What is a Virtual Private Server?
A Virtual Private Server is designed for customers who need access to a full Linux installation, but are unable to justify the costs of having an entire dedicated server. It involves partitioning resources from a full server, e.g. RAM, hard disk space and bandwidth, so that it appears as multiple servers. As each GigaTux VPS runs its own copy of an operating system, you will have superuser-level (root) access and can install any software you wish. A more detailed explanation is available here.
As VPSs are unmanaged, we recommend that you have Linux experience with the distribution of your choice. However, GigaTux will provide limited ad-hoc support for simple queries.
Summary of our VPS Setup
- Our servers use Intel Xeon E55xx processors (very similar to the Intel Core i7) with 4 hard drives arranged in RAID10 for redundancy and speed. All systems are monitored to ensure sufficent CPU time for each user, and all four cores can be made available for free on request.
- Network connectivity is provided by a several connections for 'fail-over'.
- Servers are in a secure location in Maidenhead on one of the fastest networks in the world, according to speedtest.net. Feel free to download sample files from two of our servers, Legion and Emohawk.
- Virtualisation technology is provided by Xen 3.4, a well proven solution for managing virtual server isolation and partitioning of physical resources.
- Each virtual machine has its own dedicated RAM and hard disk space. This is not shared with anyone and is not oversold.
- Your choice of Linux distribution and full root access.
Available Packages
| New offers available for 2010! |
Important points to note:
- Our lead time is very short at present, but please be prepared to wait for 24 hours for your order to be processed.
- The VPS that you will be assigned is unmanaged. You will be responsible for maintenance and management of your VPS. It is particularly important to have a suitable firewall and to remain vigilant to hacking attempts and exploits. You will have full root access via SSH but support for software within your virtual machine is not contractually provided (although we can help occasional issues).
- Your VPS will be set up with a small boot partition, swap space equal to that of your allocated RAM and the rest of the partition space as root. Please let us know if you have specific partitioning needs as we can usually accommodate.
- Unless you are hosting simple, mostly static web pages, or merely using your virtual account as storage, we recommend you consider a package of at least 256MB RAM in order to improve performance. You may start with a 128MB VPS and upgrade at a later point if you wish.
VPS Details
Available Linux distributions:
- Centos 4
- Centos 5
- Debian Lenny (can be downgraded)
- Fedora Core
- Gentoo
- Mandriva Linux (Free Edition)
- Turnkey Linux Apache Tomcat
- Turnkey Linux Bugzilla
- Turnkey Linux Core
- Turnkey Linux Deki
- Turnkey Linux Django
- Turnkey Linux DokuWiki
- Turnkey Linux Domain Controller
- Turnkey Linux Drupal 6
- Turnkey Linux Amazon EC2 SDK Appliance
- Turnkey Linux ejabberd
- Turnkey Linux File Server
- Turnkey Linux Gallery
- Turnkey Linux Google App Engine SDK
- Turnkey Linux Joomla
- Turnkey Linux LAMP Stack
- Turnkey Linux LAPP Stack
- Turnkey Linux Mantis
- Turnkey Linux MediaWiki
- Turnkey Linux MoinMoin
- Turnkey Linux Moodle
- Turnkey Linux MoveableType
- Turnkey Linux MySQL
- Turnkey Linux Open Bravo
- Turnkey Linux OTRS
- Turnkey Linux phpBB
- Turnkey Linux PostgreSQL
- Turnkey Linux ProjectPier
- Turnkey Linux Rails
- Turnkey Linux Redmine
- Turnkey Linux Revision Control
- Turnkey Linux Roundup
- Turnkey Linux Symfony
- Turnkey Linux Torrent Server
- Turnkey Linux Trac
- Turnkey Linux Tracks (Getting Things Done)
- Turnkey Linux TWiki
- Turnkey Linux Wordpress
- Turnkey Linux Zimbra
- Ubuntu 9.04
- Ubuntu 8.10 or earlier
- If you require any other distribution, or later/earlier versions of one above, we can accommodate. Please contact us.
Payment methods:
- All major credit and debit cards via PayPal and Google Checkout.
- BACS transfer to UK bank account.
- Personal cheque.
- Cash (sent through the post at your own risk).
Additional costs:
- Extra bandwidth is charged at 4p per GB, chargeable monthly in arrears.
Please examine the terms and conditions of GigaTux services. Examples of the activities your VPS may not be used for are:
- Any illegal activities, including offences relating to copyright.
- 'Spamming' or otherwise sending unsolicited commercial email.
- Any activity that potentially could harm our network or any other network.


