The UNIX Shell
The UNIX operating system uses a shell as the primary environment for performing administrative tasks.
The text based shells, similar to DOS, allow you to navigate the file system and execute programs or commands
in a powerful, flexible environment.
Accessing a Shell on your VPS
SSH is a secure protocol for connecting to your server shell. For help obtaining and configuring an SSH client,
see Getting Started: Connecting via SSH.
Once you have connected to your server, you can use a number of
Basic UNIX shell commands to navigate and perform
administrative tasks on your Virtual Private Server. Because the shell is the primary method for performing
administrative functions on your VPS, we strongly recommend you spend some time becoming familiar with basic
shell functions if you are not already familiar with them.
In addition to the standard UNIX shell commands, we have designed a few
VPS specific shell commands to help you with some
basic administration tasks common in the VPS environment.
Different Shell Environments
UNIX has a number of different shells that you can use. Although most of these shells share many commands, there
are different advantages to different shells. The default shell on a VPS is tcsh, although you can select
from a number of others, including the popular bash shell. Please consult a UNIX manual for more
information about the different shells and how you can change your default shell.
Configuring your Shell
Every UNIX shell can be configured for each individual user by using a configuration file. In addition to the
.login file which is read every time a user logs in, each shell environment has a specific configuration
file which is used by shell programs run by the user, as well as when a user is logged in using that shell.
Because every shell uses a different file and has different configuration directives, we advise you to consult
a UNIX manual for more information about customizing your shell settings.
Scheduled Shell Commands
The UNIX shell allows you to run shell commands at scheduled times using the
Cron Program Scheduler. You can also
Run Commands at startup.
Your VPS2 uses GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) as the default timezone. You can
Change your server timezone if you want cron, your
logs, and E-mail to use a different time.
Backup Retrieval
As a Virtual Private Server administrator, you have the luxury of restoring files directly from our disk and tape backups. We have created a file retrieval command called getback which will walk you through the file retrieval process step by step.
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