Getting Started With Linode

Choosing a Datacenter ¶

To get started, log into the Linode Manager. You'll be greeted with a screen asking where your Linode should reside. Pending availability, you may choose any of our five datacenters. When deciding on a datacenter, you may find our download speed test useful for finding which location provides the best download performance for your target audience. EU users frequently find the London datacenter to offer the best ping times, and Asia/Australia users often choose Fremont. You can use MTR reports for each of the hosts in the speed test page to figure out which datacenter provides the best latency from your particular location.

Deploying a Linux Distribution ¶

Once your Linode is assigned to a datacenter, you'll see the Linode Dashboard. Click the "Distro Wizard" link to deploy a Linux distribution to your Linode:

Your choice in a Linux distribution should be based on what you're most comfortable with. Beginners may wish to start with Ubuntu, and Debian is our most popular distribution. You can see a breakdown of distribution use on our About Us page in the "Interesting Statistics" box.

Select from the list of available distributions, decide how much disk space you want to assign to this Linode, enter a root password (don't forget this, you'll need it later), and click "Deploy" to continue:

You don't have to assign all your available disk space to your Linode; you may wish to reserve space to allow for cloning a disk image or an entire configuration profile later. We strongly recommend sticking with the default swap image size, as allowing your Linode to go heavily into swap can seriously degrade performance in an environment where disk IO is shared among many virtual machines.

Booting Your Linode ¶

Once your Linode has a distribution deployed to it, you may click the "Boot" button to start it:

A host job will be issued to start your VPS. This may take a few seconds, but once the job starts your Linode should boot up quickly.

Connecting to Your Linode with SSH ¶

While your Linode boots up for the first time, click the "Network" tab in the Linode Manager to find your Linode's IP address:

You will need to use SSH to log into it for the first time. Mac OS X or Linux desktop users may do so from a terminal as shown in the following transcript (change 97.107.141.166 to your Linode's IP address):

pattycake ~ $ ssh root@97.107.141.166
The authenticity of host '97.107.141.166 (97.107.141.166)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 57:8f:52:37:cc:5f:ee:af:57:85:97:62:24:38:d0:78.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added '97.107.141.166' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
root@97.107.141.166's password:
Linux li102-166 2.6.18.8-linode16 #1 SMP Mon Jan 12 09:50:18 EST 2009 i686

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Sun Jul 19 05:42:32 2009 from 98.76.54.32
li102-166:~#

Using SSH with Windows ¶

Windows users may download PuTTY, an SSH client for Windows 2000 and newer operating systems. Upon running PuTTY for the first time, you'll be greeted with a login screen:

Enter your Linode's IP address in the "Host Name" field and click "Open" to connect:You'll receive a warning that the host's key is unknown at this time; click "Yes" to proceed and cache the SSH key:

Log in as "root" using the password you specified when you set up your Linode. You'll be shown the MOTD ("message of the day") banner for your Linode and a root prompt.

Running Security Updates ¶

Once you're logged in, you'll want to run security updates immediately. Doing so helps protect against unauthorized access to your Linode as a result of any outstanding security holes in packages.

Debian

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade --show-upgraded

Ubuntu

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade --show-upgraded

CentOS/Fedora

yum update

Set the Hostname ¶

Now we'll set the hostname for your system. You can choose any name you like, but something unique and descriptive might be prudent. The hostname is what your machine calls itself, and you can choose any name you want. In this example, we will call it "squire".

echo "squire" > /etc/hostname
hostname -F /etc/hostname

Please note that if you're running Slackware, the commands to set your hostname are as follows:

echo "squire" > /etc/HOSTNAME
hostname -F /etc/HOSTNAME

Review our Beginner's Guide ¶

Once your Linode is deployed, you're encouraged to review our beginner's guide for answers to the most commonly asked configuration and usage questions. Thanks again for becoming a Linode customer, and we hope you enjoy the service!