Reinstalling or changing your VPS operating system

On shared hosting the operating system is not your choice — and just as well, because it is not your problem either. On a VPS it is the opposite: the machine is yours, and the first decision you make is what system runs inside it.

What you can choose

The options appear when you order, on the server configuration screen. Depending on the product, you will find:

Family What is usually available
Ubuntu Several LTS and interim releases, with and without UEFI. The most common choice, and the one with the most documentation online
Debian Stable and light. A good choice if you want few surprises between updates
Rocky Linux / CentOS The Red Hat compatible family. A natural choice if you come from that world, or for panels that require it
Fedora Newer and faster moving. Useful for testing, less suited to production
Windows Server When the application requires Windows. See connecting to a Windows VPS over Remote Desktop
FreeBSD Available on some products, for those who know exactly why they want it
When in doubt, Ubuntu LTS. LTS means long-term support: it gets security fixes for years without forcing you onto a new release. It is the one that will cost you the least work.

The control panel is a separate choice

Alongside the system there is a control panel option. They are different things: the system is the base, the panel is the interface that saves you doing everything on the command line.

Choose no panel and you get a bare server, administered over SSH. That is perfectly valid — and it is where the managed / unmanaged difference bites: see managed or unmanaged VPS.

Changing system later — the part that hurts

Reinstalling erases everything. There is no way to swap the operating system and keep what is on it. The disk is formatted: sites, databases, configuration, e-mail, all of it. Treat this as receiving a brand new server, because that is what you will get.
1 Back everything up, and verify the backup. Having the file is not enough — open it and confirm it is complete.
2 Write down what you have installed — versions, services, ports, scheduled jobs. It is always more than you remember.
3 Open a support request saying which system you want and on which server. We confirm with you before formatting.
4 We reinstall and send you the new credentials by e-mail.
5 Restore and test before pointing the domain back.
The site does not have to be down during the reinstall. If you have somewhere to put it meanwhile, point the domain there and bring it back at the end — see how to migrate a site without taking it offline.

If you only want to upgrade the version

Moving from one Ubuntu release to the next, for example, does not need a format — it is done from within the system, with your data in place. It is faster, but it carries risk, and on an unmanaged server that risk is yours. If you like, we take a backup first so there is somewhere to go back to.

Trouble after working on the server — SSH refusing, memory, full disk — is covered in common VPS and Cloud errors.

Want to reinstall, or not sure which system to choose?

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