MariaDB VPS

Who it suits

Apps that expect MySQL or MariaDB, on the same server or over an SSH tunnel. It isn't a managed database: replication, failover and upgrades are yours.

Which plan

Budget suits a small app's database. Give a busy database Standard or Extreme, and raise innodb_buffer_pool_size so InnoDB has memory to cache in.

What we install

MariaDB installed and started at boot, bound to localhost. The root database account logs in through the Unix socket, so there's no default password to leak.

From order to ready

1. Server ready. We email you when the server is running, and you can log in with SSH. The installer starts on that same first boot.
2. Installer running. It logs to /var/log/vps9-setup.log; tail -f it to watch.
3. Application ready. This can be minutes after SSH works. The installer writes its exit code to /var/lib/vps9-setup.exit; a value of 0 means installation succeeded. MariaDB is ready when mariadb -e 'select version()' answers as root.

What you still do

1. Run mariadb as root.
2. Create a database and a user for your app.
3. Keep port 3306 closed; use an SSH tunnel for remote tools.

Exposure and security

Nothing is open: MariaDB is bound to 127.0.0.1, and root has no password to guess because it authenticates through the Unix socket. For remote tools, create a user and tunnel with ssh -L 3306:127.0.0.1:3306 root@<your IPv4>; keep port 3306 closed.

Backups and upgrades

Updates within your distribution's MariaDB release come with the system's packages. Dump with mariadb-dump --single-transaction on a schedule, copy the dumps off the server, and test a restore. We run the hardware, the network and the first-boot install; after that, MariaDB is yours to run, and we don't manage or update it for you. Off-site backups of the whole disk are an optional paid add-on; they copy the disk as it is at one moment, so keep the app's own backups as well.