Set up Ubuntu VPS

These are some steps that I follow when I provision a small VPS for myself.

1. Add my user

I SSH into the VPS and add my user.

NEW_USER=midir99
# Add user
adduser $NEW_USER
# Add user to sudoers group
usermod -aG sudo $NEW_USER
# Enable user lingering
loginctl enable-linger $NEW_USER

2. Set up SSH key to log in

I set up an SSH key for more security.

On my local machine

# Create the key with a secure passphrase
ssh-keygen -t ed25519
# Print and copy the public key
cat id_ed25519.pub

On the VPS, paste your public key at ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

On my local machine, update ~/.ssh/config for faster log in

Host vps
    HostName vps-ip.com
    User midir99
    Port 22
    IdentityFile /home/midir99/.ssh/id_ed25519

Validate the key login is configured correctly by running on your local machine: ssh vps

3. Disable root login and password authentication

I disable them for more security

On the VPS,
Edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Set PasswordAuthentication no
Set PermitRootLogin no

4. Set up the firewall

On the VPS run

ufw allow 22/tcp
ufw enable
ufw status

5. Set up your timezone

# Find your timezone using
timedatectl list-timezones
# Then set it
timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

6. Install fail2ban

apt install -y fail2ban
systemctl enable fail2ban
systemctl start fail2ban

That's it, feel free to add recommendations, complains, comments, questions, demands, etc.