Initial Linux Server Setup

Following instructions have used placeholders shown below. Replace these placeholders with appropriate values before executing the instructions.

• <yourdomain.com>
• <user_name>
• <your_email_id>

a. Create a non-root user

ssh root@<yourdomain.com>
adduser <user_name>
usermod -aG sudo <user_name>
exit

b. Set up passwordless SSH access (from your local machine)

# On your local machine
cd ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen           # skip if a key already exists
scp id_rsa.pub <your_email_id>:~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Log in as the new user for all remaining steps:

ssh <user_name>@<yourdomain.com>

c. Update the system

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

d. Create swap space

Recommended for small servers with 4GB of RAM or less. First, check if swap is already configured by running free -h. The command below creates a 1GB swap file. However, it is generally recommended to match your swap size to your total RAM.

sudo fallocate -l 1G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
# Make permanent
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab