Knowledgebase

Introduction

When you first create a new Ubuntu 18.04 server, there are a few configuration steps that you should take early on as part of the basic setup. This will increase the security and usability of your server and will give you a solid foundation for subsequent actions.

Note: The guide below demonstrates how to manually complete the steps we recommend for new Ubuntu 18.04 servers. Following this procedure manually can be useful to learn some basic system administration skills and as an exercise to fully understand the actions being taken on your server.

Step One — Root Login

To log into your server, you will need to know your server's public IP address and the password for the "root" user's account. If you have not already logged into your server, you may want to follow the first tutorial in this series, How to Connect to Your Server with SSH, which covers this process in detail.

If you are not already connected to your server, go ahead and log in as the root user using the following command (substitute the highlighted word with your server's public IP address):

• ssh root@SERVER_IP_ADDRESS

Complete the login process by accepting the warning about host authenticity, if it appears, then providing your root authentication (password or private key). If it is your first time logging into the server, with a password, you will also be prompted to change the root password.

About Root

The root user is the administrative user in a Linux environment that has very broad privileges. Because of the heightened privileges of the root account, you are discouraged from using it on a regular basis. This is because part of the power inherent with the root account is the ability to make very destructive changes, even by accident.

The next step is to set up an alternative user account with a reduced scope of influence for day-to-day work. We'll teach you how to gain increased privileges during the times when you need them.

Step 2 — Creating a New User

Once you are logged in as root, we're prepared to add the new user account that we will use to log in from now on.

This example creates a new user called sammy, but you should replace it with a username that you like:

• adduser sammy

You will be asked a few questions, starting with the account password.

Enter a strong password and, optionally, fill in any of the additional information if you would like. This is not required and you can just hit ENTER in any field you wish to skip.

Step 3 — Granting Administrative Privileges

Now, we have a new user account with regular account privileges. However, we may sometimes need to do administrative tasks.

To avoid having to log out of our normal user and log back in as the root account, we can set up what is known as "superuser" or root privileges for our normal account. This will allow our normal user to run commands with administrative privileges by putting the word sudo before each command.

To add these privileges to our new user, we need to add the new user to the sudo group. By default, on Ubuntu 18.04, users who belong to the sudo group are allowed to use the sudo command.

As root, run this command to add your new user to the sudo group (substitute the highlighted word with your new user):

• usermod -aG sudo sammy

Now, when logged in as your regular user, you can type sudo before commands to perform actions with superuser privileges.

Step 4 — Setting Up a Basic Firewall

Ubuntu 18.04 servers can use the UFW firewall to make sure only connections to certain services are allowed. We can set up a basic firewall very easily using this application.

You can see this by typing:

• ufw app list

Available applications:
  OpenSSH

We need to make sure that the firewall allows SSH connections so that we can log back in next time. We can allow these connections by typing:

• ufw allow OpenSSH

Afterwards, we can enable the firewall by typing:

• ufw enable

Type "y" and press ENTER to proceed. You can see that SSH connections are still allowed by typing:

• ufw status

Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
OpenSSH                    ALLOW       Anywhere
OpenSSH (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

As the firewall is currently blocking all connections except for SSH, if you install and configure additional services, you will need to adjust the firewall settings to allow acceptable traffic in. You can learn some common UFW operations in this guide.

Step 5 — Enabling External Access for Your Regular User

Now that we have a regular user for daily use, we need to make sure we can SSH into the account directly.

The process for configuring SSH access for your new user depends on whether your server's root account uses a password or SSH keys for authentication.

If the Root Account Uses Password Authentication

If you logged in to your root account using a password, then password authentication is enabled for SSH. You can SSH to your new user account by opening up a new terminal session and using SSH with your new username:

• ssh sammy@your_server_ip

After entering your regular user's password, you will be logged in. Remember, if you need to run a command with administrative privileges, type sudo before it like this:

• sudo command_to_run

You will be prompted for your regular user password when using sudo for the first time each session (and periodically afterwards).

To enhance your server's security, we strongly recommend setting up SSH keys instead of using password authentication. Follow our guide on setting up SSH keys on a Linux-Server to learn how to configure key-based authentication.

If the Root Account Uses SSH Key Authentication

If you logged in to your root account using SSH keys, then password authentication is disabled for SSH. You will need to add a copy of your local public key to the new user's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file to log in successfully.

Since your public key is already in the root account's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the server, we can copy that file and directory structure to our new user account in our existing session.

The simplest way to copy the files with the correct ownership and permissions is with the rsync command. This will copy the root user's .ssh directory, preserve the permissions, and modify the file owners, all in a single command. Make sure to change the highlighted portions of the command below to match your regular user's name:

Note: The rsync command treats sources and destinations that end with a trailing slash differently than those without a trailing slash. When using rsync below, be sure that the source directory (~/.ssh) does not include a trailing slash (check to make sure you are not using ~/.ssh/).

If you accidentally add a trailing slash to the command, rsync will copy the contents of the root account's ~/.ssh directory to the sudo user's home directory instead of copying the entire ~/.ssh directory structure. The files will be in the wrong location and SSH will not be able to find and use them.

• rsync --archive --chown=sammy:sammy ~/.ssh /home/sammy

Now, open up a new terminal session and using SSH with your new username:

• ssh sammy@your_server_ip

You should be logged in to the new user account without using a password. Remember, if you need to run a command with administrative privileges, type sudo before it like this:

• sudo command_to_run

You will be prompted for your regular user password when using sudo for the first time each session (and periodically afterwards).

Where To Go From Here?

At this point, you have a solid foundation for your server. You can install any of the software you need on your server now.