For real basic : http://wiki.bukkit.org/Setting_up_a_server
If you need a manager, mark2 (https://github.com/mcdevs/mark2), multicraft, mcmyadmin or a good old 'screen'.
Some of my members on my forum are receiving this error, doesn't really know where it come from. It looks like it's random (my member reported it does that sometimes when F5ing the page, looking at alerts and looking at his PM)
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message...