The following is a collection of some of the more common questions about the VPS platform. Please visit our Support section for additional information.

1. Why can't I login to my VPS account as the root user?
For security purposes, direct root logins using the username root and the root password are not permitted in any VPS service. Many administrative tasks can be accomplished by logging into the VPS account as the administrative user. See the Connection Guide and SSH Keys for more information on the different protocols as well as the appropriate user to connect with.

2. Where do subhosted sites reside on my VPS?
The default location for subhosted Web content in the VPS is in the content owner's www directory. For example, for a domain administrator user bob, content for domain.com would reside in the /home/bob/www/domain.com directory (where /home/bob is the home directory of the bob user). This is the easiest way to manage subhosts in a multi-user environment. Other methods such as a common vhosts directory can also be used, but this can cause complications with ownership and file permissions.

3. What is the difference between the admin, root, and standard users?
The main difference between the different classes of users is based on permissions offered to the user. A normal user can only affect the files he owns, whereas the admin user can affect some system files. The admin user is created at the time you provision your account. The root user has the ability to control anything, including files owned by other users. Because of the power of the root user, this user does not have FTP or email access and can only access the account through SSH, either directly using an SSH key generated for the root user or indirectly by connecting through shell as the admin user and then using the su command to become the root user.

4. Is Java installed on my VPS?
The Java Developer's Kit 1.5.x and Java Runtime Engine 1.5.x are available for VPS Pro plans through vinstall_jdk and vinstall_jre, respectively. The vinstall gives instructions for downloading the Java code and the directory in which to place the code.

5. Is Tomcat available for my VPS v3?
Yes. Tomcat is available through vinstall tomcat and requires the Java Developer's Kit or Java Runtime Engine be installed already. Tomcat provides a web framework for Java and will allow you to process and serve JSP pages

6. How do I install custom applications or use the FreeBSD Ports Collection?
The VPS environment enables you to install and run most FreeBSD compatible software exactly as it would be done for a dedicated FreeBSD server. This includes the ability to install software from the FreeBSD Ports Collection, which is available in the /ports directory on your account. See The FreeBSD Ports Collection for details about what is available and how to use the Ports Collection.

Many common programs that require additional configuration or special installation steps are available using the vinstall utility.

7. Can a VPS have more than one IP address?
No. At this time, VPS accounts come with a single static IP address and are not able to support additional addresses. We hope to add this capability in the future. Note: our Linux VPS line allows for more than one IP address is this is a necessity.

8. Does the VPS support multiple SSL certificates?
At this time, because the VPS has one IP address, you can only associate one SSL certificate with the standard SSL port (443) for the Web server. You can, however, configure your Web server to use the Apache Listen directive to monitor other ports for SSL requests, and associate other certificates with these different ports. Doing this requires you to indicate the port number in the URL. If you choose to provide multiple certificates on your VPS, please be aware that this configuration is not supported by our Technical Support representatives.

9. What do the commands shutdown -r and reboot do on my VPS?
The shutdown and reboot commands behave at a virtual level closely to the way they would for a dedicated Unix server. Because you do not have access to manually start the system, you can not completely halt your VPS v3 (the -h option for the shutdown command is disabled), but you can restart all the services on your account.

The shutdown command attempts to cleanly halt and restart services on your VPS v3, including execution of the commands in /etc/rc.shutdown. The shutdown procedure then kills any processes that do not exit cleanly, and restarts the init process (init reads the rc files and starts up system services).

The reboot command differs from shutdown because it does not attempt a clean shutdown of your system. Instead, reboot simply kills all running processes and then runs init (which will run the rc scripts).