck of nervousness at all. Now we have nothing but 100% pure excitement and adrenaline to get Peppermint Ice into the hands of all that are waiting for the release and those yet to discover our operating system.

Kendall has written a very sleek Cloud/Web Application Launcher called “Ice” that will integrate into the system. “Ice”  is an Site Specific Browser [SSB] application that will launch a cloud / web app or web site in its own window and act as if it is installed locally on the machine. In theory, you could have next to no locally running programs on Peppermint and deliver them all to yourself via your own customized menu system of “Ice” launchers, which is how I operate my own laptop. In Peppermint Ice, Chromium will be the default browser and we expect to integrate with Google Cloud Print once they have it ready to launch and alleviate the necessity for local print services on the OS.

:: You have a little bit of a unique story about how you reached out to VPS.NET. Care to share that at all?

Shane Remington – We had been a live project for a little over a month and already pushing 200K downloads of our operating system. As I said earlier, we needed to mirgate quickly so we could keep supporting this onslaught of direct downloads. As a young project, getting popular rapidly, and being open source, there is just little to no funding and we needed a hosting solution quickly. The awesome team at Midphase kindly turned their eyes away from us for a few days so we could attempt to raise the funds necessary to migrate and our dedicated users gave whatever they could muster to get us there. Unfortunately, it was not enough to meet the deadline.

So, over a couple of pints at the pub, the night before we needed to have a solution or pull all direct downloads, I decided that I needed to take a grassroots / guerrilla marketing approach and mobilize our user base. In the morning I set out to let Midphase and VPS.net know, through whatever channels necessary, that we are a great new product and that we needed their help to stay alive on their servers. I rallied a friendly Twitter mob, email spree, and Facebook flood within a couple of hours in hopes that someone would see our S.O.S. signal up the chain. Later that afternoon Ditlev, your CEO, contacted me via Twitter and told me that he and VPS.net would grant us sponsorship. We were floored and excited beyond belief all at the same time. Do not underestimate the power of Twitter and Social Media to get things done rapidly….

Our team knew that VPS.net and Peppermint OS were a match made in Heaven: Cloud server meets Cloud Hybrid OS. Its perfect.

:: What do you think about cloud computing? How do see Peppermint Linux being used with it?

Shane Remington – Cloud computing is the future. In fact, its the future right now, and there are a lot of people who remain unaware that they interacting with SaaS / PaaS / Web applications and the cloud structures that serve them today.

Read Write Web published an interesting article several months back with statistics showing that by 2014 there would be upward of 130 million enterprise employees working in the Mobile Cloud on a regular basis. When Kendall and I read that we knew that Peppermint OS was on the right track. We needed to deliver a Hybrid OS that was lightweight, extremely fast, cloud and web app ready, and would work out of the box with little to no tinkering. We would be different than the other “Cloudy” OS’s because we would refuse to toss out the familiar desktop environment, keep local storage, and yet make it simple enough for a child to operate the system when it boots up. 250,000 users and growing say we have hit the nail on the head…

Kendall Weaver – I believe that with the necessity of technological mobility becoming ever more present in our daily lives, the cloud is becoming a necessity along with it.  This isn’t limited to business either.  We’re finding more uses for the cloud and web based technologies all the time ranging from personal file storage to education and the ways we interact with each other in general.  I see Peppermint as helping to bridge the gap between the cloud and the desktop and I see it showing many of us what can happen when we start working to combine the best of both worlds.

                          

First login to WHM (Web Host Manager), which is the administrative interface for the cPanel control panel. To do so, you just need to go http://ipaddress.com:2086, where you’ll be prompted for the root password. Once you login to WHM, go to the “Create a New Account” section.

The first steps to create your account are to enter your domain, and preferred login information.

If you have pre-defined packages, which set your resource specifications, you can set them in the next step.

If you have installed the RVSkin set, you can select from a list of RVSkins for your control panel theme. If you haven’t purchased the RVSkin set, x3 is a default cPanel which still has the full functionality.

In the final section, if you’re running an offsite mail server, this is the section you’ll set it in using the remote mail exchanger option. If the VPS itself is hosting the mail server (and most will be), then you’ll just use the local mail exchanger option.

At this point, you’ll want to double check all the options to make sure that everything is correct. If it is, hit that “Create Account” button and watch WHM do it’s thing. Once it has completed, you’ll see the following confirmation page (and no, I do not use 123$$$terry as my password).

Don’t worry ISP Manager users – you’re up next week!

