What I do first on a new Linux server
Especially in the 2020’s, as corporations and for-profit companies increasingly enshittify their services and surveil us, people are discovering the benefits of self-hosting open-sourced applications and owning the digital infrastructure they depend on. For most people that probably means renting a VPS from the likes of Linode, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, or Hostinger. Being solely responsible for the administration of a server that is accessible from the internet can be a scary thought due to all the botnets that will constantly try to break into your server from the moment it goes online. Apart from the general security worries regarding having a server accessible to anyone and everyone with malicious intentions over the internet, folks who are entirely new to self-hosting might not even know how to get started and what to do after giving a VPS provider their money. In this article I describe the first steps I take on a fresh VPS. If I’m wrong or miss a crucial step, you are welcome to contact me and I’ll integrate your corrections. 🙂