Initial Server Setup with Ubuntu 18.04

I have made a bash script to automate the setup process, hopefully this will be useful to someone else.

Hey, Justin! Thanks for the great tutorial. In your last step, rsync --archive --chown=sammy:sammy ~/.ssh /home/sammy, it might be worth pointing out that there should be no trailing slash on ~/.ssh. I only mention that because when I was typing it in, I hit <tab> (to autocomplete, out of habit) and bash turned that into /root/ssh/.

I tried to log in with my new user, but because rsync doesn’t copy the source directory itself when it is appended with a trailing slash, my authorized_keys file was just hanging out in my new user’s home directory. A quick note might save someone else the trouble. Thanks again!

It’s also probably advisable to include a Step 6: Disable SSH root login.

This can be done by setting PermitRootLogin to no in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.

I also prefer to install fail2ban to prevent anybody trying to hack into the system.

apt-get install fail2ban

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The old 16-04 tutorial made a lot more sense with how to get the keys in the correct place for ssh on the new user.

You might not be able to access using the new user you created, make sure you allow OpenSSH on uwf by (logged in as root or access it via the droplet console):

ufw allow OpenSSH

in my case i also allowed port 22

ufw allow 22

Great piece! thank you. Keep up the good work :)

https://transfer.sh/ is a neat alternative for rsync. \Yet, not sure about security compliance on their side.

i.e.

$ curl -H "Max-Downloads: 1" -H "Max-Days: 5" --upload-file ./xxx.pub https://transfer.sh/xxx.pub 

output returns a downloadable link that fits both for cli and webUI Also addable as alias to .bashrc:

# Add this to .bashrc or its equivalent 
transfer() { if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then echo -e "No arguments specified. Usage:\necho transfer /tmp/test.md\ncat /tmp/test.md | transfer test.md"; return 1; fi 
tmpfile=$( mktemp -t transferXXX ); if tty -s; then basefile=$(basename "$1" | sed -e 's/[^a-zA-Z0-9._-]/-/g'); curl --progress-bar --upload-file "$1" "https://transfer.sh/$basefile" >> $tmpfile; else curl --progress-bar --upload-file "-" "https://transfer.sh/$1" >> $tmpfile ; fi; cat $tmpfile; rm -f $tmpfile; } 

# Now you can use transfer command 
$ transfer hello.txt

Very useful, short and it works. Thx for sharing.