Secure SSH

First of all you need to log into your server administration panel, also known as web host manager. You need to find the icon for Security, and click it.

You then need to find the icon for Security Center, and click that.

Once in the security center, you need to find the Password Auth Tweak.

A brief explanation will be shown and a button to Enable or Disabled the Password Auth Tweak will be shown. We want to Disabled Password Authentication for SSH because many hackers attempt to brute force the SSH allowing them to gain access and control to the entire server. With this disabled, your server is not at risk. Notice: For maintenance and required access, I simply enable this when needed, and disable afterwards – minimizing the risk of intrusion completely.

When you click Disable, SSH should restart and if you are logged into SSH you will be logged out. You should see a confirmation once SSH has restarted and although SSH responds, it will not allow you to login.

Secure cPanel

To secure cPanel, go back to the Security Center and find cPHulk Brute Force protection.

If cPHulk is disabled, click on it and Enable it.
You can use the following settings as a guideline.

This will block anyone from the control panel when they attempt to brute force it.
You can adjust the settings to be more lenient if you wish, they are pretty strict.

Dedicated servers are ideal for individuals and businesses that outgrow their shared and vps hosting plans, expanding the hard drive capacity, memory limits and cpu power. In reality, all you are doing is renting a pre-built computer (server) from a company and also renting space in the rack and internet connection.

Enough of the explanation, you probably knew all that anyway.

I purchased my first dedicated from Rapidswitch in June 2008, their setup wizard was easy and quick to navigate and we had our order placed within 5 minutes. After placing our order, we were given an account login to track the progress of our order and were kept up to date with tickets.

System-Generated Note
The following order has been received and will be setup shortly.
 
Processors: Dual Core Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz
Memory: 1GB RAM
Hard Disk: 1x 160GB 7200rpm
OS: Linux - Debian 4.0
Control Panel: None
Bandwidth: 4,000GB Bandwidth Per Month
Port Speed: Dedicated 100Mbit Port
......

02 Jun 14:16 Staff

Hi,
 
Your order is currently being worked on.
 
Regards
Ajaz

02 Jun 14:55 Staff

Hi,
 
Your server has been setup as required and is ready to use.
 
Regards
Ajaz

From placing our order to recieving a working dedicated server with Debian OS installed, it took around 55 minutes, not too shabby; we were well impressed that we could start work straight after our lunch break. We also got a 2.4Ghz Core2Duo cpu instead of the 2.2Ghz we paid for, not a bad error for Rapidswitch to make.

As explained in my other posts; apache, mysql and php are super easy to install using debian apt-get.

I did come to one major problem during my install and ended up removing part of the kernel, an amateur mistake to make, but I made it. So at 2am, I decided to call technical support and see if anyone was awake; Which was funny because I ended up waking up the technical support guy who was really helpful once he’d recovered from his snooze. He pointed me and helped me get used to KVoMIP which is basically remote computer at a much more advanced level; kicking in from boot up. Here is a screenshot of my recovery, which was so simple to do.

Furthermore, I decided to run random speed tests at intervals, they always ranged from 8Mb/s to 12.5Mb/s peak (maximum a 100Mbs port can handle.) So not too shabby their either as the drop to 8 may be caused on the external speed test server or due to the bandwidth being shared at the RapidSwitch end. Just as a note; the maximum bandwidth you can use on a 10Mb port is 3,200Gb and the maximum you can use on a 100Mb port is 32,000Gb or 32Tb. Many providers offer deals of unlimited usage on 10Mb ports, I don’t consider them deals.

arkin@venus:~$ wget http://------------/100MB_nonzero.bin
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `100MB_nonzero.bin'
 
96% [====================================>  ] 101,432,312 11.2M/s  eta 1s

Support was great, any questions I had were answered within 10 minutes. Although, I was a little annoyed when one technical support member told me we could purchase our cPanel license and reinstall CentOS ourself using KVoMIP and then the next morning, when purchasing the license we were told we couldn’t and had to pay an extra £40 for them to install CentOS and install cPanel; both an easy task to do.

All in all, my time with Rapidswitch has been great and there have been no faults; I have been kept up to date by email about planned maintenance (weeks in advance), latency issues and any other information such as electricity prices and company expansion.

I would rate them.

5/5 for Speed
5/5 for Support
4/5 for Cost (but you do get what you pay for.)
5/5 for Reliability (no downtime apart from 1 night there was a powercut at 5am, back within 5 minutes.)

I hope my review has helped, there is nearly always an offer on at Rapidswitch, if there isn’t; wait for one.