                          

There are certain days bartenders look forward to. New Years Eve probably tops the list, followed closely by the Friday after Thanksgiving (At least in the USA) but there’s one day that you may not know about. June 3rd; The day of my (Terry!) birthday and the Eve of Nick’s birthday. What typically starts out as a fun get away from the office, always turns into an expensive mess. While I at least get to enjoy the benefit of a lower insurance bill thanks to turning 25, Nick doesn’t have it so good. He just got older. Granted, he’s only 364 days older than me, he’s still older and that much slower than me on the basketball court. Both of us however have survived, and thrived, and I’m pretty certain thanks to some enhanced creativity levels, come up with new ideas for VPS.NET! How many of these ideas we actually remember and then decide to be a good idea can certainly be questioned.

Recognize this little guy? We’ve ordered (I believe) 5,000 of the VPS.NET mascot stress balls. If you want one, the most fun way would be to meet up with us at HostingCon. For those of you who unfortunately won’t be able to attend, we’re cooking up a way to win one. Probably will involve some sort of fun contest, but it’s totally worth it right?

An update on the “Meet the Staff” blog post: we’re still looking for some more votes. So far Kody is winning. Based off what I know about Kody, it’d definitely be a fun and interesting interview, but lets see if we can get a few more votes. Give him a little competition!

We’ve released a new Cloud Linux template, with the release of 5.5 x64. All the versions you’re used to (Basic, Apache only, MySQL only, LAMP, LAMP w/ cPanel & ISP Manager) are all there. Go check it out; a lot of users are making the migration from CentOS to Cloud Linux, so it’s definitely become a fan favorite here at VPS.NET.

That’s all I have for you this week. Definitely keep in touch with us on the forums and through the VPS.NET Twitter. We enjoy hearing from you, so don’t be shy!

                          

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve done a “weekly” update here at VPS.NET. I promise you, the lack of updates certainly had nothing to do with the recent release of Red Dead Redemption. Purely coincidence.

The curious ones out there are probably wondering why the title of this weekly update is “VPS.NET in the clouds.” I have the answer for you. Oleh, our Support Manager, had this picture of him taken recently. Military fatigues and VPS.NET gear – that’s right, we do it hardcore! Please also remind me to never crack a joke at Oleh’s expense. Pretty sure he’ll snap me like a twig. Nick, sorry buddy, looks like you’re still the target of choice!

We’re also proud to announce that Slackware 13.0 is available for use on VPS.NET. You can find them in the Beta templates section; you have the options of the basic OS installation, MySQL only, Apache Only, or Apache, PHP and MySQL. This means you now have 9 different choices for operating systems at VPS.NET. Rumor has it a *TENTH* is real close to being released in beta… feel free to guess at which OS that is

For those of you who end up getting hit by Digg, SlashDot, Buzz, or any of those other sites that love to kill servers, you’ll be happy to hear of our new auto scaling feature. If you’re a ServerDensity user, you can sign up for auto scaling, which will automatically monitor your server for increased traffic levels (and thereby CPU & RAM usage). If it detects that additional nodes are needed, they’ll be automagically added to your account avoiding any unnecessary downtime for your site. Social media doesn’t have anything on VPS.NET users!

We announced this one on the blog earlier already, but in case you missed it, nodes are now billed by the minute. This means that if you purchase a node, and use it for a 20 days, you will be credited for the remaining time left in the month. The credit can then be used for future VPS.NET services, whether it be for your nodes, addon services or CDN purchases. This one is a feature that our resellers were virtually screaming for, so I’m sure you all out there who resell the VPS.NET services greatly appreciate this. If you’re interested in reselling our services, definitely contact us; our resellers benefit from the additional profit stream of offering Cloud VPS Services and CDN services, without any upfront expenses.

Finally, we’ve moved the VPS.NET website over to SoftLayer’s (A UK2.NET strategic partner) Washington DC location. This makes it much easier for us to use their anycast DNS features, along with giving us the ability to give updates in case we ever have any problems with our cloud servers.

                          

We’ve helped many users, such as AdrianWarnock.com and WooThemes.com setup a lightning fast cloud hosting arrangement, that not only works for what their current needs are, but is easily scalable for future growth. The cloud gives you that power of easy scalability, as you can add resources on demand. The other advantage is if you get a burst of visitors, daily nodes are always available with prices starting at a dollar a day.

There’s a number of solutions we can offer you for your needs. Besides the cloud, we also have FusionIO, which is the high performance, solid state hard drive system which I’ve been raving about for weeks now. Then we have the power of two content distribution networks, in Highwinds & Akamai. Finally, we have our expertise; allow us to setup APC, and W3 Total Cache for you.

So, if you have a growing blog, get in touch; we have a solution for you!

Also, we’re looking for feedback on where we should put our new cloud. We want your vote!

                          

CentOS 5.4
Based off of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS offers a stable, reliable, and secure hosting environment for your Cloud VPS. Besides the core CentOS image, we also offer a version that has been hardened and optimized for the VPS environment, along with specialized images catered towards specific needs. Some of the specialized images include environments for CentOS with only Apache installed, CentOS with Shoutcast installed, CentOS with Varnish HTTP Accelerator, and CentOS with Postfix mail server.

CloudLinux
Catered specifically towards customers doing shared and reseller hosting, CloudLinux is features isolation technology which makes it so one site cannot bring down a whole server. CloudLinux also features reporting capabilities so server administrators can see which users consume the most resources at certain points throughout the day. VPS.NET offers specialized images so you can easily installed Apache, cPanel/WHM, ISPManager and the entire LAMP environment.

Debian 5.0
Debian is a Linux based operating system with support for over 25,000 software packages. VPS.NET offers both the standard Debian OS, along with a VPS Optimized version. There are also specialized images for MySQL/Galera, Magento, NGINX and many more.

Elastix
Elastix is an open source communications platform, which is used for IP PBX, email, IM, fax, and collaboration.

Gentoo
Gentoo is a Linux based operating system which prides itself on near limitless adaptability.

Turnkey Linux
Turnkey Linux is an Ubuntu based operating system which is specifically developed for cloud computer architecture. Besides offering the standard Turnkey Linux OS, VPS.NET also offers Turnkey Linux with a number of scripts such as BugZilla, DocuWiki, Gallery, Joomla, MoveAble Type, PhpBB and many more as part of the installation process, eliminating the need for you to manually install the script (unless you’re using Softalucous!)

Ubuntu 8.04 & Ubuntu 9.10
Ubuntu is a Debian based operating system, which has burst onto the home computing screen for its ease of use. Each version of Ubuntu is offered with the stand-alone OS, and then with server software such as Apache, MySQL, and Postfix pre-installed.

                          

Control Panels

cPanel – cPanel is likely the most recognizable control panel available on the market today. cPanel provides a front end interface to manage your websites files, email address, mysql databases, and many other tasks. Along with the client side management, cPanel also comes with the WHM (Web Hosting Manager) interface, which provides an interface to for server administrators and resellers to perform many different tasks, such as setting up new websites, updating Apache,  and other server-side software. Each cPanel license is $10 per month.

ISPManager - ISPManager is a low resource consuming control panel software with a multi-level user system. It provides a graphical interface for server administrators, resellers and individual clients. Like cPanel, you have the ability to administrate certain functions of the web server, and each individual website. ISPManager licenses are available free at VPS.NET.

DirectAdmin – DirectAdmin provides a GUI for managing both your server and your website, while consuming minimal resources. DirectAdmin provides access for administrators, resellers, and individual users. DirectAdmin is $10 a month.

Server Administration

Pro-active, Fully Managed Administration – We realize not everyone wants to worry about their server – they want to worry about their website. We offer a fully managed hosting solution where we’ll handle the migration of your website to VPS.NET, the initial VPS server setup, and then monthly security overhauls to make sure everything is running properly. With this, we also offer a 100% SLA. This solution is available for $99 a month with a $45 setup fee.

On Demand Server Administration - In addition to the fully managed solution, we have on demand administration that you’re able to use when you run into a problem. On demand administration is good for kernel upgrades, PHP/Perl Installation and Configuration, Control Panel Installation and Configuration, Backup/Migration Assistance, Software Installation or Web Server Assistance. On Demand tickets are $10 each and last for 24 hours.

Server Monitoring

Server Density – Server Density is an addon tool that allows you to easily monitor your server for abnormalities through your email and/or your iPhone. Inside of Server Density you’re able to track CPU Load, Memory Utilization, processes, disk usage, network traffic, and apache & nginx status. Server Density is available for $7.50 a month.

DotDefender - DotDefender is a software that monitors and logs your servers traffic, detecting any suspicious traffic activity. DotDefender is capable of running a website specific rule set, limiting the number of false intrusion detection attempts. DotDefender licenses are available for $15 a month.

Backups

Snapshot Backups – Snapshot backups are easy and effective. Using snapshot backups, VPS.NET will take a”snapshot” of your VPS node once a day, every day, and at the end of the month will retain one daily,  one weekly, one monthly and then a day of your choice for backup. When restoring, individual files cannot be restored. We can only restore an entire backup. Snapshot backups are available for $5 a month.

Rsync Backups – With Rsync backups, we give you offsite backup space capable of backing up your entire VPS Node. You’re then able to use Rsync, Duplicity, or any other backup script available to automatically backup your VPS. With Rsync you’re able to restore individual files. Rsync backups are $5 a month.

R1Soft Backups – R1Soft backups are the “enterprise” version of our backup solutions, with continuos data protection through a graphical interface. Multiple copies of individual files are kept on hand and can be restored as necessary. R1Soft has a license charge of $15 per month.

