---
title: "VPS management for small businesses | Wardio"
description: "VPS management for people who are not sysadmins: patching, monitoring, intrusion detection and verified off-site backups. One price, licences included."
source: "https://wardio.net/"
---

**VPS management · small business**

# Someone else's job to keep your server up.

You bought a VPS to run your shop, your app or your tools, and you never planned to become a sysadmin. Wardio handles the patching, monitoring, intrusion detection and backups, and tells you in plain language when something needs your attention.

[Get a free server review](/contact/) [See what it costs](/pricing/)

There is no commitment, and you keep the findings whether or not you hire me.

**1,500**concurrent users on infrastructure I rebuilt

**2023**running production systems for clients since

**40+**public client vouches, named and dated

**Included at every tier**

-   **Rebootless kernel patching.** Serious kernel fixes go in without waiting for a reboot.
-   **Intrusion detection & log analysis.** File integrity monitoring is part of it.
-   **Real-time metrics and alerting.** You hear about a problem before your customers do.
-   **Zero-trust private access.** No admin port is open to the internet.
-   **Verified off-site backups.** They are encrypted, integrity-checked and kept in a different failure domain from the server.

The monthly price includes the licences. I do not bill them on top.

**The work itself**

## The jobs VPS management covers

Hosts use the phrase for anything between a reboot button in a control panel and a full operations contract. The table shows where Wardio draws the line, so you can compare it with anyone else who quotes you.

| The job | In practice | Who usually does it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Provisioning and hardening | First boot to a machine that is safe to expose: non-root access, key-only SSH, deny-by-default firewall, admin interfaces off the public internet. | Wardio |
| Patching | OS and package updates on a schedule, plus rebootless kernel patching so most serious kernel fixes do not wait for a maintenance window. | Wardio |
| Monitoring and alerting | Per-second metrics, with alerts sent to a person who can act on them. A dashboard nobody opens does not count. | Wardio |
| Intrusion detection | Host-based detection, log collection and retention, and file integrity monitoring on the paths that matter. | Wardio |
| Backups and recovery | Encrypted off-site backups with integrity checks, kept in a different failure domain from the server. | Wardio |
| The server itself | The hosting account and the monthly bill stay in your name. You own the machine and keep root. | You |
| Your application | Building or debugging what runs on the box. I quote this separately if you want it. | Quoted |

A managed VPS plan from a hosting company usually covers the first two rows and calls that management. You find out about the missing rows when something goes wrong.

**Who this is for**

## Online stores

If you take card payments, PCI DSS already requires you to run file integrity monitoring and retain access logs. Most small shops do neither and are unaware of the requirement. [See which controls you're already obliged to have.](/compliance/)

## Freelancers and solo operators

Your business depends on one box, and there is no one to call when it stops. You keep ownership and root, and the operational work moves off your desk.

## Teams of one to five

The team is too small to hire a sysadmin and too exposed to keep ignoring the server. A managed stack costs less than the first hour of an incident you have to resolve yourself.

## Game and community servers

This practice started with game servers, and they still bring the hardest problems. Traffic arrives in spikes, the community notices an outage before any monitoring does, and the data is irreplaceable. [Most of the vouches on this site are from operators like that.](/reviews/)

**Pricing**

## €100/mo for your first machine, €50/mo for each one after.

Everything above is included. There is no setup fee or minimum term, and you can cancel with 30 days' notice.

[Full pricing detail](/pricing/)

**Common questions**

## Straight answers

### What do you manage?

Linux servers, whether that is one VPS, a dedicated machine or several. The work covers setup and hardening, security patching, monitoring and alerting, intrusion detection, off-site backups with automated integrity checks and a documented restore path, and private access between your machines and your people. If it runs on a Linux box and downtime costs you something, it is in scope. Windows Server is possible too, but most of my depth is in Linux. Mention Windows early and I will tell you straight whether I am the right person for it.

### Do I need to be technical to work with you?

No. Most clients bought a server to run a shop, an app or a tool, and never planned to administer it. You keep root access and full ownership. I handle the maintenance, monitoring and recovery planning.

### What happens when something breaks at 3am?

Alerting runs continuously and reaches me directly. By default, response outside business hours is best-effort. A contractual response time is a separate agreement with its own price. As a one-person practice I would rather tell you that up front than sell you a promise I cannot keep.

### Are the software licences included in the price?

Yes. The monthly fee includes the licences for rebootless kernel patching, monitoring and intrusion detection, and I do not bill them on top. That is why the price is higher than hourly sysadmin labour. The fee pays for a managed stack.

### Can you take over a server someone else set up?

Yes, and that is the usual case. I start by reviewing what is already running, what is exposed and whether the backups would restore. You get that assessment before you commit to anything.

The [guides](/guides/) go into more detail. They come from production work rather than vendor documentation. One explains [why a restic repository on Backblaze B2 keeps growing](/guides/restic-backblaze-storage-growth/) and what Backblaze said when we escalated it. You can also read [what clients have said](/reviews/) since 2023.

**Guides**

## Each guide was tested before it went up

-   [How to secure a VPS you just bought](/guides/secure-a-vps/) Hardening
-   [Backups that actually restore](/guides/backups-that-restore/) Backups
-   [File integrity monitoring for a small online store](/guides/file-integrity-monitoring/) Compliance
-   [A restic repository on Backblaze B2 keeps growing](/guides/restic-backblaze-storage-growth/) Backups
-   [Backblaze B2 Object Lock with restic](/guides/restic-b2-object-lock/) Backups
-   [Restic vs Borg for a small-business server](/guides/restic-vs-borg/) Backups
-   [resticprofile in production, explained](/guides/resticprofile-production/) Backups
-   [Wazuh pricing: free to licence, not free to run](/guides/wazuh-cost/) Security
-   [Kernel live patching on Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL and SUSE](/guides/kernel-live-patching/) Patching
-   [Unattended upgrades not upgrading](/guides/unattended-upgrades-not-working/) Patching
-   [Fail2ban vs CrowdSec](/guides/fail2ban-vs-crowdsec/) Hardening