VPS
78 posts
Fix 'perl: warning: Setting locale failed' on a Fresh VPS
You spin up a fresh Ubuntu or Debian VPS, SSH in, and the very first command you run — apt update, sudo anything, even just logging in — spits out a wall of ye…
Fix 'Address Already in Use' Starting Nginx or Apache
You just installed Nginx (or Apache) on your VPS, run systemctl start nginx, and instead of a clean start you get a wall of red: "bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (…
Fix Remote Desktop Connection Errors on a Windows VPS
You double-click the RDP shortcut, type in your VPS's IP, and instead of the familiar Windows login screen you get "Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote …
Linux Load Average Explained: What the 3 VPS Numbers Mean
You SSH into your VPS to check on something unrelated, run uptime out of habit, and see load average: 4.32, 3.98, 3.15. Is that bad? Is your server about to fa…
How to Create and Use a WHM API Token Safely
If you've ever automated a backup check, a bulk account creation, or a DNS update with a script that logs into WHM using your root password in plain text, you'…
No Space Left on Device But df -h Shows Free? Fix Inodes
Here's a confusing one: your VPS won't let you write a file, PHP throws a fatal error trying to create a session, or apt refuses to install anything — and the …
Fix 'caching_sha2_password' MySQL Authentication Errors
You migrated a WordPress site or a PHP app to a new server, pointed it at MySQL 8, and now every page throws a database connection error. Locally it works fine…
Fix Cloudflare Error 520: Web Server Returned an Unknown Error
Cloudflare's dashboard shows your site as active, DNS is proxied, SSL says "Full" or "Full (strict)" — and visitors still land on an orange error page re…
Fix ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH: Server or Browser?
Someone emails you a screenshot: Chrome is showing "This site can't provide a secure connection" with the code ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH underneath. N…
Fix MySQL Error 2002: Can't Connect Through Socket
You run a WordPress deploy script, try to log into phpMyAdmin, or just type mysql -u root -p on your VPS, and instead of a password prompt you get: ERROR 2002 …