VPS hosting

What a VPS is

A VPS, virtual private server, is a virtual machine at a provider that belongs to you alone: its own processor cores, memory, disk and IP address, and root access. You choose the system and install what you need, a web server, Python, Docker. In return you also keep it secure and up to date. When shared hosting is the better choice: Which hosting to choose.

Create a VPS at Beget

The screenshots show the cloud panel of the Russian provider Beget in Russian; labels are given in English with the Russian text in brackets. The prices are those at the time of the screenshots. In the panel open Cloud (Облако); a virtual server started at 7 roubles a day. Click Create (Создать) under Virtual server (Виртуальный сервер):

Region and size

Choose the region (Регион), here Saint Petersburg, and a configuration (Конфигурация). The ready sizes, with a 250 Mbit/s channel each:

Sliders below set your own mix, up to 16 cores, 32 GB of memory and 480 GB of disk. Resources can be raised later; the disk can only grow. One core and 1 GB are enough for a small site with Nginx.

The system

Under Ready solutions (Готовые решения) pick a clean system, such as Ubuntu 24.04 or CentOS 9 Stream, or a prepared image: Docker, LEMP (Linux, Nginx, MySQL, PHP), WordPress, a control panel such as ispmanager or Hestia CP, and more; 52 at the time of the screenshot. Server from snapshot (Сервер из снапшота) starts a copy of a saved server.

SSH key or password

Under Authentication (Аутентификация) choose an SSH key you added before, add a new one (Добавить новый SSH-ключ), or set a password (Задать пароль). With neither, Beget generates a password and emails it. A key is safer than a password. Make one on your computer if you have none; the public half is the file ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub, which you paste into the panel:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519

Give the server a name (Название виртуального сервера) for the list of your services, decide whether the file manager of the panel may see its files and whether it joins a private network, and click Create virtual server (Создать виртуальный сервер):

The first minutes on the server

The panel shows the IP address of the new server. Log in over SSH, here with an example address:

ssh root@203.0.113.10

Bring the system up to date:

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Allow SSH in the firewall before you switch it on, so that you do not lock yourself out, then switch it on:

ufw allow OpenSSH

ufw enable

A web server next: Install Nginx on Ubuntu.

Article authors: Andrei Olegovich, Klavdiya Kondakova