So I was having problem with my previous server. Now that I’ve rebuilt everything I’ve realized that the problem I was having could have been easily fixed with my previous install. But, it doesn’t matter; it was time to upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04 anyway.

The goal of the server is simple: host two domains using Nginx. The problem I was having with the 12.04 install was that I could never get the second domain to serve up the right files; it would always serve up the first domain. This turned out to be a problem with the Nginx configuration. I thought this was the case at the time, but since the install wasn’t doing anything else anyway, I thought it was a good time to rebuild and start from scratch.

There are four articles of importance here:

  1. Initial server setup with Ubuntu 14.04
  2. How to install Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
  3. How to set up Nginx server blocks (virtual hosts) on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
  4. How to install and use Fail2Ban on Ubuntu 14.04

There is also a fifth article that may be useful to you: How to set up a host name with DigitalOcean.

The following is a quick summary of commands and configuration for the four articles listed above.

Initial server setup with Ubuntu 14.04

  1. Login: ssh root@[server_ip_address]

  2. Change the root password: passwd

  3. Add a new user: adduser [username]

  4. Give root priveleges to new user: visudo

  5. BACK OUT IMMEDIATELY with CTRL-X and export EDITOR=vim ;-)

  6. Give root privelges to new user: visudo

    [username] ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

  7. Alter SSH configuration: vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

    1. Update port: port [port_number]
    2. Refuse Root Login: PermitRootLogin no
    3. Allow only certain users (careful!): AllowUsers [username]

  8. Restart SSH: service ssh restart

  9. Test SSH config from new terminal

    1. ssh -p [port_number] [username]@[server_ip_address]
    2. sudo vim

  10. Exit the root terminal: exit

How to install Nginx on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

  1. Install Nginx:
    1. sudo apt-get update
    2. sudo apt-get install nginx
  2. Check the installation: curl http://[server_ip_address] or curl http://[domain_uri]

How to set up Nginx server blocks (virtual hosts) on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

  1. Create a directory for each domain’s files:

    1. sudo mkdir -p /var/www/[domain1]/html
    2. sudo mkdir -p /var/www/[domain2]/html

  2. Change ownership to each directory:

    1. sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/[domain1]/html
    2. sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/[domain2]/html

  3. Make sure the permissions of the web roots are correct: sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www

  4. Create sample pages for each site:

    1. vim /var/www/[domain1]/html/index.html -> HTML
    2. cp /var/www/[domain1]/html/index.html /var/www/[domain2]/html/index.html
    3. vim /var/www/[domain2]/html/index.html -> HTML

  5. Create server blocks for each domain:

    1. sudo cp /etc/nginx/sites-available/default /etc/nginx/sites-available/[domain]
    2. sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/[domain1]
    	server {
		listen 80;
		listen [::]:80;

		server_name [domain1] www.[domain1];

		root /var/www/[domain1]/html;
		index index.html index.htm;

		location / {
			try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
		}
	}
    1. sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/[domain1] /etc/nginx/sites-available/[domain2]
    2. Adjust the second domain’s configuration to match the domain name and appropriate directory locations.

  6. Enable the server blocks and restart Nginx

    1. sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/[domain1] /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
    2. sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/[domain2] /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
    3. sudo vim /etc/nginx/nginx.conf and make the following change: server_names_hash_bucket_size: 64;
    4. sudo service nginx restart

How to install and use Fail2Ban on Ubuntu 14.04

  1. sudo apt-get update
  2. sudo apt-get install fail2ban