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New member learning VPS basics: shell account, NAT VPS, or a cheap KVM to practice on?
Hi everyone, I'm oobb, a new member here. I'm learning the command line and SSH from scratch on basically a zero budget.
I've just figured out the difference between a free FreeBSD shell account (shared terminal, about 60MB of space) and a NAT VPS (shared IPv4, limited ports), and I'm trying to decide what to practice on. A few beginner questions:
- For pure practice — SSH, file permissions, running a small service — is a NAT VPS enough, or should I just wait for a cheap KVM deal instead?
- Does a Hong Kong node actually make any difference for a beginner practicing from Asia?
- Is there a first-week practice checklist you'd recommend for someone starting out?
Thanks in advance for any pointers!
Comments
To be honest if you have zero budget and can't pay then running WSL on Windows will be very useful for you if you really are just wanting to learn. You can install most Linux OS in Windows via WSL2. I run Almalinux 10 in WSL on my main PC.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about
Most you can 1-click install basically from the Windows store.
You can buy a NAT VPS from TierHive, starting from around $3/year. They have multiple locations, Singapore and Japan included.
https://tierhive.com/
What kind of practice do you want to do?
What are the specs of your computer(s) at home and what OS do you use? Asking because for just starting out and learning, it would be best to use WSL or a VM at home.
I'd go with pure kvm with dedicated ipv4 and ipv6 for the widest coverage. Shell account doesn't have root, and nat gave unnecessary complication with routing and stuff. Oracle free tier still exist, albeit they've tighten the registration since fuckers kept abusing them.
WSL / VirtualBox
Practice with your own computer. Save enough money for $5 topup for hourly vps platform. Using it 1 hour a day will last you around 5 years.
Don't have $5? Maybe you should run errands, cut some grass, walk dogs and earn pocket money.
WSL is the best platform for you now.
On the Hong Kong question: from Asia the lower latency mostly just makes SSH feel snappier, and for practice it matters much less than having root on a KVM. I have a small HK VPS with only 10 Mbps and it is still plenty for lightweight services like a subscription converter running in Podman and managed by systemd. A good first-week exercise is exactly that: run one small container, write a systemd unit for it, then reboot and confirm it comes back up on its own.
Get a 'learn linux/unix cook book' as most configuration/operation is done by knowing linux commands. Use the most used linux like debian or ubuntu when you are a beginner as most tutorials and howtos are written for those linux distros.
Best is to start on you own hardware, use virtualbox for running your local linux. So your first week will be like;
Towards the bottom of the same page:
( https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about#microsoft-loves-linux )
This may be the first time that I've seen this on an official MS page!
Old-timers may recall Steve Ballmer's claim 25 years ago that Linux is a cancer:
https://www.theregister.com/software/2001/06/02/ballmer-linux-is-a-cancer/581119
Times change
Any cheap NAT VPS is good for practice since you get full root access—just aim for at least 3–5 GB of disk so that OS doesn't run out of space on basic package updates.
A NAT is good enough, you don't need a full VPS.
Yes and no. As your budget seems to be zero and Asia isn't exactly cheap I suggest to not be picky about location. Any location within 100 ms (or even a bit more) should do the trick.
KhanWebHost offer NAT VPS in Hong Kong - about $7 a year. NAT IPv4 and dedicated IPv6.
If you want pure practice for free I suggest you to look at https://sadservers.com/scenarios/topic/linux-bash and https://killercoda.com/ - They have a lot of scenarios for you to start practicing. If you want to have some guidance then you might start with https://linuxupskillchallenge.org/
IMO as long as you don't need your server / services running on it to be available while your PC is off, you can set up VirtualBox / VMware Workstation to run VMs and expose most services via cloudflare tunnel (either for free, or with a cheap .xyz domain)
ha awesome playbook @dbadude
Own hardware
Get a raspi (or various clones of it) and try experimenting. For example, orange pi Zero 3 cost one-time $35. Also bonus, because it's your own hardware and you have physical access, you can get GPIO on it and easier to troubleshoot if things goes wrong.
(free)
Or if you are a student, github student pack's azure or digital ocean. Azure gh student offer do not require a credit card.
Or if you have a credit card, vultr used to have 1yr free (idk if they still do now) or oracle.
Google Cloud Platform or various others also have free credits, but they usually require a credit card.
(cheap) Paid
Or if you are willing to pay like $7/year or $12/year, checkout the $1/mo vps plans, or various others.
You could try using your own computer to create a Linux VPS via VMware for learning purposes.
Yeah, then there is no danger of exposing your server to the internet. Network configuration is next level after knowing how to navigate in the linux filesystem.
It's great to see so many helpful responses for a new user.
One thing that settled this question for me: you can't practice SSH hardening on a shared shell account. On any cheap KVM, the first hour should be key-only auth (disable PasswordAuthentication), fail2ban, and unattended-upgrades — those three alone teach you more about real server admin than months of clicking around a shared box. Then break things and reinstall; that's the whole point of a practice VPS.