LEMP(UBUNTU-20.04 TLS)

Description:

In less than a minute, spin up a cloud server with Nginx, MySQL, and PHP installed.

Software Included:

Nginx - 1.18

MYSQL - 8.0.32

PHP - 8.1

Fail2ban - 0.11.1

Postfix - 3.4.13

Certbot - 0.40.0

Getting started after deploying LEMP:

Allow the ports in the firewall only SSH (port 22, rate limited), HTTP (port 80), and HTTPS (port 443) access.

Sets the MySQL root password and runs mysql_secure_installation.

You will be logged out of the instance and displayed with the below message until the instance is deployed. DO NOT LOG IN TO THE INSTANCE FOR 2 MINUTES AFTER THE CREATION.

Please wait until the installation is completed....
Connection to $IPADDRESS closed.

Once the LEMP is deployed:

You can view the LEMP instance immediately by visiting the instance’s IP address in your browser.

You can log into the instance as ubuntu using either the password you set when you created the instance or with an SSH key if you added one during creation.

You can then switch the user to root without a password by entering the following command. < sudo su - >

The MySQL root password is stored under /root/.mysql_root_password

Login to MySQL using the command < mysql -u root -p <$password stored in the above file> >

The web root is /var/www/html

To secure your connection, you will need a registered domain configured for your Instance.

In addition, there are a few customized setup steps that we recommend you take:

Creating an Nginx server block file for each site maintains the default configuration as the fallback, as intended, and makes it easier to manage changes when hosting multiple sites.

To do so, you’ll need to create two things for each domain: a new directory in /var/www for that domain’s content, and a new server block file in /etc/nginx/sites-available for that domain’s configuration.

Setting up an SSL certificate enables HTTPS on the web server, which secures the traffic between the server and the clients connecting to it. Certbot is a free and automated way to set up SSL certificates on a server. It’s included as part of the LEMP deployment to make securing the domain easier.

To use Certbot, you’ll need a registered domain name and two DNS records:

An A record from a domain (e.g., example.com) to the server’s IP address

An A record from a domain prefaced with www (e.g., www.example.com) to the server’s IP address

Additionally, if you’re using a virtual hosts file, you’ll need to make sure the server name directive in the VirtualHost block (e.g., ServerName example.com) is correctly set to the domain.

Once the DNS records and, optionally, the virtual host files are set up, you can generate the SSL certificate. Make sure to substitute the domain in the command.

certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

HTTPS traffic on port 443 needs to be allowed through the firewall. After you set up HTTPS, you can optionally deny HTTP traffic on port 80:

Setting up Postfix:

Set a Valid Hostname using the command "hostnamectl set-hostname test.example.com". Make sure the hostname "test.example.com" have a proper A record.

The Instance IP must have a proper PTR record.

Configure the hostname in the postfix configuration /etc/postfix/main.cf

In the section below section, replace the $hostname with the valid hostname

myhostname = $hostname

Restart postfix using the command

systemctl restart postfix

Once the above step is completed. You can check outgoing Emails using the command

echo "Postfix test" | mail -s "Subject" test@gmail.com"

Initially, the Emails will be dropped into the SPAM folder. As this is a NEW IP the reputation is unknown. Once the reputation is calculated based on the incoming and outgoing emails. The emails will be dropped in the INBOX.