Welcome to Brightbox

The password for the rails user is available in your control panel. Please remember to take a note of the password. If you'd like to start poking around straight away, ssh in like this:

ssh rails@username-001.vm.brightbox.net

You can run root commands using sudo (you'll be prompted for your password again):

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

We recommend that you change your rails user password. More information on SSH is available here, including help on installing an ssh key for passwordless access.

From your control panel, select Shared MySQL Service from the left hand menu. You should now see which MySQL server you have been assigned, your username, and your password.

You can connect to the server from your Brightbox using the mysql command, like so:

mysql -h mysqlserver -u username -p

Replace mysqlserver with your own MySQL servername, and username with your own. This should then prompt you for your password.

Remember that you need to prefix all your database names with your username and an underscore:

mysql> create database username_myapp_production;

More information on the MySQL service is available here

The default Brightbox uses Apache, Passenger and MySQL for deployment. The easiest way to deploy your Rails application using this stack is to use the Brightbox Deployment Gem, but you can of course do it your own way if you wish.

All Brightboxes come pre-configured with an admin account that can be used by the Brightbox team to help you at your request. For more information on this account (and on how to disable it if you'd prefer) see this page.

If you have a problem with your Brightbox, contact support.

Unless you have a support plan with us, our primary responsibility is to ensure that our systems and networks are working as normal, but we do try and help you with deployment issues.