UbuntuHandbook | Tag Archive

Archives For Ubuntu Server

How to Install Ubuntu 13.10 Server from USB Step by Step

Last updated: July 28, 2015

This is a step by step guide for beginners how to create bootable Ubuntu 13.10 Server USB and install it on your computer.

Requirements:

A Windows, Linux or Mac OS PC for burning the iso into USB
1GB+ USB stick
Ubuntu 13.10 Server ISO downloaded from releases.ubuntu.com/13.10

How to Create Bootable Ubuntu Server USB

First download Unetbootin executable, a simple tool to install Linux/BSD distributions to a partition or USB drive. It works on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Insert USB stick to computer and format (don’t use’Quick format’) to FAT. Open Unetbootin, in the picture below choose the Ubuntu 13.10 Server iso and your usb device and finally click OK to start the burning process.

create bootable ubuntu server usb

Once finished, connect the USB to the machine which you want to install Ubuntu Server on. Boot from the USB and you’ll see a screen with list of options include ‘Install Ubuntu Server’

Install Ubuntu 13.10 Server

Select ‘Install Ubuntu Server’ from the Unetbootin boot screen, then select your desired language in the screen below:

Ubuntu 13.10 Server select language

Click Install Ubuntu Server

install ubuntu 13.10 server

Choose the language for installation process and installed system:

Ubuntu 13.10 server installation language

Select your Country which will used to set your time zone:

Ubuntu 13.10 Server select location

Choose your locale settings. Then select YES to detect keyboard layout or NO to select from list.

Setup the hostname (Computer name).

Ubuntu 13.10 Server hostname

Enter your username and password to create an Administrator account. You can login with this user after installation:

Ubuntu 13.10 Server create user

Encrypt previous created user’s home directory or not:

Ubuntu 13.10 Server encrypt home directory

Select the partitioning method:

Guided – use the entire disk: it will automatically create the main EXT4 partition and swap area for Ubuntu using all disk storage.
Guided – use the entire disk and setup (encrypted) LVM: it will use the whole disk storage and you need to manually create EXT partition and Swap for Ubuntu Server.
Manual: If you have a dual-boot system or you want to keep a non-system partition on the disk, do it manually.

Ubuntu 13.10 Server partition

Confirm the partition and the installation will begin:

Ubuntu 13.10 Server installing process

Input HTTP proxy server IP. Leave it empty if you don’t have one.

Ubuntu 13.10 Server HTTP setup

It’ll take a few minutes configuring apt. If want, cancel it and do it afterwards.

Ubuntu 13.10 Server configure apt

In order to keep your system security, select ‘Install security updates Automatically’ in next screen:

Ubuntu 13.10 Server security updates

Now you can select to install OpenSSH server, DNS, LAMP, MAIL, PostgreSQL, Print, Samba, Tomcat, Virtual Machine Host from the list. Use arrow keys to highlight and Space to select, finally press Enter to go on.

Ubuntu 13.10 Server install software

Select to install Grub boot loader and finish the installation. Restart and login with the username and password you created:

Ubuntu 13.10 server login

Your Ubuntu 13.10 server is running now!

How to Secure SSH Login on Your Ubuntu VPS

Last updated: August 8, 2013

This site is running on a small VPS with Ubuntu 12.04 Server. The only way to access the server is using SSH. So it is very important to make remote SSH login security. In this tutorial, I’m going to show you what I was doing on my Ubuntu Server to deal with the problem.

Tutorial Objectives:

Secure SSH Login on Ubuntu VPS
Enjoy!

1. Disable SSH Login as Root

It’s not a good idea to login your Ubuntu Server remotely as root user, because anyone can attempt to access your system by brute force the root password.

To disable root login, edit the configuration file by running blew command:

vi /etc/ssh/ssh_d.config

Find out the line which says PermitRootLogin yes and change it to PermitRootLogin no.

You’ll need to press i on your keyboard to start editing, press ESC to exit editing. Then press : followed by wq and then press Enter. This will save the file.

2. Add a user for SSH Login

You need to create a new user for remote ssh login after disabled root. If you already have one, skip this step.

In below codes, replace USERNAME to any username you want.

To get started, run blew command to create a user:

adduser --shell "/bin/bash" USERNAME

Add the user to sudoer group:

echo "USERNAME ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL" >> /etc/sudoers

Add the user to SSH list:

echo "AllowUsers USERNAME" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config

3. Change the SSH Port

Using something other than the default port (22) for the ssh server can help avoid attacks by script kiddies. To do so, run command to edit the ssh config file:

vi /etc/ssh/ssh_d.config

Find out Port 22, change to Port 22000 or any other number between 1024 and 65536.

