How do I start ? (Total Newbie)

August 21, 2014 3.2k views
hunky
By:
hunky

Hello Digital Ocean and Users,

Couple of days ago, I came to know about your service from a friend of mine. Since then I have been reading a lot on how to get started with you.

Before I place couple of my question, please note, I really have very little experience about unmanaged services. Through out my website service related life, I have been working with managed services, that too mainly with cPanel based hosting or VPS.

Presently, I require to move two domains, One running wordpress and another running CopperMine to you. But before that, I guess a lot of work needed for setup.

So the first question,

My primary source of visitors would be from India, so which server should I chose which theoretically has the best route from India ??

Secondly, please check (add or modify if needed) steps I have plan for deployment.

  1. Setup via your getting started guide
  2. Deploy Ubuntu x86 (i would be on 512MB Plan)
  3. Deploy zPanel
  4. I need a web based, (GUI) file manage.. Like the one which comes with cPanel :P, please help on deploying one since it seems zPanel has none.
  5. Setup DNS (please guide, on how to)
  6. Point Domain (via NS given)
  7. Setup email (i use a lot of email, so need SMTP / IMAP), please guide (provide a link may be ??) how do I get that running ??
  8. How do I optimize and secure my server based on my desired operational layout ??
  9. I need AWStats, how do i proceed ??

In short, I am very much used to cPanel, I checked their license fee, but it seems its not affordable by me, so not selecting, so I need to setup my server in a way which can come as close as to the operations of cPanel.

How do I proceed ??

I find a lot of tutorial, but missed few, so it would be just fine if you just mention what to do and give that link of that tutorial.

Urgent : I can't start unless some one helps me finding the best possible server location for my visitor base, which is mainly Indian (along with many other 3rd world country where Indian manufactured products are exported, like latin america and Africa then EU and US)

Thanks..

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3 Answers
hello460576 August 21, 2014

I think there is a Singapore region. Why don't you pick that?

Closest distance to India, though I don't think the region matters as much.

Reply
  • hunky August 21, 2014

    Hey thanks for the suggestion, I was too thinking for SG location since it seemed closest to India but I dont want other region traffic to be effected also..

    I kind of disagree with you, since region does matter as that is why all these CDN networks are flourishing right ??

hunky August 22, 2014

Anyone else would spare some time for my doubts ?? Will be much appreciated..

Thanks..

Reply
palex19 August 22, 2014

I do not want to appear rude, but you are really not experienced enough to do what you have planned. You need an experienced friend to help you with all of this. No good just giving you a step be step guide because you will also not know what to do the next time an issue comes up. It's like buying a complex airplane kit when all you did until now is fly a store bought one.

Reply
  • hunky August 27, 2014

    You are not rude, you are right, but some where one has to start right ??

    I never asked to be spoon fed rather asked a direction to follow..

    Read my post, I explained my planning and requested any guidance if one can offer..

    You are very right about what you said, but I guess for many like us, this community acts as that experienced friend..

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