Common installation and configuration

Do this operation with root user. You can also use sudo before all commands.

Apt-get

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get dist-upgrade

Packages for motd (optionals):

$ apt-get install update-notifier-common
$ apt-get install landscape-common

$ apt-get install vim
$ apt-get install curl
$ apt-get install wget
$ apt-get install git
$ apt-get install backup-manager
$ apt-get install fail2ban

After this installation you can configure backup-manager and fail2ban.

SMTP server

If you have application that want to send mail follow this else go next.

$ apt-get install postfix

And enter this informations step by step:

Internet Site
server1.exemple.com

Crontab

Use file /etc/crontab or add file into /etc/cron.d/.

SSH

Disable ssh connection for root user and enable just for precise users or group. For this open /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and change this option:

PermitRootLogin no

You can also add an other parameter to precise a groups they are authorized to loggin with ssh:

AllowGroups ssh-login

Save and close /etc/ssh/sshd_config and don't reboot ssh server now!

Now you must create this group:

$ addgroup ssh-login --system

Add user you want authorized into ssh-login group (do this command for each user):

$ adduser username ssh-login

You can now restart ssh:

$ service ssh restart

Before close your current ssh term open an another an try to log to your server to be sure that works.

.profile

To enable color for a user, just add this line into the user .profile file and add this line:

TERM="xterm-color"

To continue

You can now install a PHP server or a Ruby server (or both).