RackspaceCloud Cloud Server – The Base Install

Don’t feel like watching screencast? Read the full tutorial below!

Setting up a CloudServer with RackSpaceCloud is as easy as a few clicks of the mouse. It will literally take only a few seconds. You can view the screen cast, or simply follow these directions.

In this short tutorial you will learn how to:

Install the base server.
Log in to the server via SSH from both the control panel, and from your desktop

Let’s get started.

Log into your RackSpaceClouds control panel at manage.rackspaceclouds.com
Click HOSTING in the left menu
Click the ADD SERVER button
Choose your configuration. Remember, they all have different prices. I suggest the base config with 256 MB of RAM. This is ample to run a simple Web server for a number of domains.
Enter a name for the server. This will be the hostname of the machine as defined in its hostname file. If you have a domain for the box, or a default domain, you can enter it here.
Click START SERVER
It will take a few minutes for the server to get up and running. When it’s ready, you’ll receive an email with the server’s dedicate IP address and your root password. Once you have the root password, we can proceed.
Select HOSTING in the left sidebar, then CLOUD SERVERS. You will see your new server in the list of running servers. Click it for an overview of the server.
Click CONSOLE in the button bar above the server summary. This will open a javascript-based terminal for your first login. You must use this terminal for first login as the only user of your system at this point is root, and root cannot log in via console from remote locations. Our first step is to log in and create an unprivileged user who can access the system from anywhere via SSH.
Enter root as your username at the bottom of the screen, then enter the password provided. When the console opens, you can add your new user. The command to do so is generally the same on all Linux systems, but the syntax may vary slightly. The following command is for Ubuntu/Debian:
```
adduser username
```
Once the user is created, you can exit the system.
Log out of the Rackspace Control Panel.
Fire up your favourite SSH client (Putty, OpenSSH) and connect to your new server via it’s IP address. Log-in the same way you logged in via the Rackspace Console, but with the username you created. Until we install other software this is the only way you can access the server.

Now that you’ve confirmed that the server is up and running and visible on the Internet, you can set it up to be a full fledged web server. This will mean installing Apache, MySQL, PHP, and configuring your DNS at both your registrar and at RackspaceCloud. I will show you how to do that next time.