VPS management is one of the fears that many webmasters face when deciding to opt-in for a virtual server for the first time. Especially if the user has no previous experience in that field.
Users who don’t want to spend any time with technicalities can easily go for a managed VPS plan, but it’s best you know all the basics if your project requires a more hands-on approach.
In our series of ScalaHosting VPS guides, we are showing some of the essential commands and functionalities that go with your server management duties.
Our topic today is rebooting a VPS – why do we need it and how to do it on different types of servers?
Why do I need to restart my VPS?
We have all operated a computer at some point and probably had to reset it when it turned up too bloated or unresponsive. Restarting a VPS is pretty much the same thing. It’s not something you will often do, but definitely one of the key things to know for various reasons:
- Testing the Reboot function – when managing your own VPS or dedicated server, you should always test even your most basic functionalities. One of the first things to check is the Restart command. Running a simple reboot, even on a freshly configured server, is always a good idea for any type of project.
- Replacing hardware – if you are dealing with a self-managed VPS service, all server maintenance tasks are your responsibility. One of them is monitoring and replacing your hardware before it causes any serious damage. Any such major alteration requires a server reboot for the machine to find and recognize the new hardware.
- Updating software components – popular software solutions in active development often receive updates, which often add new functionalities, fix security vulnerabilities, and improves the overall user experience. Applying patches and updates as soon as they are in stable release is quite important if you want to keep your entire hosting environment safe and secure.
Just like on your personal computer and laptop, all those changes require a restart. We will now learn how that works on a VPS.
What is PuTTy?
PuTTy is a free and open-source emulator that server the role of a terminal console for remote computer and server access. One of the oldest SSH client solutions, PuTTy, was first released back in 1999 and has quickly grown to a versatile, multicomponent solution for those that don’t necessarily need a graphical environment when executing server commands.
PuTTy is the favorite SSH client for hundreds of thousands of developers and webmasters, and for a good reason too. The solution offers effortless session management, remote VPS connection, and support for a variety of operating systems.
How do I restart a Linux VPS with PuTTy?
Most web hosting providers offer Linux server solutions for VPS clients as they are more versatile, feature-packed, and quite affordable. Regardless of the Linux instance we have chosen to power our project, rebooting our server via PuTTy includes a few simple steps:
- Install and configure PuTTy on your computer.
- Log in to the server with the root credentials.
- Run the command Reboot.
This will restart your VPS server and disconnect you from the root account. For any further changes, you will have to log back in.
IMPORTANT: If you are logged in with super-user privileges, the proper command would be ‘sudo reboot’.
How do I restart a Windows VPS with PuTTy?
Rebooting a Windows VPS via a command prompt like PuTTy highly resembles the same process on Linux-based machines. The steps are:
- Configure your PuTTy client
- Log in as administrator.
- Run the restart command. You can use:
shutdown -r
This tells the VPS server to reboot instead of simply shut down.
That is all there is to it! Now that you know how to restart Linux and Windows servers, you can go ahead and test the feature on your own VPS.
The ScalaHosting Support Team is 24/7 available if you need more assistance with PuTTy.
