⚙ī¸ FastHosts — vendor notes & initial setup

FastHosts are typically used for signing servers (not usually for validating clusters). This document covers ordering guidance, initial access, and how to adjust the default RAID/LVM layout to provide adequate space for signer workloads.

🛒 Ordering (fast checklist)

  1. Login to FastHosts: https://admin.fasthosts.co.uk/Home/
  2. Choose "Dedicated Servers" and select a server spec suitable for signing (CPU, RAM, NVMe/HDD as required).
  3. Pick the nearest/appropriate data centre location.
  4. Select an Attestant-approved Ubuntu LTS release as the base image.
  5. Do not enable extra backups/control panel unless specifically requested.

Tip: If you need NVMe-backed disks for speed, pick a plan with NVMe devices and confirm the number of namespaces presented to the OS.

🔐 Initial access & verification

FastHosts will typically email initial root credentials. Access the server via SSH on port 22:

# example (replace with actual details)
ssh root@<ip-address>

On first boot, quickly verify disk and partition layout:

lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT
df -h
cat /etc/os-release

If / (or /home) already shows ~800GB and /boot ~1–2GB, you can probably skip the RAID/LVM adjustment below.

🧩 Adjust RAID/LVM for FastHosts baseline

FastHosts can ship with a minimal LVM/RAID layout. For signer servers we prefer dedicating ~800GB to the main data volume (/ or /home). The example below shows a conservative sequence used on an existing signer box — adapt to your inventory and always double-check device names.

  1. List physical volumes and note names:
sudo pvdisplay

Example output might show a PV like /dev/md4.

  1. Resize the PV to consume the new space (if the underlying RAID was expanded by the provider):
sudo pvresize /dev/md4
  1. List logical volumes to identify the LV names:
sudo lvdisplay
  1. Extend the logical volume (example extends /dev/vg00/home to use all free space):
sudo lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/vg00/home
  1. Grow the filesystem (ext4 example):
sudo resize2fs /dev/vg00/home
  1. Confirm space is available:
df -h /home

Notes & safety

  • Confirm PV/LV/device names before running pvresize/lvextend — these operations are powerful and affect the whole volume group.
  • If the server uses XFS instead of ext4, use xfs_growfs to expand the filesystem instead of resize2fs.

✅ Post-setup checks

  • Confirm expected disk sizes with lsblk and df -h.
  • Verify mount points in /etc/fstab if you made persistent changes.
  • Check RAID health (if using mdadm):
sudo mdadm --detail /dev/md4
cat /proc/mdstat

Troubleshooting

  • If pvresize fails because the underlying device size didn't change, contact FastHosts support to confirm the RAID expansion or request a configuration change.
  • If lvextend or filesystem resize reports errors, stop and collect logs (dmesg, journalctl -xe) and escalate to InfraOps.

Helpful links & vendor docs

  • FastHosts help: https://help.fasthosts.co.uk/app/answers/detail/a_id/2982/kw/2982
  • LVM man pages: man pvresize, man lvextend, man resize2fs
  • todo https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/guides#/articles/additional-users-for-your-fasthosts-control-panel----749aae62-344a-4a0e-89d6-8496dd91b444

 


 

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