Latest Vultr Tutorial – What is Vultr?

Last updated on September 12th, 2022 at 10:08 am.

What is Vultr ? Complete Vultr Tutorial for beginners - Customer Portal

Latest Vultr Tutorial for beginners – What is Vultr?

You may watch the video above or read the post below.

Introduction – What is Vultr?

Vultr is a Cloud Hosting provider. They provide VPS hosting, bare metal servers and other Web/ Application hosting products. The company was founded in 2014 and has grown since to become one of the most well known Cloud Hosting Platforms around.

This Vultr Tutorial will look at the Admin Dashboard and any other relevant products. You may watch the video above for step by step demos or read the post below.

Various Vultr Server Products

If you visit , the Vultr website and click on products, you will notice the different suite of products available.

View Products on Menu

Below are explanations for each product.

1. Cloud Compute.

This is essentially a VPS. This is the vultr VPS product. You can deploy as many VPS servers in your account as needed.

Every deployed instance is billed hourly at a fixed rate depending on your package. The cost per month is fixed, however you are billed hourly.

This is great because you can spin up a server to test something and then destroy it, and you will only be charged for the time the server was running.

There are two types/ options to choose from:

a) Compute

This is the normal compute which has been around since the beginning. Most people are currently using this option. The speeds are good (depending on the location you are testing from). The server speed is generally reliable.

b) High Frequency Compute

This was recently introduced. The servers are slightly faster than the normal compute. the price is also 20% higher. If you are okay with the 20% price increase, then you should always choose this server type for your VPS.

2. Bare Metal.

These are dedicated servers with no virtualization. you will get access to the Server hardware. It’s like renting a computer in the cloud.

3. Block Storage.

If you need to mount additional storage to your Server instance, you can use Block storage. You can add and attach a Block storage via your Customer portal. It’s like adding an additional disk on your server. Here is how to mount the disk space on your Linux or Windows server.

4. Object Storage

This is an object storage solution for your Applications. You can store website or Application files and easily access them using any S3 compatible API solutions. You can use this storage space to backup, Share or store media content. Think of it this way, if you have any plugin or third-party software that uses Amazon’s S3 for storage, you can use vultr’s object storage instead of S3. The pricing is fixed depending on the size you choose eg $5 gives you 250GB and 1TB bandwidth per month.

Difference ? Block VS Object storage

So, what is the difference between Object storage and Block Storage? In layman’s terms, block storage is a disk space you can add to your vultr server. Object storage is like a ‘dropbox’ you can use to store files for your Application.

The same way you can mount a hard disk to your computer, you can mount a Block storage to your server instance. An object storage cannot be mounted but can be accessed via an API frontend which allows you to store retrieve and backup your files depending on your use case.

5. Dedicated Cloud

Think of dedicated cloud as a VPS with fewer neighbors. Fewer users , means that there is more resources to go around. hence a higher cost and better performance.

Unlike dedicated servers (bare metal) , with dedicated cloud you can use the Vultr platform to quickly deploy applications and servers just like you would normally do with compute.

6. Load Balancers

Load balancing ensures reliability, stability and efficiency throughout your production servers. The Vultr load balancers can be deployed on the customer portal to ensure automatic distribution of your production load in case of failures or overload on specific servers. Read more on Load balancers here .

Read about load balancing with Nginx here.

Vultr Pricing

To check the pricing of various server products, here’s what to do.

  1. Go to the vultr.com website.
  2. Then click on Products.
  3. And then click the product you want to view its price.
  4. Then just click on View pricing or scroll down to view the price of the different packages.
3 Vult products list
View Vultr pricing

Vultr 100 / Free Credit

If you are new user, there’s an offer currently going on whereby you can get $100 credit when you create your account. Depending on when you are reading this vultr tutorial, check out if the 100 free credit offer is still available.

Vultr login – How to Log in to the Client portal

To log into your account just go to my.vultr.com . easy to remember , right?

SSH login

Once you deploy a Server you can log in to do various administration tasks on your server. To SSH into your server you can use putty on Windows. Or, if you are a Mac or Linux user, you can SSH via terminal.

If you are a Windows user, here is how to SSH / login via Putty.

To ssh via terminal:

Open up terminal.

Then type the server IP and username as follows :

ssh  username@ipaddress

eg : If my username is root and my ip is 127.0.0.1 , type it as :

ssh  [email protected]

You can watch this Vultr Tutorial video to see how to setup Centos 8 once you have deployed your server. You can also watch this free tutorial to learn how to run multiple WordPress sites on a VPS.

Your password and IP address can be copied directly from your dashboard once you deploy a server.

Customer Portal Tutorial / Admin Dashboard – Vultr Tutorial

As soon as you login via my.vultr.com , all your server instances will be shown to you in a list format. If you haven’t deployed any server, there will be no instance / server deployment to show.

No deployed instance

Let’s look at the various tabs / links available within your Admin Dashboard.

1) Products

This will show all the Server instances you have deployed in your account.

Definitions of items in your product page:

your product page
  • Instances : These are Servers you have deployed. All server deployed will be shown under Instances.
  • Snapshots : Snapshots are manual backups of your server. You can use a snapshot to spin up a new server. Under the Snapshots tab you will also see backups. Backups are automatic backups which are done by Vultr once you enable them. Snapshots are free whereas backups add 20% cost to your monthly plan.
  • ISOs : Here, you can upload a custom OS and use it to spin up a new server.
  • Scripts : You can add startup scripts that will be run during server deployment.
  • DNS : You can use Vultr to handle your DNS. The same way you would use Cloudflare is the same way you’d be able to Use Vultr for your DNS. Once you add a domain on Vultr, go to wherever your domain is hosted and add the Vultr nameservers. Their nameservers are ns1.vultr.com and ns2.vultr.com . So ensure you add these as your nameservers wherever you bought your domain from .
  • Block Storage : Block storage was clearly explained above as being additional storage you can add to you Server instance. Here’s where you’ll be able to add and manage your Block storage. They will be listed here , if any.
  • Objects : Object storage was clearly and precisely explained above as being being an S3 compatible space that you can use to store static and other Website/ Application files.
  • Firewall : Here you can create firewall groups and apply the Firewall rules to various servers. You will probably end up using the internal firewall available within your OS.
  • Network : Here you’ll be able to do various networking tasks for your instance. You can add and remove IPs, and so on.
  • Load Balancers : You can configure and manage your load balancers here.

