New Ubuntu server setup task list

new_ubuntu_server_setup.txt

Server Tasks

1. Change root password

2. Change ssh port (assume to be 4444)
nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config(change port to between 1025 and 65536)
PermitRootLogin no
service ssh restart
ssh -p 4444 demo@SERVER_IP_ADDRESS

3. Add normal user with sudo privileges
adduser username_here
gpasswd -a username_here sudo

4. Copy ssh key to remote server
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub (copy output to clipboard)
ssh-rsa long_string_here_ends_with_email_address
su - username_here
mkdir .ssh
chmod 700 .ssh
nano .ssh/authorized_keys (paste ssh key)
chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys
exit

5. setup firewall
# by default, deny all incoming, allow all outgoing
sudo ufw default deny incoming
sudo ufw default allow outgoing

# allow the new ssh port
sudo ufw allow 4444/tcp

# allow port 80 if webserver
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp

# confirm rules added
sudo ufw show added

# effect the rules
sudo ufw enable

6. Configure timezones, network time and locale
sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ntp

sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8 (or sudo locale-gen UTF-8?)
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
edit the file /etc/environment add one line with your LANG, like this LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" save and reboot

7. Create swap file, either same or double the installed RAM
sudo fallocate -l 4G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
sudo sh -c 'echo "/swapfile none swap sw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab'