So in my previous post, I’ve brought light to the fact that I shifted servers for my site, resulting in unexpected down time.

Why unexpected? My brash, unwitting decision to jump on the Rackspace Cloud Server service. Not to say anything poor or negative about it – being on the Cloud Servers has been a fun (wait for the keyword) learning experience. And with a little work, I got my site back up.

To do so, I installed some Plesk control panel software to manage my server, just like so many shared hosting sites I’ve been on! This time though; I have complete control over the server – full root access and the ability to do whatever I want. However, I don’t really wanna do too much besides get my site up and manage my domain!

So I’ll go over the steps and point you in the right direction to get your site setup on Rackspace Cloud servers as well, and give you the ability to easily manage your site using Plesk. I’m not gonna write things out for you though, so be warned – I’ll just go over the steps and point you in the right direction to the appropriate tutorials.

Disclaimer:

I setup my server to run the latest version of CentOS. I’d recommend you do the same; parts of this article require it. Since I’m guessing the large majority of readers will be running a LAMP environment, (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP), we’ll be installing Plesk so all those services are setup and managed for us. I’m also assuming you’re capable to using the command line in linux. If you’re not – well, this battle got a little more uphill for you, and you’ll need to scour the internetfor those resources. And finally; I’m assuming that once you have a working version of Plesk, you’ll be good to setup your site. We’re talking setup and migration, not hand holding here.

1.) Manage your DNS settings – Point your Domain to Rackspace

Some of you guys may be good at setting up your DNS manually – but most of us just use nameservers and let the host automatically set up the rest of your DNS settings. I did most of the time at least. So here’s what you gotta do.

1. Go to your current domain registrar. Make sure you unlock your domain first. Then, set the nameservers to dns1.stabletransit.com and dns2.stabletransit.com.
2. Login to the Management area – you should of gotten credentials for manage.rackspacecloud.com when you got the confirmation email with your Cloud servers access.
3. Go to “hosting,” then “cloud servers,” choose your server (I’m imagining you set this up by now) and click on the “DNS” tab up top.
4. OK – now you need to setup your settings. Basically, you just need to copy what I’ve got below. I replaced my IP address with “Your IP Here,” suggesting the obvious. And just as implied, make sure you change sankhomallik.com with yourURL.whatever. Why the *.sankhomallik.com? That’s so we can handle all subdomains through Plesk & Apache.

Alright; now we gotta play the waiting game for the name servers to shift over. But eventually; it’ll click in. We’ll be able to access our site via the IP address. But if you’re running CentOS, there’s one crucial step you need to do.

2.) Open Port 80 (the HTTP port) on CentOS

Everything that connects to a computer does so through a port – certain ports are designated for certain things. Port 80 is the HTTP port – the port through which all browser internet communication goes on. CentOS by default has it closed – god knows why. If you didn’t use CentOS, you may be able to ignore this. But if you are, then you need to do it. Check out the link below:

http://www.how-to-linux.com/2009/03/how-to-open-port-80-on-iptables-on-centos/

While you’re there – open up port 8443 if it’s not open already. You’ll need it to access Plesk.

3.) Setup Plesk, hit the ground running!

If you didn’t already know by now, the Cloud Servers Knowledge Base is awesome. There’s a lot of detailed information on managing your server. So you should check it out, but in particular check out this one article:

http://cloudservers.rackspacecloud.com/index.php/CentOS_-_Parallels_Plesk_9.0

That guide should help you install Plesk – don’t be intimidated; it’s super easy. It may even be the easiest thing to do.

Once you’ve followed all the steps in the guide setup your domain and such.

One Word of Warning

When you setup a site or subdomain in Plesk, they ask what services you want. You know, PHP and such. One thing – when you tick off “PHP,” it gives you options of how to run it – as an Apache Module, a CGI module, and a Fast CGI module. I think those are the options.

Anyway – just choose Fast CGI and make sure you also tick off the “fast cgi” checkbox. I started running my site with PHP as an Apache module, and a few times my server got shut down for taking up too many resources. If you don’t use Fast CGI, you’ll probably have the same problems. So watch out.

Let me know if this helped you guys out!