Digital Ocean Server Setup

Setting up a digital ocean server is pretty straight forward. First you have to pay some amount via paypal or credit card ( I paid $5). Then there is an easy html page set up tool that helps set up the account. In my case, I did not choose to use ipv6 or to use ssh key on login. However most of the options can be changed later on as I learnt. I chose Ubuntu 16.04 as my preffered OS of choice. Everything wasthen setup automatically and I just had to connect to my server.

The first thing I did was add public key authentification for my root user. I did that by:

ssh root@server-ip
answer yes to question that appears
input password

This just confirms that I can log into the system. I then exit ssh and do the following:

ssh-keygen
ssh-copy-id root@server-ip

After this process I can now login to my server without the need for my password.

I then add another user to the system who will have root privileges:

ssh root@server-ip
adduser username
usermod -aG sudo username

Add public key authentification:

ssh-keygen
ssh-copy-id username@server_ip

I then diabled password access via ssh. This makes it more secure as it prevents people guessing my server password.ie. You either have the key to access my server or not.

sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
set
    PasswordAuthentification no
sudo system reload sshd

set up firewall:

sudo ufw app list 
sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw status ;should see OpenSSH

I then installed nginx as my server of choice:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

And then added it to my firewall:

sudo ufw app list
sudo ufw enable 'Nginx HTTP'
sudo ufw status
systemctl status nginx

I only enable Nginx HTTP because I have not yet got an SSL cerificate, so port 43 for HTTPS is not currently in use.

This is a neat trick I got about how to get your ip address from the terminal

ip addr show eth0 | grep inet | awk '{ print $2; }' | sed
's/\/.*$//'

or

sudo apt-get install curl
curl -4 icanhazip.com

For a database I decided to install mariadb

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client
sudo mysql_secure_installation

I then installed php:

sudo apt-get install php-fpm php-mysql

sudo vim /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini
set: cgi.fix_pathinfo =0; secure better the system