I am just setting up my first webserver on a Dell PowerEdge R610 1U machine in a data center with ubuntu-20.04. What program do I need on Ubuntu, that allows me to install / reinstall the install.sh package remotely through the internet? Thanks
You need ssh to access your server remotely and wget to get a copy of install.sh to install Virtualmin. You do not reinstall Virtualmin; in case the first attempt to install Virtualmin fails for any reason, you should format the hdd and reinstall the OS, then install Virtualmin.
Thank you for your reply. The thing is I have been on shared hosting for 22 years and decided to have my own server. I am coming from Hosgator & Cpanel. I am relatively new to Linux. Here at home installed Ubuntu on a regular desktop computer to practice. Next week comes my real server and just want to be prepared for every possible future event.
I installed and reinstalled Virtualmin with different configurations like 10 times and made a system image of each scenario by Macrium. Interestingly, Virtualmin installation fails (something went wrong message in phase 2) at EXACTLY every second attempt. I have never seen someting like that. Exactly every second install succeeds / fails. After each attempt formatting the partition and reinstate Ubuntu.
What other programs will I need in addition to ssh, to format partitions remotely, and be able to do other necessary tasks remotely?
Most importantly, how do I format an active partition and reinstall Ubuntu remotely?
Until now I did it by inserting a USB stick, but how can I do it remotely? Do I need a second OS and a boot manager too?
Thanks
Virtualmin is the perfect choice 
Can’t understand why or explain that. I get to install Virtualmin every second day and have not encountered the kind of issue you describe. Maybe an install on your Dell server will provide a better experience than the desktop.
Others in the community can share their knowledge and experience with remote access to a dedicated server before the OS is loaded, I usually have physical access to the machine if it is a dedicated server so have never had to partition or format a hdd remotely. Would the NOC not provide you with some mechanism to do this? Or offer to restore from an image as part of their basic service offering?
I have 3 hours of physical access a month. Normally I don’t think I will need any physical access at all, but during the first day I may use the whole monthly access quota:)
Of course the server will go to the data center with new drives, fresh Ubuntu and Virtualmin. The thing is I have only a week’s experience with Virtualmin and after a few days I may run into unexpected issues and may need to format the drives and redo every step from scratch. Since physical access is limited and if you go over the regular allowance it costs a lot of $$$. Otherwise the rates are reasonable 1U for $79CAD around $55 USD up to 3000GB/month , just one our drive from my place…
The reason why I cannot configure the whole server at home is that for some strange reason letsencrypt does not accept my IP address, they say it is ‘private ip’ but it is accessible publicly (starts with 192, a wiki article also says private ip range)
so without SSL cannot finalize the server. In order to get SSL I need to install the server in the data center first. A Catch 22 situation.
I just came across this article on dual booting remotely
That seems unlikely. I can’t think of many things that can go so disastrously wrong that you have to reinstall the whole system.
This is not a black box. You can understand every part. Most problems are minor. Most things people talk about here are configuration decisions, rarely catastrophic failures.
And, I think calport is maybe over-stating how often one needs to reinstall in the event of a failed install. You can usually just run it again (maybe after using the --uninstall flag). The real problem people have with installations is that people have done a bunch of pre-configuration or followed some dumb over-complicated installation/configuration tutorial on the web that fucks up their system and then tries to install Virtualmin over the mess, and expects it to work.
If you start with a freshly installed, supported, OS, and follow the instructions the installation will work. If it doesn’t, show us the exact error (in a new topic) and we’ll tell you what you need to do to fix it or avoid it on the next attempt.
The installation process is not fragile if you follow the instructions, and it is not mysterious.
In short: You’re making this way more complicated than it needs to be. Just start with a freshly installed supported OS. Run the installer according to the instructions (do not pre-install anything, don’t try to follow random tutorials you find on the web, don’t make a mess and then expect the installer to clean it up) and you almost certainly won’t have any problems.
1 Like
Yes, Joe is correct. What I meant to say is that I do lots of Virtualmin installs and each of these is successful. I do not mean to say that I do lots of unsuccessful installs 
I was not aware of the CLI option for uninstall. One learns new things every day.
I salute your goals and ambition, @ttorok. Jumping from shared hosting to a project like this takes moxie. But I agree that you could be taking a simpler route. If you eliminate the hardware layer and focus on software layers you’ll have so much more room to breathe. Instead of a colocated box, consider taking the middle ground between shared and dedicated. Your budget seems to allow for a hefty VPS, or just start small and resize later to avoid money worries.
With a VPS you can partition space and install Ubuntu almost instantly, and repeatedly if necessary. Once the root user has ssh access, the OS is updated and the server has a qualifying hostname, you’re ready to take on Virtualmin – all in very short time. The beauty of installing OS images on a VPS is that there’s more room for mistakes because it’s so easy to scrub and try again.
1 Like
I like challenges. Since 1998, when purchased my first PC always wanted to have my own server. With my present hosting company a decent VPS plan would actually cost more than $55 that I will pay for the data center. If you read the fine print for $20 VPS packages there is always a catch and actually costs much more than that.
Well, Hostgator sells hosting, and provides VPS as a premium add-on.
If you go with those that specialize in this area, like DO, Linode, Vultr, Hetzner (and many other top notch lowend providers) you can get away with 5-10$ per month for a fairly sweet server.
Well I have been with Hostgator since the early 2000s. In the beginning they were quite fast and had no major issues until the last couple of years. But recently they just update their system without any notice and sometimes my php scripts stop running because they just change the config files. Last time they sent me a notice that the older php versions will be phased out. I am not kidding it took me 100 (!) work hours to rewrite hundreds of php scripts for free. At that point I just had enough. The minor issues not to mention.
Although the customer service is good, their advertising policy is a BS. All the prices listed at their website are just introductory prices. A typical example of false advertising. I am located in Canada but I think that’s illegal in the US as well. The Competition Bureau should kick their … if somebody ever made a complaint.
The cheapest ‘baby croc’ shared hosting costs $12 not $3 as advertised.
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.