Questions about managing own server

Hi Guys,
Firstly to say how impressed I have been by the professionalism of the JR folks we have been pestering by email . We are very close to a decision to migrate to JR. Our site paintmyphoto.net on ning 2 has over 100k photos and over 20k members. Paul and Brian have recommended a vps server, Brian has suggested the Linode 4gb which we are happy to go with. https://www.linode.com/pricing
Another option as a server management novice, is to go managed, yet this is of course more expensive. My question is to those who are familiar with managing servers themselves. How hard is it? How do you 'patch' the server with updates and security fixes. I am ok with a learning curve, and my day job is computer engineer, but experience is with lan's not web servers. Any observations/suggestions appreciated!
updated by @roy-simmons: 02/24/15 08:46:21PM

Similar to you I don't know enough about servers to run one entirely from the command line. It's not so much the command line, I just don't know what to read to keep myself sufficiently informed in order to remain up to date.

So I "outsource" that to webmin/virtualmin (free software with free docs, roughly equivalent to whm/cpanel), and rely on their expertise. There is a learning curve, but the gui and the help and the emails when you need to update are extremely helpful to me and make it possible (for me) to attempt a non-critical unmanaged server or two.

After reading the virtualmin docs and doing a few installs, if you have any doubts at all just go managed until you have confidence in your ability to run it long-term.


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)
updated by @ultrajam: 01/19/15 01:45:07PM

I run my own DigitalOcean server built by following this guide (to the letter!!) -

https://www.jamroom.net/brian/documentation/guides/1188/high-performance-jamroom-on-digitalocean

OK, its not Linode, but I would expect the overall process would be the same, or similar.
As for updates and security etc. I just run the following on a daily basis -

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

I'm sure there's probably more to running a 'critical' server than just this but it has been working for me (so far).

But we do now recommend Linode over DigitalOcean. Maybe they have similar guides on how to build and manage a server.


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Brill! Thanks for your advice guys, Paul- I will digest and absorb and try not to ask daft questions! I am going to take my time over this, try to make the right decisions up front. One question Is it possible to run a site using the ning 'skin' for a while to get used to everything, and then import our site later (once we have found out from ning how they will send us our data). I have a budget for all this, and will take advantage of your installation services and migration assistance etc.