How to Deploy a Server

Let’s see about deploying your first server.

Note that before deploying an instance, you may have to first of all update your billing information . Just click on billing, to update your billing information.

Step 1 : Click on the Deploy button

Click on the blue + button to Deploy New server.

How to deploy a new server - Vultr - Tutorial

Step 2 : Choose a Server Type

Choose the type of Server here. You can go with Compute, High Frequency compute, Bare metal or dedicated Cloud. Explanations and differences between each of these was given above.

Choose Server Type

If you don’t know which one to go with, choose compute.

Step 3 : Choose a Server Location

After choosing a Server type, you need to select a location where your server will be located.

Vultr has multiple data centers across the globe. Choose the one that is closest to your website visitors. If your intended website visitors will be in Germany, choose a location like Frankfurt. UK ? Then London, etc.

 Choose a server location

To learn more about how to test and choose a server location, watch this Vultr Tutorial video section or scroll down below to; How to choose a server Location.

Step 4 Choose Server OS

Next, choose the Operating System for your server. You can click on each OS name to view more versions of that OS. Then choose the one you would like to use for your Applications/ websites.

8 Choose the Server OS

HestiaCP Tutorial Ubuntu 22.04

Step 5 Choose Server Size / Price

Next, you need to choose the server size. This will dictate the monthly cost. Certain server sizes may not be available in all regions.

Select the size you want to start with. Once you deploy your server, you can scale up the server by moving to a bigger size. This can be done by one-click on your Customer portal.

Server size - price

Step 6: Select any additional features

You can add/ enable any of the following features :

Enable IPv6
Enable Auto Backups : Adds 20% to your monthly server cost.
Enable DDOS Protection : Additional $10 p.m
Enable Private Networking

You can ignore startup Scripts and SSH keys.

To learn how to setup SSH key authentication watch either of the following Videos on Youtube:

Step 7: Add server Hostname

The next step is to give your server a hostname and a label. You should use a fully qualified domain / sub-domain name for the host name, eg server99.bizanosa.com .

You may use the same server hostname as the label. The label is the name you’ll see in your product instance lists.

Step 8 : Finally deploy

Go through all your Choices to ensure that you made the right selections.

Then click Deploy Now.

Vultr - Tutorial deploy Server

Note that you can deploy multiple servers by adding the quantity at the bottom.

Once the Server has finished installing you can click on it to view your IP , user and password for logging in.

Server deployed

How to choose a Server Location

Choose a Server location close to where your website visitors are located. Watch this Vultr Tutorial video section to learn how to choose a server Location.

You can chose a Vultr server location by testing speeds of that data center in relation to where you are. If you are in the same location as your web visitors, you can use your location to test the speeds as I’ll show you in a moment.

If you are not in the same location as your intended visitors, you can use a VPN to emulate that location . And then test the speeds explained below.

How to Test the server location response speed

Test server location - vultr tutoial for beginners
  1. Go to the vultr.com website.
  2. Click on features. Then click on Data Center locations .
  3. Scroll down till you see the Map with all data Center locations. You can click on any location then click test its speed.

Example test :

Let’s do an example where I’ll be testing Seattle and Paris based on my current location.

I’ll scroll down to the Map. and first click on Paris to test it by clicking on the Test Speed link.

10 test Server speed for Paris data center location

In the next page, you can change location as shown in the illustration below. To test the current location, Paris, click on the IPv4 address, then click on the Run test button.

11 test Server location Vultr

Based on my current location, I got the following results for paris.

$ping -c 4 -w15 108.61.209.127

PING 108.61.209.127 (108.61.209.127) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 108.61.209.127: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.013 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.209.127: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.030 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.209.127: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.046 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.209.127: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.055 ms

--- 108.61.209.127 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 80ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.013/0.036/0.055/0.016 ms

Look at this line :

4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 80ms

The total response time is 80ms. The data Center that gives you the lowest value is the one you should choose.

Paris data Center results

Next, let’s test Seattle just for Comparison’s sake. The one that gives the lowest time is the better location.

I’ll first refresh the page. Then change the location to Seattle. then click on IPV4 , then Run test.

The results :

$ping -c 4 -w15 108.61.194.105

PING 108.61.194.105 (108.61.194.105) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 108.61.194.105: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.043 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.194.105: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.048 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.194.105: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.043 ms
64 bytes from 108.61.194.105: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.063 ms

--- 108.61.194.105 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 102ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.043/0.049/0.063/0.009 ms

Look at this line :

4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 102ms

It took a total of 102ms. Compared to the Paris results for 80ms. Paris is therefore a better data Center location for my Server, assuming that my web visitors will be in the same or nearby location as me.

That is how to test and choose a Data Center Location for your server using Vultr’s data Center tool.

Conclusion

This Vultr Tutorial has covered some basic aspects to help you understand the platform better. Watch this vultr tutorial to learn how to setup Centos 8 on you Vutr VPS. Read this Vultr tutorial post to learn how to setup centos 7 on Your VPS.

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