Control Panel Addons

Softaculous – Softaculous is a script auto-installer that has a repository of over 130 commonly installed website scripts. It integrates directly in with both cPanel & ISPManager. Licensing is available at $9 a year.

Rvskin - The Rvskin set “beautifies” cPanel, offering you 2 additional skins in 7 different colors. Even more advantageous is the Rvskin set is available in 25 different languages. Rvskin is only available for users running cPanel and is $18 a year.

Misc.

Lightspeed Web Server – LiteSpeed Web Server is the leading high-performance, high-scalability web server. It is completely Apache interchangeable so LiteSpeed Web Server can quickly replace a major bottleneck in your existing web delivery platform. Litespeed is a drop in replacement for Apache on cPanel servers. Lightspeed licenses are only available for users running cPanel and can be purchased for $14 a month.

CodeBase – Codebase is a source code hosting and project management platform. While a CodeBase account usually runs you $79 a year, VPS.NET subscribers are able to get one free of charge.

FusionIO Node - FusionIO is solid state, high performance database hosting solution. With the solid state technology, your databases are able to be transferred and processed significantly faster, dramatically speeding up dynamic content driven websites. FusionIO nodes are available in both Atlanta and London and are $50 for every 2 Gigabytes of Storage Space.

HostBill – For company’s out there selling web hosting services off of our VPS Nodes, I highly recommend you look into HostBill. It’s a great client management system, with payment gateway support, and a complete support suite. Best of all, it’s available free of charge at VPS.NET.

                          

Before we even talk about VPS.NET though, lets talk about the big tech news that happened this week. Gizmodo was able to get their hands on the next generation of the iPhone, after a developer left it at a bar! Nick and I were discussing this as it happened, and we both decided we definitely do not want to be in that developers shoes, especially knowing how Steve Jobs is. There are however some people claiming that Apple intentionally “lost” the iPhone at the bar in order to get the hype machine rolling. With the amount of press coverage this received, I do believe this puts the iPhone on the same level as Angelina Jolie, Madonna & Tiger Woods.

The big news here at VPS.NET is the ability to upgrade your nodes without having to upgrade your storage, which means that you won’t need to rebuild the disk for your Cloud VPS, the most time consuming part of the process. 30 second upgrade. Instead this allows you to schedule any storage upgrades to take place at the most convenient time for you or until you need it to be done. Once the upgrade goes through, you’ll only need to reboot your VPS. One of the key things this does is it makes us much more competitive with dedicated server providers. We’re already able to offer a significant amount of CPU Power, RAM, Bandwidth and Disk Space, but now you’re able to start out small, and continue to build up as your company does, without having the down time of manual hardware swaps.

The other news which I hope you all have already taken advantage of, is the ability to get a free HostBill license. HostBill is a complete web hosting management system, which I went over in full detail here. If you haven’t taken advantage of it yet, I encourage you to do so at www.hostbillapp.com/vps.net/.

Besides bringing out some new software updates and services for you, the guys over in the London datacenter were able to get a new FusionIO cloud up for use. We highly recommend anyone with a MySQL driven site to offload their databases onto a FusionIO node, and experience ridiculously fast website loading times. FusionIO is based on high speed solid state drives, and makes read/write times blazing fast. FusionIO nodes are available in London and Atlanta now, and are $50 for every 2 Gigabytes of Storage Space.

The forums continue to pick up in traffic, which is great to see. Our goal is to build a strong community here, and I think we’re off to a great start. Some hot threads this week are:

Config: rewrite and .htaccess

HostBill – VPS.NET branding

Anyone use Akamai on Demand Streaming?

I also wanted to point everyone out to an awesome site we advertise on, WebResourcesDepot, which offers free tips and tricks for webmasters. They have a pretty cool post up right now about making your AJAX content crawlable by web spiders. Highly recommend everyone check it out, especially for those of you where your search engine position is important (and I think that might be all of us).

Anyhow, I’m off for the week. More than likely I’m going to be spending a lot of time doing this (yes that is me!).

                          

• Full Client Management System
• Complete Support Suite, including live chat, and full feature help desk with email piping.
• Entire Billing System, with support for a number of different payment gateways.
• Full Feature Product Management, including recurring and one time product purchases.
• Server Status Monitoring System
• Domain Registration System
• API system that allows you to continue to add your own custom features
• Easy migration from other platforms
• … and much much more!

In addition to all the features I’ve listed above, HostBill already has a custom built module for complete integration into the VPS.NET control panel. This allows you to view your CPU utilization, bandwidth usage, console access, and the capability to resell VPS.NET Cloud VPS Servers. There’s more information on that available on our forums, right here.

You can activate your HostBill license at http://www.hostbillapp.com/vps.net/. As a note, this license will only remain active for as long as it is hosted on a VPS.NET IP Address. If at any time it is moved from a VPS.NET IP the license will cease working.