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What’s the Best Budget VPS Setup for Learning Networking and Security?
Hi everyone,
I’ve been thinking about diving deeper into networking and basic server security, and I want to do it on a budget-friendly VPS without risking any production systems.
If you were starting from scratch with a low-cost VPS (under $10/month), what would your ideal setup be for learning purposes?
Specifically:
What OS do you prefer (Ubuntu, Debian, etc.)?
What tools or services would you install first for networking/security learning?
Any lightweight monitoring or logging setups you recommend?
I’m hoping to balance cost, performance, and real-world learning value. Appreciate any configurations or tips you’ve found useful!
Thanks!
Comments
It'd help to know your current level, but assuming you're starting from scratch then you should start by teaching yourself Wireguard and the finer points of SSH, (such as using it as a data channel).
I'd also recommend you get 2-4 small VPSs for $10/month, rather than one big one, because then you can test networking from both ends and try different configurations etc.
For server security, just follow some online tutorials and that will give you ideas for things to experiment with. Keep going down rabbit holes and at some point it will all start make sense.
Explore BSD
Going by your sig for a clue, that stands for Buy Some @DediRock, right?
Go with Arch btw.
It's possible that folks here will disagree with me strongly, but take advantage of LLMs. If you tell Gemini what you want to accomplish, read and understand the commands it gives you, change the commands to suit your specific instance, and then run the command yourself, it can be a great way to learn.
You can also use something like Cursor if you'd prefer to learn less and just get things done. You can tell that tool exactly what you want to do in natural English, and it will execute the commands to get it done. This can also be a great learning tool if you actually review the commands it is sending to the terminal.
If you take one or both of these routes, they will steer you into dead ends occasionally, which is another opportunity to learn by finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. I futzed around with Linux many times over the years, but feel like I've learned more about it in one month because of the introduction of LLM tools.
Best storage deel
Well, to explore the network, it makes sense to get at least two VPSs. With a budget of up to $10 per month, this can be done quite easily.
From personal experience (not an advertisement), I can recommend taking a look at these providers.
https://advinservers.com/cloud - High quality services - from hardware to support
https://novacloud-hosting.com - great winter deals + good network + ip transit
https://layer7.net - Excellent value for money, good support
https://datalix.eu - lesser known but good hosting provider
https://my.kuroit.com/store/sale-offers - a lot of deals
It might also make sense to look at @DeluxHost - VPS for $7-10 per year is very profitable as a test.
Perhaps the users I mentioned will be able to offer you a personalized offer.
OS: Ubuntu
Tools: Wireshark/firewall-cmd
Monitoring: Self-hosted -> Uptime Kuma/CheckCle, SaaS -> something like https://fivenines.io/
Thanks for mentioning fivenines, really appreciate it
@noct
The DediRock Magic™
woot thx @DrNutella
Yeah, I do have to disagree strongly. As someone who works in infosec, LLMs are often worse than nothing. They not only give you the wrong idea about how something works, but they're trained on script kiddies and have no deeper understanding of what they're talking about.
The worst, and I mean worst, infosec folks I have ever run into are people who swear by LLMs.