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Maintain droplet used for websites

Posted April 7, 2015 4k views
MySQLPHP

Hi, I am new to to Digitalocean and played with it a bit, understanding basic setups.
I have some concern and I will be happy to hear from your experience;
I am a small Drupal shop owner and have around 35 website on a managed vps.
I keep searching for better solutions and find digitalocean [recommended by the Drupal community].
I am not a server expert at all, and non of my [3] small team members.
I mange to easily set up mysql and php to run a Drupal test website but my concerns are:

  1. How difficult is to maintain a droplet running several websites?
  2. What are the main tips to do so in a proper way?
  3. What will be your recommendation - Walk away it too risky / You can do it just by following the docs and tutorials?

Now I know this are hard to answer Q, but I will be happy to hear from your experience.

Thanks!

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amir1117926
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3 answers
ryanpq April 7, 2015

1. How difficult is to maintain a droplet running several websites?
If you are maintaining these sites for your clients rather than giving them direct access it becomes quite a bit easier. Then your main concerns will be ensuring you keep your droplet up to date with security updates and take proper steps to secure your droplet.

2. What are the main tips to do so in a proper way?

If you are comfortable with setting up Drupal itself and the virtualhost configurations for each site then I would start here to ensure your droplet is secure.

3. What will be your recommendation - Walk away it too risky / You can do it just by following the docs and tutorials?

Taking proper steps to secure your droplet can certainly be accomplished by following the tutorials. I would recommend taking your time in setting up your new configuration and making sure everything is running smoothly as expected before moving your live sites (repointing domains) if this is the first server you are admin'ing. If you were planning to give your customers/clients direct access to the droplet via ssh/sftp/ftp I would advise additional caution as it is generally easier to keep bad actors from gaining access to your droplet than it is to properly contain the privileges of those you give access to. If you encounter any problems or are not sure of the best solution for a particular problem don’t hesitate to ask here and we’ll help point you in the right direction =)

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  • amir1117926 April 7, 2015
    1. Yes, we are maintaining the sites, but for now [managed server] we are dealing only with the Drupal part.
    2. Great! The Drupal part is easy for us
    3. I will take your advice and practice [& learning] on a small droplet, trying to update, secure and so.

    Thanks for the tips!

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hunky April 8, 2015

@amir1117926

Get your self a Web Panel software you can afford.. For example, cPanel.. Discuss with your team members about the extra cost, since if you go with a good panel as cPanel, it does the rest for you, like server setup, installation of software (required to run a web server) and such.

Since cPanel is a paid software, so you get a good support also, thus making it as good as a managed hosting :D

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  • amir1117926 April 8, 2015

    For now we are using Cpanel on our server and we do quite comfortable with it, even tough all we do is creating database, websites and controlling the phpmyadmin with it. And from what I have read so far this parts are easy to control.

    But I will check the cost of a Cpanel and see, it might be a good solution for us.

    BTW - I havn’t seen any Cpanel installation guide on Ubuntu - Is that because it’s better to use it on Cent?

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  • hunky April 8, 2015

    Check their website, cPanel recommends Cent OS I suppose..

    Mind you, cPanel may attract some additional cost as well. Panel it self is USD 15 per month, where as system requirement would force you to opt for a higher RAM plan. cPanel recommends at least a 2GB plan.

    What you said is something we do in regular basis, but things what we do occasionally, that matters also, and cPanel is pretty easy in every task and has plenty of other option giving you a great flexibility..

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amir1117926 April 8, 2015

Thanks, I will check this out.
My server now is Cent and I wonder about better performances and so. As far as I know the Drupal community recommend ubuntu but I am not sure.
As for memory, any way since our websites are Drupal we will take server with at list 4GB ram.

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