Before I do anything on Linux, I do these first...

After setting up my Linux servers, there are a few things I do before I use them for their intended purpose. This ranges from security, to tools, to config. Join me as we set up our first Linux server in this tutorial and walk through setting it up proper (and maybe some bonus items sprinkled in).

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Update

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

Reconfigure unattended-upgrades

sudo dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low unattended-upgrades

Verify unattended upgrades configuration file in your text editor of choice

/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

To disable automatic reboots by the automatic upgrades configuration edit the following file:

/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

and uncomment the following line by removing the leading slashes:

//Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "false";

Account

add user

sudo adduser someuser

add to sudoers

sudo usermod -aG sudo someuser

SSH Server

install

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

copy key from client to server

ssh-copy-id [email protected]

switch to key based auth

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Add these attributes

PasswordAuthentication no
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

Networking

static IP

sudo nano /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    ens18:
     dhcp4: no
     addresses:
        - 192.168.0.222/24
     gateway4: 192.168.0.1
     nameservers:
       addresses: [192.168.0.4]

Install oh-my-zsh

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install zsh
sudo apt-get install powerline fonts-powerline

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Fix LVM

sudo lvm

lvscan

You should see your logical volumes

lvm> lvscan
  ACTIVE            '/dev/vgubuntu-server/root' [<168.54 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/vgubuntu-server/swap_1' [980.00 MiB] inherit

resize the logical volume group, usually the first one in the list but check to be sure!

lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/vgubuntu-server/root

You should see:

  Size of logical volume vgubuntu-server/root changed from <138.54 GiB (35466 extents) to <168.54 GiB (43146 extents).
  Logical volume vgubuntu-server/root successfully resized

exit

resize the file system

sudo resize2fs /dev/vgubuntu-server/root

Check to see file system size

df -h

You should see:

Filesystem                         Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs                              1.6G  3.9M  1.6G   1% /run
/dev/mapper/vgubuntu--server-root  166G   89G   70G  56% /
tmpfs                              7.9G     0  7.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                              5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
/dev/sda1                          511M  4.0K  511M   1% /boot/efi
tmpfs                              1.6G     0  1.6G   0% /run/user/1000

You should see:

resize2fs 1.46.5 (30-Dec-2021)
Filesystem at /dev/vgubuntu-server/root is mounted on /; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 18, new_desc_blocks = 22
The filesystem on /dev/vgubuntu-server/root is now 44181504 (4k) blocks long.

hostname

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Time Zone

Check time zone:

timedatectl

Change time zone:

sudo timedatectl set-timezone

You can also use if you want a menu.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata 

NTP Time

sudo nano /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf

NTP=192.168.0.4

sudo timedatectl set-ntp off

sudo timedatectl set-ntp on

install kvm agent

sudo apt-get install qemu-guest-agent

firewall

sudo  ufw default deny incoming

sudo ufw default allow outgoing

sudo ufw allow ssh

sudo ufw enable

fail2ban

sudo apt-get install fail2ban

sudo cp /etc/fail2ban/fail2ban.{conf,local}

sudo cp /etc/fail2ban/jail.{conf,local}

sudo nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.local

backend = systemd

check status

sudo fail2ban-client status

sudo fail2ban-client status sshd

Links

⚙️ See all the hardware I recommend at https://l.technotim.live/gear

🚀 Don’t forget to check out the 🚀Launchpad repo with all of the quick start source files