Introduction
Webspaces allow you to host your website on our servers! Our shiny next-gen webspaces are based on LXD, which means you get full root access to a VM-style Linux container!
Getting started
To set up your webspace, you'll need the Netsoc CLI. See our dedicated documentation for more information.
Tip
You can use netsoc ws as a shortcut for netsoc webspace.
Create your container
Once the CLI is set up and you're logged in, you can create your webspace
container. First, you'll need to pick an operating system image to install.
(This is similar to other cloud providers like AWS or DigitalOcean). To view a
list of available options, run netsoc webspace images:
$ netsoc webspace images
╭─────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────╮
│ ALIAS │ DESCRIPTION │ SIZE │
├─────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┼─────────┤
│ arch │ Archlinux current amd64 (20210225_04:18) │ 164 MiB │
│ fedora │ Fedora 32 amd64 (20210224_20:33) │ 95 MiB │
│ alpine │ Alpine 3.13 amd64 (20210215_13:00) │ 2.4 MiB │
│ debian │ Debian buster amd64 (20210225_05:24) │ 74 MiB │
│ centos │ Centos 8 amd64 (20210225_07:08) │ 126 MiB │
│ ubuntu │ Ubuntu focal amd64 (20210223_07:42) │ 100 MiB │
│ ubuntu18.04 │ Ubuntu bionic amd64 (20210223_07:42) │ 98 MiB │
│ wordpress │ WordPress 5.5.3 │ 157 MiB │
╰─────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┴─────────╯
$
We recommend Ubuntu for beginners, and it's what we'll assume you're using in future guides. Generally most of what is shown is the same or at least very similar across Linux distros.
If you'd like to just get up and running with a simple WordPress-based site, you
can just use the wordpress image above. See
our WordPress guide for more details. You can skip all of
the steps beyond initialising your container!
To create your container:
netsoc webspace init ubuntu
You'll be prompted to enter a password. Note that this is not your Netsoc
password! This is a password for the root (or admin) user in your container.
It can be whatever you like, most of the time you probably won't need it.
Tip
If you are familiar with SSH and would prefer to use public key
authentication, you can run netsoc webspace init --ssh. An SSH server will
be installed along with your Netsoc account's public key (you must have
added an SSH key to your account previously). A port forward will be
created so you
can connect directly. Otherwise, don't worry! You can install an SSH server
later by following this guide.
After up to about a minute, the command should complete and your webspace will be initialized!
Logging in
Now that your container has been created, you can log in! Just run
netsoc webspace login. If your container isn't running (which it won't be
initially after creating it), there will be a slight delay as it starts up.
You should see something similar to the following:
root@ws-u1:~#
Congrats! You've now got full root access to your container.
Website setup
Once logged in, you can set up a web server to serve some pages! We'll use
nginx. From your webspace shell, run apt update followed by
apt install nginx. When prompted with Do you want to continue? [Y/n], just
press enter. You should see something like this (summarised):
root@ws-u1:~# apt update
Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
...
Get:17 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security/multiverse amd64 Packages [1256 B]
Fetched 2970 kB in 2s (1472 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
12 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
root@ws-u1:~# apt install nginx
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core libfontconfig1 libfreetype6 libgd3 libjbig0 libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 libnginx-mod-http-image-filter libnginx-mod-http-xslt-filter
libnginx-mod-mail libnginx-mod-stream libpng16-16 libtiff5 libwebp6 libxpm4 libxslt1.1 nginx-common nginx-core
Suggested packages:
libgd-tools fcgiwrap nginx-doc ssl-cert
The following NEW packages will be installed:
fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core libfontconfig1 libfreetype6 libgd3 libjbig0 libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 libnginx-mod-http-image-filter libnginx-mod-http-xslt-filter
libnginx-mod-mail libnginx-mod-stream libpng16-16 libtiff5 libwebp6 libxpm4 libxslt1.1 nginx nginx-common nginx-core
0 upgraded, 20 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 3102 kB of archives.
After this operation, 9603 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 libpng16-16 amd64 1.6.37-2 [179 kB]
...
Get:20 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 nginx all 1.18.0-0ubuntu1 [3624 B]
Fetched 3102 kB in 1s (3908 kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package libpng16-16:amd64.
(Reading database ... 14661 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../00-libpng16-16_1.6.37-2_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libpng16-16:amd64 (1.6.37-2) ...
...
Selecting previously unselected package nginx.
Preparing to unpack .../19-nginx_1.18.0-0ubuntu1_all.deb ...
Unpacking nginx (1.18.0-0ubuntu1) ...
Setting up libxpm4:amd64 (1:3.5.12-1) ...
Setting up nginx-common (1.18.0-0ubuntu1) ...
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/nginx.service → /lib/systemd/system/nginx.service.
Setting up libjbig0:amd64 (2.1-3.1build1) ...
...
Setting up nginx (1.18.0-0ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (245.4-4ubuntu3.2) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-0ubuntu9.1) ...
root@ws-u1:~#
Now the nginx web server is up and running in your webspace! Visit
https://myusername.netsoc.ie and you should see a page like this:
Website customisation
To make some changes to your site, you'll need a text editor. (We'll show you
how to transfer files to / from your webspace in a future guide.) This text
editor will be terminal based, for beginners we recommend nano. To install:
apt install nano
To replace the default nginx webpage, we'll create a new index.html file. This
file (and other public HTML, CSS or JavaScript) should live in /var/www/html.
Open nano with the new index.html filename as follows:
nano /var/www/html/index.html
You should now see an interface like this:
Simply type and use the arrow keys to move around. To quit, press ^X (Ctrl+x,
the ^ means control, even on a Mac). If you've made any changes, a question
Save modified buffer? will appear. Press y. A new question
File Name to Write:, followed by the path to the new index.html will follow.
Just press enter since we want to save to the same file that was opened. You can
also use ^O to save the file without quitting nano.
Feel free to write any HTML you like. You can use the following as an example (paste it into your terminal directly):
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Welcome to my webspace!</title>
<meta name="description" content="">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<style>
body {
font-family: sans-serif;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to my webspace!</h1>
<p>Hello world! This is my next-gen webspace.</p>
</body>
</html>
Once your changes have saved, reload your webspace page and you should see something like this:
