How to: Install and Configure PPTP VPN on a cPanel server

This tutorial will show you how to easily install and configure a PPTP VPN server on a cPanel (RHEL/CentOS) server. A VPN server can be used to access geographically restricted websites if your cPanel server is located in a non-restricted country. Also you can use it to encrypt your data connection between your computer and cPanel server if for example you’re connected to a public WiFi hotspot and want to visit your web-banking account. Read More…

Thinkers, doers, innovators. In one word: Entrepreneurs

I just came across this amazing and inspirational video I wanted to share with you. It reminds us that even when times are tough, opportunities are there. It reminds us that entrepreneurs should take more risks and follow their passion in order to change people’s lives and make the world better. It reminds us that like when we were kids and everything was within our reach, well… it still is!

VPS.NET Japan cloud test failure – Success!

Did anyone see any issues in Japan in the last hour? We've just done a test failure and have seen zero problems ^RF
September 22, 2011 11:37 am via CoTweetReplyRetweetFavorite
@vpsnet
VPS.NET

Today at around 06:30 EDT, VPS.NET engineers did a test failure at their recently launched Japan cloud and it went really well!
No downtime, no data loss, nothing. Exactly as it should work. Kudos to the VPS.NET team! I really hope that they have found the perfect solution for their SANs and that they will begin rolling-out the new technology to their other SANs soon.

Below is the output of sar, about an hour and a half after the test. The lines that indicate that something was going on (i.e. the test failure) are highlighted.

root@dev:~# sar
Linux 2.6.32-5-xen-amd64 (dev) 	09/22/2011 	_x86_64_	(3 CPU)

[...]
04:35:01 AM     CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait    %steal     %idle
04:45:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
04:55:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
05:05:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
05:15:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
05:25:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
05:35:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
05:45:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
05:55:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
06:05:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
06:15:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
06:25:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
06:35:01 AM     all      0.02      0.00      0.02      0.01      0.00     99.95
06:45:01 AM     all      0.07      0.00      0.04      0.24      0.00     99.66
06:55:01 AM     all      0.07      0.00      0.03      6.35      0.00     93.55
07:05:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
07:15:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
07:25:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
07:35:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
07:45:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
07:55:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
08:05:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
08:15:01 AM     all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00    100.00
Average:        all      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.13      0.00     99.86
root@dev:~# uptime
 08:16:20 up 8 days,  4:35,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Using netselect-apt to find the fastest Debian mirror

Setting up a VPS.NET server in Tokyo today was the first time I worked on a box in Asia and because USA and EU Debian mirrors where ~300ms away (and I was getting like 30-40KB/sec), I had to search for a local Japan Debian mirror.
First I thought I’d just got to the Debian mirrors list, find the URL for the Japan mirror and apply it to my sources.list file.
But again I was getting max 0,8-1MB/sec which still was very slow for my expectations (Japan is amongst the Top 3 of countries with the highest Internet connections speeds).

The solution was: netselect-apt

I just did a

root@dev:~# apt-get install netselect-apt
root@dev:~# netselect-apt squeeze

and a few seconds later I got

The fastest server seems to be:

http://ftp.dti.ad.jp/pub/Linux/debian/

Writing sources.list.
Done.

Then I just copied the sources.list netselect-apt created to my /etc/apt/ folder and ran apt-get update again.

Presto!

So what does netselect-apt do actually? First it downloads a list of all the worldwide mirrors from the official Debian website using wget. Then it pings each and every server to see which one is nearer to the physical location of your server. Finally it writes a sources.list file in the current directory. Do note however that it doesn’t speed-test every server, but only measures the latency between the mirror and your box. So to be precise you’re getting the nearest server, not the fastest. In todays networks though, with 100Mbps and 1Gbps uplinks, it’s almost certain that the nearest server will also be the fastest too.

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