How to Operate a Linux Server on Kamatera

Linux powers many of today’s IT infrastructures thanks to its exceptional stability and reliability. Whether you’re hosting websites, deploying applications, or managing databases, running Linux servers on Kamatera’s infrastructure delivers optimal performance with streamlined management.

Here is a step by step guide to set up a Linux server on the Kamatera platform.

Create your Kamatera account

1. Enter your credentials to access the Kamatera management console. Click Login.

2. Navigate to My Cloud on left-hand side. Select Servers.

On the left-side navigation menu, click on Create New Server or use the Create New Server option on the right-hand side.

3. Choose the zone from the following options:

• Asia
• Australia
• North America
• Europe 
• Middle East

Depending on the zone you select, the available countries will be displayed. For this setup, we used the Asia server domain.

4. Kamatera offers a variety of app and server images to help users set up preconfigured resources. Users can explore options including: 

• Server OS images
• Desktop OS images
• App images
• Service images 
• My private images

For this example, we will choose Server OS Images and select the Ubuntu server.

5. Under “Choose Version”, select the latest version of Ubuntu Server version 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) 64-bit. 

6. After selecting the version, toggle the Detailed view button to ‘on’ to view the detailed description, including the price.

   Choose server specs:

7. Choose networking

Users can select the network they wish to use, whether it’s a public Internet network or a private local network.

8. Advanced mode

9. Advanced Configuration 

Hide: If you want to hide the advanced configuration. 

Show: If you want to see the advanced configuration.

10. Finalize settings

Finalize settings by setting the password, re-validating it, selecting the number of servers, specifying the server name, and enabling the Power On Servers option.

11. Billing Cycle and Pricing

You can choose between monthly and hourly billing cycle.

Note: The Server Summary displays the location, operating system (including server specifications), add-on services, servers, and pricing. 

Click Create Server.

12. The server is added to the Tasks Queue.

13. Once the server is created successfully, click on Open beside the server’s name.

14. On the right, the Overview of the server is displayed. Click on Connect.

15. Connection credentials like Username and Password are displayed. Under Remote Console, click Open Remote Console.

Install Ubuntu

16. You will be directed to Ubuntu terminal. Use SSH to connect. Enter the root password you set during setup.

17. Run the below commands to update the system.

Command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y 

18. Install the essential tools by running the below command.

Command:

sudo apt install nano curl wget git -y

19.  Secure the server. You can change the default password later.

       Command:

passwd

• Create a new user.

Command:

adduser <username>

  Command:

 usermod -aG sudo <username> 

• Enable SSH Key Authentication (optional for enhanced security)

Generate an SSH key locally: ssh-keygen -t rsa

Copy the key to the server: ssh-copy-id <username>@<server-ip>

Install applications

20. Install Applications such as web servers, databases, and Docker.

• Web Server:

Install Apache: sudo apt install apache2 –y

   Install Nginx: sudo apt install nginx –y

• Database

Install MySQL: sudo apt install mysql-server –y

Install PostgreSQL: sudo apt install postgresql –y

• Docker

Install Docker: sudo apt install docker.io -y

Server management

21. Manage the Server

• Reboot or shut down the server.

Reboot: sudo reboot

Shut down: sudo shutdown -h now

• Monitor resources such as disk usage and system resources usage by running the below commands.

       To view real-time system resource usage: top or htop

Note: The top command continuously updates to display real-time system 

resource usage. So, to exit and return to the command prompt, simply type exit top

This will bring you back to the shell, enabling you to type the next command.

Check disk usage: df –h

You can even use the Kamatera web console to reboot, resize, or manage the server directly. Go to Server Management dashboard and click on Actions beside the Server’s name.

22. Backup and snapshots

A snapshot is a copy of a system at a specific point in time. It will let you save the current state to quickly restore it for later purposes if something goes wrong, like after an update or a failure.

Navigate to the Server Management section in the Kamatera console. Set up automatic backups or manually create snapshots to ensure data safety.

When you click on Create Snapshot, a snapshot is created in the Tasks Queue. Once it is successful, it is reflected on the right side.

Troubleshooting when necessary

23. Troubleshooting

• No SSH Access:

1. Ensure the SSH service is running: 

Command:

 sudo service ssh status

Check firewall settings:

              Command:

 sudo ufw allow ssh

Command:

 sudo ufw enable

24. Server overloaded: Go to Kamatera’s server management console and resize the server by adding more resources (CPU, RAM).

25. The history command displays your past commands. If any user gains access to your machine, they may run the history command and find your server login credentials. But, if you’ve entered the password in a prompt, it won’t be shown to users in the history command.

Command:

 history

26. You can use the login command to switch to the user inside the server.

Command:

sudo login <username>

Enter the password when prompted.

After entering the password, you are successfully logged in to another user.

27. Simply run the below command to logout of the logged-in user.

                Command:

logout

28. If you and your colleagues are connected as users to the same server using SSH, then everyone can communicate via the terminal.

Command:

mesg

The response will be either yes or no.

is y: Message access enabled

is n: Message access disabled

29. To toggle this feature, you have to pass the symbol along with the mesg command.

Command:

mesg y or mesg n

30. There are two commands available to communicate. Both commands take a message from one session and deliver it to other sessions.

Command:

wall

Press Ctrl+D to end input and send the message. This will exit the wall command and broadcast your message.

31. Make sure the target user’s session is active and logged in by running who on the root session. 

Command:

who

This lists logged-in users and their terminals.

32. To create a file with content run the command below. 

Command:

echo “content” > filename.txt

To list all the files in the directory.

Command:

ls -l

33. To know the path of the file, run the command below.

Command:

find /-name filename.txt

34. In the Linux terminal, we can transfer files using scp command. SCP stands for Secure Copy Protocol. This command allows the user to share the files securely. It uses secure shell to encrypt both your data and credentials. Since this command follows the end-to-end encryption protocol, it uses encryption over an SSH connection. This will protect the files from suspicious attacks.

35. Using the SCP command we can do the following operations,

• Copying the file from our machine to the server machine.

Command:

 scp <filepath> user@hostname:<filepath>

• Copying the file from the server machine to our machine.

Command:

scp server_username@<server_host>:<filepath> <local_path>

• Copying the file from one server to another server.

        Command:

scp <source_user>@<source_host>:<source_path>        <destination_user>@<destination_host>.com:/<destination_path>

Congratulations! You have successfully learned many different commands to operate and manage your Linux-based server on Kamatera’s cloud platform.