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New Virtual Machine Server Setup Checklist

I use a lot of checklists -- here is one of mine for setting up a new Linux virtual machine server. The commands are written for Ubuntu/Debian-based systems.

System Updates

Update Package Lists and Upgrade System

First, let's update the package lists and upgrade existing packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

apt update: Updates the package list/index files from repositories
apt upgrade: Actually upgrades the installed packages to their latest versions

Docker Installation

Follow these steps to install Docker properly on Ubuntu:

1. Remove Conflicting Packages

for pkg in docker.io docker-doc docker-compose docker-compose-v2 podman-docker containerd runc; do sudo apt-get remove $pkg; done

2. Set up Docker Repository

# Add Docker's official GPG key:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

# Add the repository to Apt sources:
echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update

3. Install Docker Engine

sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin

4. Configure Docker to Start on Boot

sudo systemctl enable docker.service
sudo systemctl enable containerd.service

Change Hostname

To permanently change your server's hostname:

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname <<your-new-hostname>>

And update /etc/hosts to reflect the new hostname:

sudo nano /etc/hosts
# Add/update the line:
127.0.0.1 <<your-new-hostname>>

User Management

Create New User with Sudo Privileges

# Create new user
sudo adduser <<new-username>>

# Add to sudo group
sudo usermod -aG sudo <<new-username>>

# Add to docker group
sudo usermod -aG docker <<new-username>>

Essential CLI Tools Installation

Install Homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Install Micro Editor

sudo apt install micro

Install Lazydocker and Lazygit

brew install jesseduffield/lazydocker/lazydocker
brew install lazygit

SSH Server Configuration

1. Generate SSH Key Pair (on your local machine)

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"

2. Configure SSH Server

Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Add/modify these important settings:

PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
PubkeyAuthentication yes
MaxAuthTries 10

3. Add SSH Keys

For the new user:

# Create .ssh directory
sudo mkdir -p /home/<<new-username>>/.ssh
sudo chown <<new-username>>:<<new-username>> /home/<<new-username>>/.ssh
sudo chmod 700 /home/<<new-username>>/.ssh

# Copy root's authorized_keys to new user (if exists)
if [ -f /root/.ssh/authorized_keys ]; then
    sudo cp /root/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/<<new-username>>/.ssh/
    sudo chown <<new-username>>:<<new-username>> /home/<<new-username>>/.ssh/authorized_keys
    sudo chmod 600 /home/<<new-username>>/.ssh/authorized_keys
fi

# Or manually add your public key if needed
# echo "your-public-key" | sudo tee /home/<<new-username>>/.ssh/authorized_keys