Hosting setup for a Hetzner Root-Server (virtualization with KVM)

Hetzner Online AG is in my opinion a very good web hosting provider. I do not work for Hetzner. I accept no responsibility for possible errors in the script and instructions (The risk is yours!). The reason for using server virtualization was to have multiple independent systems for development, test, staging and production.

What do you need from Hetzner?

• Root Server (49€ per month for an EX4 with 16GB RAM & 2x3TB HDD or 59€ per month for an EX4S with 32GB RAM)
• Flexi Pack is necessary to order IP subnet. (15€ per month)
• Subnet /29 (5.40€ per month) you can start max 5 VMs with the following setup.
• Subnet /28 (11.20€ per month) you can start max 13 VMs with the following setup.

The price of the setup is awesome and you get on top 100GB backup space (SFTP). (Prices from June 2012)

Installation and configuration

Hetzner example configuration:

• OS: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

• Main Server IP: 177.10.0.8

• Subnet: 79.48.232.8 /29

  • Maske: 255.255.255.248
  • Broadcast: 79.48.232.15
  • Available IP addresses: 79.48.232.9 upto 79.48.232.14

Install steps for host system:

1. Push your public ssh-key to the server and login over SSH

Copy public ssh-key with ssh-copy-id to the remote server. Please install homebrew before on your Mac. (Mac only)

brew install ssh-copy-id
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/sp-admin.pub [email protected]

The identity filename can be different on your system. If you are not a Mac user, you should add your public ssh-key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote server.

Now you can login over SSH without password:

ssh [email protected] -A

Update package informations and install make

apt-get update && apt-get install make

2. I recommend to run the installation in a screen session, because it will take at least 15 minutes.

apt-get update && apt-get -y install screen

• screen: Start a new screen session. Detach the session with ctrl+a d
• screen -r: Reattach to a detached screen process.

3. Download and extract the setup script

cd /root && wget http://www.spider-network.net/downloads/hetzner-host.tar.gz && tar xvf hetzner-host.tar.gz

4. Start the installation

cd /root/hetzner/host/install && make install

5. Adapt installation configuration

cd /root/hetzner/host/install && cp config/node.EXAMPLE.json config/node.server-001.json
vi /root/hetzner/host/install/config/node.server-001.json

See example config

6. Change server network configuration and setup munin monitoring tool

cd /root/hetzner/host/install/chef && chef-solo -c solo.rb -j ../config/node.server-001.json

Create and manage VM's:

• Create a new VM (It can take up to 20 minutes. I recommend to do this inside a screen session (see above).)

  thor hetzner:vm:create --config=node.server-001.json --name=vm-001

  • Options:

    :name      => :required, # Name of the VM. e.g. vm-001
    :config    => :string,   # Json configuration file
    :cpus      => 4,         # VM CPU cores (Default: 4)
    :ram       => 4096,      # VM RAM (Default: 4096 MB)
    :swap      => 1024,      # VM Swap (Default: 1024 MB)
    :hdd       => 51200      # VM HDD (Default: 51200 MB)
    

• thor hetzner:vm:list

• thor hetzner:vm:configs

• thor hetzner:vm:stop --name=NAME

• thor hetzner:vm:start --name=NAME

• thor hetzner:vm:edit --name=NAME

• thor hetzner:vm:snapshot:create --name=NAME

• thor hetzner:vm:snapshot:list --name=NAME

• thor hetzner:vm:snapshot:restore --name=NAME --snapshot-name=SNAPSHOT_NAME

Setup VM basics:

Install git, rvm, ruby and chef inside the VM.

Login to the VM and execute the following commands:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y curl
curl -L https://raw.github.com/spider-network/ubuntu-vm-basics/master/fetch |bash
cd ~/ubuntu-vm-basics && ./installer

For more infos see my other github project ubuntu-vm-basics.

Contributing and Support

If you have any suggestions or criticism write me an e-mail [email protected] or create an issue. If you need help just contact me. I will always support the latest Ubuntu LTS ("Long Term Support") version, which is currently "Ubuntu 12.04 LTS".