9 things to do after buying a VPS – ArtSysOps (2024)

There are some few steps that you should take to setup your VPS to survive the Internets viciousness and to make it more convenient for your use. Below are some of the things I do on any VPS I purchase. Most of my VPS run on Centos so am going to use Centos based commands and file paths for this illustration. But you can of course use the same guidelines and change the commands used to suite your distro.

1. Update thesystem

When you setup a new VPS, its important to run an update of all packages available even before you start using it. In centos, this can be done by running a simple yum update command

[root@host~]# yum update -y

2. Change yourhostname

The default hostnamethat a VPS comes with is normally hard to memorize. Ideally, ahostname is supposed to be a reference to an IP address, so that weuse the hostname instead of the harder to memorize IP address toaccess the server. So we need to customize the hostname to somethingyou would love to use – not struggle to use otherwise we’d bebeating this logic

The first step is tocreate an A record of your hostname so it resolves to your VPS IP,then add it as follows from terminal.

[root@host~]# hostnamectl set-hostnameserv.domain.tld

3. Change your time and timezone

Its convenient to use your local time and timezone for your VPS. This helps applications to provide logs using a timestamp that translates to local time

You can update time zone using the command below:

[root@host~]# timedatectl set-timezoneAfrica/Nairobi

You can also sync your time with a local time ntp server. In Kenya, for instance, we can use 0.ke.pool.ntp.org

[root@host ~]# yum install -y ntpdate

[root@host ~]# ntpdate 0.ke.pool.ntp.org

You can check out more ways to manage time on this link You can also check your local ntp server here

4. Install usefulutilities

I have never had aserver and failed to want to use vim or wget. I always find myselfin a situation where I’ll need them. So, why not install them onceand for all? Also, I find the epel repositiry to be very useful

[root@host ~]# yum install -y vim wget screen epel-release

5. Configuresudoer

Its common practice to disable root login to your server. This means you need t configure another username to use for remote logins. You want to be able to use sudo with such a user hence must configure the user to be a sudoer too. Run command below to create a user called wallace

[root@host ~]# useradd wallace

[root@host ~]# usermod -aG wheel wallace

Then add the line below in the sudoers file, which can be accessed by typing visudo

wallace ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

6. Change SSHport from default 22

Changing the defaultSSH port is an important step towards securing your server even fromautomated script brute force attacks. You can miss every other stepstated before and after this one, but never fail to change your SSHport. Its advisable to select a port greater than 1000 as most portsbelow that are assigned to various common services already, andassigning the same port to different services causes issues.

[root@host~]# vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

[root@host~]# systemctlrestart sshd

7.Configure ssh key login

Itis more convenient and safer to use ssh keys to login compared topasswords authentication. This can be configured in the sshconfiguration file. In /etc/ssh/sshd_config file, setPubkeyAuthentication to yes

8.Update user passwords

Changethe password your VPS provider sent you to something different.

[root@host~]# passwd

Changingpassword for user root.

Newpassword:

Retypenew password:

9.Install a firewall.

AllInternet accessible servers need a firewall, no matter what app willbe running there. Personally, I like csf so that’s what I installfor my VPS normally. SO first, disable possibly preconfiguredfirewalls such as firewalld or selinux (common with OVH VPS). Theninstall csf.

[root@host ~]# cd /usr/src; rm -fv csf.tgz; wget https://download.configserver.com/csf.tgz; tar -xzf csf.tgz;cd csf; sh install.sh

Afterthat, remember to remove csf from TESTING mode by setting TESTING =0in /etc/csf/csf.conf file and then enable lfd so they auto startanytime system is rebooted.

[root@host ~]#systemctlenable lfd

Thatshould set you up well to start off running your application now.