After this step, you can do SSH access by running below command:

ssh serveripaddress -l USERNAME -p 22000

4. Limit SSH Login Attempts

The most effective way to protect your server from brute force is to limit ssh login attempts. DenyHosts is a log-based intrusion prevention security tool for SSH servers written in Python. It is intended to prevent brute-force attacks on SSH servers by monitoring invalid login attempts in the authentication log and blocking the originating IP addresses.

To install DenyHosts.

sudo apt-get install denyhosts

Once the Denyhosts installed, make sure to whitelist your own IP address, so you will never get locked out. To do this, edit the file /etc/hosts.allow:

vi /etc/hosts.allow

Add your IP address to the end, make it looks like this:

sshd: 50.116.59.22
sshd: 50.116.59.23
sshd: 50.116.59.24

You can also use Google Authenticator two-step authentication to secure your SSH Login.

In Ubuntu Server secure ssh login in ubuntu, Ubuntu Server

How to Install Webmin on Ubuntu 13.04 & 12.04 Server

Last updated: August 20, 2013

Want to manage your Ubuntu server remotely with a graphical user interface? Maybe webmin is good choice! Here I’m going to show you how to install it on Ubuntu 12.04 Server and higher.

Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any modern web browser, you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and much more. Webmin removes the need to manually edit Unix configuration files like /etc/passwd, and lets you manage a system from the console or remotely.

To install Webmin, follow the steps below:

1.) Run command to download the Deb package:

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.650_all.deb

2.) Install the package:

sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.650_all.deb

3.) All dependencies can be resolved by this command:

sudo apt-get -f install

After webmin is installed, go to https://your-ubuntu-serverip:10000 in your web browser, login with an administrator account and password.

Enjoy!

In Howtos, Ubuntu Server 12, remote access, ubuntu, Ubuntu Server, webmin

Install and Setup Apache2, Php5, Mysql on Ubuntu Server (LAMP)

Last updated: July 2, 2013

Want to build a website? Then you need to setup a web server! Here I’ll show you how to install and setup LAMP pack on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Server.

LAMP is a combination of Linux (OS), Apache HTTP Server, PHP (open-source scripting language), and MySQL (database software).

In this tutorial I use the hostname www.example.com with the IP address 192.168.0.100 as example.

1.) Login or Remote access your server as root, or run command to get root privileges.

sudo su

2.) Install Mysql 5:

apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

You’ll be asked to set a password for root user of Mysql.

3.) Install Apache2:

apt-get install apache2

After installed, test if it works by going to http://192.168.0.100 in your web browser. Remember change the IP to yours.

The default default document root is /var/www/, and the configuration file is /etc/apache2/apache2.conf.

4.) Install PHP5:

apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

Restart Apache2 service to get it works with PHP5:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

5.) To test if PHP5 works, create info.php in the root directory “/var/www/”:

vi /var/www/info.php

press I to insert following codes:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

then press Esc -> Shif+: type in wq and hit enter to save. Then in browser go to http://192.168.0.100:info.php

6.) To get Mysql support in PHP5, install following packages:

apt-get install php5-mysql php5-curl php5-gd php5-intl php-pear php5-imagick php5-imap php5-mcrypt php5-memcache php5-ming php5-ps php5-pspell php5-recode php5-snmp php5-sqlite php5-tidy php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl

Then restart Apache2 service:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Go to or reload http://192.168.0.100/info.php in your browser:

7.) (Optional) Install phpMyAdmin, a web interface to manage Mysql Databases:

apt-get install phpmyadmin

After installed, go to http://192.168.0.100/phpmyadmin/, login with root and password you set in step 2.

In Ubuntu Server 13.10, install, setup lamp, ubuntu, Ubuntu Server

How to Enable Secure Shell (SSH) in Ubuntu Server

Last updated: November 3, 2013

SSH service is not enabled by default in Ubuntu both Desktop and Server, but you can easily enable it just by one command. Works on Ubuntu 13.04, 12.04 LTS, 10.04 LTS and all other releases.

And the command is:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

It installs OpenSSH server, then automatically enable ssh remote access.

OpenSSH is a FREE version of the SSH connectivity tools that technical users of the Internet rely on. Users of telnet, rlogin, and ftp may not realize that their password is transmitted across the Internet unencrypted, but it is. OpenSSH encrypts all traffic (including passwords) to effectively eliminate eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and other attacks. Additionally, OpenSSH provides secure tunneling capabilities and several authentication methods, and supports all SSH protocol versions.

You can edit the config file “/etc/ssh/sshd_config” to change default port 22, remember to apply changes via the command below:

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart