server

Connecting to a server via SSH with Putty

April 7, 2019 by Simon

This post aims to show how you can connect to a remote VM server using Telnet/SSH Secure shell with a free program called Putty on Windows. This not an advanced guide, I hope you find it useful.

2020 Update. I have stopped using Putty and WinSCP. I now use MobaXterm (a tabbed SSH client for Windows) as it is way faster than WinSCP and better than Putty. Read my review post of MobaXTerm here.

You will learn how to connect (via Windows) to a remote computer (Linux) over the Telnet protocol using SSH (Secure Shell). Once you login you can remotely edit web pages, learn to code, install programs or do just about anything.

Common Terms (Glossary)

Putty: Putty is a free program that allows you to connect to a server via Telnet. Putty can be downloaded from here.
Port: A port is a number given to a virtual lane on the internet (a port is similar to a frequency in radio waves but all ports share the same transport layer frequency on the internet). Older unencrypted webpages work on Port (lane 80), older mail worked on Port 25, encrypted web pages work on Port 443. Telnet (that SSH Secure Shell uses) used Port 22. Read about port numbers here.
SSH: SSH is a standard that allows you to securely connect to a server over the telnet protocol. Read more here.
Shell: Shell or Unix Shell is the name given to the interactive command line interface to Linux. Read more about the shell here.
Telnet: Telnet is a standard on the TCP/IP protocol that allows two-way communication between computers (all communicatin issent as characters and not graphics). Read more on telnet here and read about the TCP protocols here and here.
VM: VM stands for Virtual Machine and is a name given to a server you can buy (but it is owned by someone else). Read more here.

Read about other common glossary terms used on the Inetre here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Internet-related_terms

Background

If you want a webpage on the internet (or just a server to learn how to program) it’s easier to rent a VM for a few dollars a month and manage it yourself (with Telnet/SSH Secure Shell) than it is to buy a $5,000 server, place it in a data centre and pay for electricity and drive in every few days and update it. Remote management of VM servers via SSH/Secure Shell is the way for small to medium solutions.

A simple web hosting site may cost < $5 a month but is very limited.
A self-managed VM costs about $5 a month
A website service like Wix, Squarespace, Shopify or WordPress will cost about $30~99 a month.
A self-owned server will cost hundreds to thousands upfront.

There are pros and cons to all solutions above (e.g cost, security, scalability, performance, risk) but these are outside this post’s topic. I have deployed VMs on provides like AWS, Digital Ocean, Vultr and UpCloud for years. If you need to buy a VM you can use this link and get $25 free credit.

I used to use the OSX Operating System on Apple computers. I was used to using the VSSH software program to connect to servers deployed on UpCloud (using this method). With the demise of my old Apple Mac book (due to heat) I have moved back to using Windows (I am never using Apple hardware again until they solve the heat issues).

Also, I prefer to use Linux servers in the cloud (over say Windows) because I believe they are cheaper, faster and more secure.

Enough talking lets configure a connection.

Public and Private Keys?

Whenever you want to connect to a remote server via Telnet/SSH Secure Shell you will need a public and private key to encrypt communications between you and the remote server.

The public key is configured on your server (on Linux you add the public key to this file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys).

The private key is used by programs (usually on your local computer) to connect to the remote server.

How to create a Public and Private Key on Linux

I usually run this command on Ubuntu or Debian Linux to generate a public and private SSH key.

sudo ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

The key below was generated for this post and is not used online. Keys are like physical keys, people who have them and know where to use them can use them.

Output:

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/username/.ssh/id_rsa): ./server
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): ********
Enter same passphrase again: ********
Your identification has been saved in ./server.
Your public key has been saved in ./server.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:sxfcyn4oHQ1ugAdIEGwetd5YhxB8wsVFxANRaBUpJF4 username@server
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 4096]----+
| .oB**E@Bo       |
|  +.==B.+        |
| o .o+o+..       |
|  .. +..o...     |
|    o ..Sooo.    |
|         ++o.    |
|        .o+o     |
|        .oo .    |
|         ...     |
+----[SHA256]-----+

The two files were created

server
server.pub

“server” is the private key
“server.pub“is the public key

Public/Private Key Contents

Public Key Contents (“server.pub”)

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAACAQC7Xo9bOCXJ7gVjP8tKOxHVId3KTo5I0VRU/kSRK3+mGd5VbDbQABo3tdWzYhzkjODzRS9TeL2dcLAQNNQKshi9IW5IGDS1NocSCLFQId5BFr9s3E79fkWqcZkKmwocepXOOZ91EDKgIFxviOzZKe99sdxxMoZzi1nxgVyXl4TnaelyiQxeKYniVs1iqDfYWQCxkKsmYit8TvGtOwrhLvKNh9362/y5ebpXVdFlRuB83eF7k8RHNYCQyOJJVx4cw3TIsAN0GMOwjuaOZbp7rR1d6k7RZmaApNRTbaWOXy32UiBST5TV/jXF2UL/4IBnn+yvCrM0v79e/3omgjlVVKfWByFzMv/YlBKCAX3xxtJQ9RkzTqseKupXmmJU0rik6Xuz31N2oyw4M7yJofSUGVCN0pnpKEvnKxqolfD9egdQy2XDaNioY7cvOO1qRegCKE0sDh1m5MzJWMhbDs7macSMyd6+0O5qWc/ByHy0G/mVbd8kO4jIuEzEs4IFkPCToEZp7KfkY7KRkOhccLbQ4ApCesUfBtGGAN1f33NnXCHae3Cx46nSd23fvgDZUVnjI47tNJH5Z8FNVlW/fp5Rgeu/aPUephnDX2IBxwIKQOmSTDY+nxU4V+c93H1gSOJfvqYbVKIAXKyN9Yh6LC44ZvLrL4q0TC0QlH2+kxMLnuj7zw== username@servercom

Private Key Contents (“server”), always keep the private key safe and never publish it.

The Public and Private keys is used to encrypt all Telnet/SSH connections and traffic to your server. Keep these key’s private.

fyi: Putty can create SSH Keys too

If you do not have a Linux computer or Linux server to generate keys the Putty generator can create keys too.

Puttygen generating a key based on the randomness of mouse movements.

I did not know Putty can create keys.

Do save the public and private key(s) that were generated in Puttygen (tip: PPK files are what we are after along with the public key later in this post).

Public keys are added to your server when you deploy them. On Linux, you can add new Pulic keys after deployment by adding them to this file “~/.ssh/authorized_keys” to allow people to log in.

Puttygen does format the keys differently than how Ubuntu generates them. Read more here. I’ll keep generating keys in Linux over Puttygen.

Output of the public and PPK files from Puttygen

Putty SSH Client on Windows

Putty is a free windows program that you can use to connect to serves via SSH. Download and install the Putty program.

Open Putty

Default Putty User Interface.

To create a connection add an exiting IP address (server name) and SSH port (22) to Putty.

Screenshot of an IP and port entered into putty

In Putty (note the tree view to the left of the image), You can set the auto login name to use to log into the remote server under the Connection the Data in the tree view item

Screenshot showing the SSH usename being added to putty under Connection then Data menu,

You can also set the username under the Connection then Rlogin section of Putty.

Set the usernmae undser rlogin area of putty

OK, lets add the private SSH Key to Putty.

Putty Screehshot showing no support for standard SSH keys (only PPK files)

It looks like Putty only supports PPK private key files not ones generated by Linux. I used to be able to use the private key in the VSSH program on OSX and add the private key to connect to the server over SSH. Putty does not allow you to use Linux generated Private keys directly.

Convert your (Linux generated) private key to (Putty) PPK format with Puttygen

Putty comes with a Key Generator/Converter, you can open your existing RSA private key and convert it (or generate a new one).

TIP: If you generate a key in Puttygen don;t forget to ad’d it to your authorized host file in your remote server.

Open Puttygen

Click Conversions than Import Key and choose the private key you generated in Linux

Screenshot showing import RSA key to convert

The private key will be opened

You can then save the private key as a PPK file.

“server.ppk” Key contents (sample key)

PuTTY-User-Key-File-2: ssh-rsa
Encryption: aes256-cbc
Comment: imported-openssh-key
Public-Lines: 12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Private-Lines: 28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Private-MAC: 12298fa865ac574da81898252e83b812200cba59

Now the PPK key can be added to Putty for any server connection that uses the public key. Use the right key for the right server though.

Add the private key to a Putty server by clicking Connection, SSH, AUTH section and browing to the PPK file.

Screenshot showing the PPK key file added to Putty

Now we need to save the connection, click back on the Session note at the top of the treeview, type a server name and click Save

Connecting to your sever via Telnet/SSH wiht Putty.

Once you have added a server name, port, usernames and private key to Putty you can double click the server list item to connect to your server.

You will see a message about accepting the public key from the server. Click Yes. This fingerprint will be the same fingerprint that was shown when you generated the keys (if not maybe someone is hacking in the middle of your local computer and server)

Putty messgae box asking to to remember the public key

Hopefully, you will now have full access to your server with the account you logged in with.

Screenshot of an Ubuntu screen after login

Happy Coding.

Alternatives to self-managed VM’s

I will always run self-managed server (and configure it myself) as its the most economical way to build a fast and secure server in my humble opinion.

I have blogged about alternatives but these solutions always sacrifice something and costs are usually higher and performance can be slower.

I am also lucky enough I can do this as a hobby and its not my day job. when you self manage a VM you will have endless tasks or securing your server and tweaking but its fun.

Monitor server performance with NixStats and receive alerts by SMS, Push, Email, Telegram etc

October 3, 2018 by Simon

This is a draft post showing how you can monitor the performance of a server (or servers) with NixStats and receive alerts by SMS, Push, Email, Telegram etc

fyi: This is not a paid post, this is just me using the NixStats software to monitor my servers and send alerts.

Finding a good host

If you have not read my previous posts I have now moved my blog to the awesome UpCloud host (signup using this link to get $25 free UpCloud VM credit). I compared Digital Ocean, Vultr and UpCloud Disk IO here and UpCloud came out on top by a long way (read the blog post here). Here is my blog post on moving from Vultr to UpCloud.

Buy a domain name here

Monitoring Servers

The post below will show you how you can monitor servers online with https://nixstats.com/ and send alerts when resources reach limits or servers fail.

I signed up and started a Nixstats (14 day free trial).

After I created an account I was emailed by Nixtsats with agent install instructions for Linux (1 line). I was also advised to add contacts and to set up alerts.

I logged into the Nixstats settings and set up…

My Timezone
Default reporting period
First name and Surname
Reporting emails
etc

Nixstats Subscription Upgrade

Subscription options

Free (5 monitors, 1 server, 24-hour data retention etc)
Founder (25 monitors, 10 servers, 30-day data retention etc)
Business (100 monitors, 15 servers, 60-day data retention etc)

I enabled the limited founder subscription so I can monitor 10x servers (this deal is too good to miss). I tried creating a status page myself last year and it is terribly hard.

I am now out of the free trial period 🙂 Let’s start monitoring many servers.

I enabled two factor Auth to Nixstats logins

I created a Nixstats API key for future use (watch this space)

I installed the Nixstats agent (the dashboard gave a 1 line command you can run as root to install the agent (on Linux)).

FYI: Command (######################## is a number linked to your account)

wget --no-check-certificate -N https://www.nixstats.com/nixstatsagent.sh && bash nixstatsagent.sh ########################

Output

wget --no-check-certificate -N https://www.nixstats.com/nixstatsagent.sh && bash nixstatsagent.sh ########################
--2018-10-02 09:53:56--  https://www.nixstats.com/nixstatsagent.sh
Resolving www.nixstats.com (www.nixstats.com)... 2400:cb00:2048:1::6819:8013, 2400:cb00:2048:1::6819:8113, 104.25.128.19, ...
Connecting to www.nixstats.com (www.nixstats.com)|2400:cb00:2048:1::6819:8013|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 38708 (38K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: 'nixstatsagent.sh'

nixstatsagent.sh 100%[====================================================>] 37.80K –.-KB/s in 0.1s

2018-10-02 09:53:56 (338 KB/s) – ‘nixstatsagent.sh’ saved [38708/38708]

Found Ubuntu …
Installing …
Installing Python2-PIP …
Installing nixstatsagent …
Generation a server id …
Got server_id: ######################
Creating and starting service
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/nixstatsagent.service -> /etc/systemd/system/nixstatsagent.service.
Created the nixstatsagent service

Server Dashboard
below is a summary of all connected servers ( https://nixstats.com/dashboard/servers ).

Monitor Setup

I set up a number of monitors to monitor ping replies and https traffic

Advanced Monitoring

I can also set the monitor credentials, timeouts, retries, auth methods, max redirects and frequency. If you server blocks login or resource GET attempts you may need to whitelist IP’s. IP’s of monitoring servers are located here https://nixstats.com/whitelist.php

Monitor Summary

The default dashboard is very informative. Feel free to create your own dashboards that focus on your own infrastructure or apps.

Individual Server Reports

You can click on a server and monitor it in detail.

Server Memory Graphs

Long-term memory graphs.

Install Optional Nixstats Plugins

Nixstats offers many plugins to monitor software that is installed on your server (e.g NGINX, MySQL, PHP etc).

1) NGINX Monitoring (Plugin)

To enable NGINX monitoring I read https://help.nixstats.com/en/article/monitoring-nginx-50nu7f/

I edited my NGINX sites-enabled config.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

I added the following

server {
    listen 127.0.0.1:8080;
    server_name localhost;
    location /status_page {
        stub_status on;
        allow 127.0.0.1;
        deny all;
    }
}

I tested, reloaded and restarted NGINX

nginx -t
nginx -s reload
/etc/init.d/nginx restart

The status page will only be available on the local machine, I tested the page on the local machine

wget -qO- http://127.0.0.1:8080/status_nginx
Active connections: 3
server accepts handled requests
 15 15 31
Reading: 0 Writing: 1 Waiting: 2

It’s Working.

I edit /etc/nixstats.ini

sudo nano /etc/nixstats.ini

I remove comments before these lines to enable the plugin

[nginx]
enabled = yes
status_page_url = http://127.0.0.1:8080/status_nginx

I ran the following command to see if NGINX monitoring is possible

nixstatsagent --test nginx

Output

nginx:
{
    "accepts": 39,
    "accepts_per_second": 0.0,
    "active_connections": 6,
    "handled": 39,
    "handled_per_second": 0.0,
    "reading": 0,
    "requests": 119,
    "requests_per_second": 0.0,
    "waiting": 5,
    "writing": 1
}

It’s Working

I restarted the nixstatsagent

service nixstatsagent restart

I can now view NGINX properties like active_connections in my dashboard. 🙂

2) Enable PHP-FPM Monitoring (Plugin)

Looks like a PHP-FPM monitoring was recently added lets set that up too. Read my guide on setting up PHP child workers here.

We’ve added a premade dashboard for PHP-FPM. If you’re not yet monitoring PHP-FPM take a look at the integration guide https://t.co/X4ywRHw9hX pic.twitter.com/aag1fTsr3R

— Nixstats (@nixstats) September 6, 2018

To enable PHP-FPM monitoring I read https://help.nixstats.com/en/article/monitoring-php-fpm-1tlyur6/

I edited my PHP-FPM ini file

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

I added the following line

pm.status_path = /status_phpfpm

Restart PHP

sudo service php7.2-fpm restart

I added the following to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default localhost server block added above Note I use php 7.2 below (read more here).

server {
    listen 127.0.0.1:8080;
    server_name localhost;

location /status_phpfpm {
access_log off;
allow 127.0.0.1;
deny all;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
log_not_found off;
}
}

I tested, reloaded and restarted NGINX

nginx -t
nginx -s reload
/etc/init.d/nginx restart

I restart PHP-FPM

sudo systemctl restart php7.2-fpm

Enabled the plugin in /etc/nixstats.ini

[phpfpm]
enabled = yes
status_page_url = http://127.0.0.1:8080/status_phpfpm?json

I tested the status page

wget -qO- http://127.0.0.1:8080/status_phpfpm?json

Output:

{
	"pool":"www",
	"process manager":"static",
	"start time":1538654543,
	"start since":178,
	"accepted conn":28,
	"listen queue":0,
	"max listen queue":0,
	"listen queue len":0,
	"idle processes":49,
	"active processes":1,
	"total processes":50,
	"max active processes":2,
	"max children reached":0,
	"slow requests":0
}

I tested the agent

 nixstatsagent --test phpfpm

Output:

phpfpm:
{
    "accepted_conn": 51,
    "accepted_conn_per_second": 0.0,
    "active_processes": 1,
    "idle_processes": 49,
    "listen_queue": 0,
    "listen_queue_len": 0,
    "max_active_processes": 2,
    "max_children_reached": 0,
    "max_listen_queue": 0,
    "pool": "www",
    "process_manager": "static",
    "slow_requests": 0,
    "start_since": 318,
    "start_time": 1538654543,
    "total_processes": 50
}

I can now query PHP-FPM status values in Nixstats 🙂

Enable MySQL Monitoring (Plugin)

To enable MySQL monitoring I read https://help.nixstats.com/en/article/monitoring-mysql-1frskd8/

I edited the nixstats.ini

sudo nano /etc/nixstats.ini

I enabled the mysql section in nixstats.ini and added my mysql credentials

[mysql]
enabled=yes
username=mysqluser
password=#######################
host=127.0.0.1
database=mysql
port=3306
socket=null

I ran this command to test MySQL querying

nixstatsagent --test mysql
mysql:
Load error: No module named MySQLdb

I had an error.

A quick Google revealed I had to install a mysql python module.

sudo apt-get install python-mysqldb

Allow localhost to connect to MySQL

Edit /etc/mysql.cnf and allow all localhost and external connections (I could not bind to localhost and an external IP at the same time)

bind-address    = 0.0.0.0

TIP: Ensure you have firewalled access to your MySQL server, never open it up without protection.

Let’s try again

nixstatsagent --test mysql

Output

mysql:
{
    "aborted_clients": 0,
    "aborted_connects": 0,
    "binlog_cache_disk_use": 0,
    "binlog_cache_use": 0,
    "bytes_received": 0,
    "bytes_sent": 0,
    "com_delete": 0,
    "com_delete_multi": 0,
    "com_insert": 0,
    "com_insert_select": 0,
    "com_load": 0,
    "com_replace": 0,
    "com_replace_select": 0,
    "com_select": 0,
    "com_update": 0,
    "com_update_multi": 0,
    "connections": 0,
    "created_tmp_disk_tables": 0,
    "created_tmp_files": 0,
    "created_tmp_tables": 0,
    "key_read_requests": 0,
    "key_reads": 0,
    "key_write_requests": 0,
    "key_writes": 0,
    "max_used_connections": 3.0,
    "open_files": 14.0,
    "open_tables": 316.0,
    "opened_tables": 0,
    "qcache_free_blocks": 1.0,
    "qcache_free_memory": 16760152.0,
    "qcache_hits": 0,
    "qcache_inserts": 0,
    "qcache_lowmem_prunes": 0,
    "qcache_not_cached": 0,
    "qcache_queries_in_cache": 0,
    "qcache_total_blocks": 1.0,
    "questions": 0,
    "select_full_join": 0,
    "select_full_range_join": 0,
    "select_range": 0,
    "select_range_check": 0,
    "select_scan": 0,
    "slave_open_temp_tables": 0.0,
    "slow_launch_threads": 0,
    "slow_queries": 0,
    "sort_range": 0,
    "sort_rows": 0,
    "sort_scan": 0,
    "table_locks_immediate": 0,
    "table_locks_waited": 0,
    "threads_cached": 2.0,
    "threads_connected": 1.0,
    "threads_created": 0,
    "threads_running": 1.0,
    "uptime": 35837.0
}

Nice,

I restart MySQL

sudo systemctl restart mysql

I restart my Nixstats service

service nixstatsagent restart

Now let’s monitor MySQL in Nixstats

I can now view MySQL metrix

Status Page

Nixstats allows you to create a status page ( https://nixstats.com/pages/overview ) where you can add any servers or monitors to that page. This stats page is truly awesome, it builds a live status page based on data coming from your installed agents.

You can even set up a custom subdomain that points to a Nixstats hosted status page too (e.g https://status.yourdomain.com).

FYI: An SSL certificate on your staus page may take a few hours to set up. Don’t panic if it is not instantatly available.

Nice.

This saves doing it yourself. The status page will look like it running on your server.

Status Page

You can create a status page that automatically aggregates collected data from monitors and displays them in a nice layout.

This is great, I used to do my own status pages but not anymore.

Alerts

I added a contact so I could receive alerts. I could then add my mobile, email and PushOver key (to receive push notifications) and Telegram Bot API token.

Test Alerts

I sent a test alert to each service against the contact.

I activated a Pushover licence on my Android device for about $7.49 AUD (one off) to ensure I keep getting Push Notifications.

Nixstats have links that show you how you can create a Telegram Bot and Pushover.net account.

Pushover will cost about $5 USD one off per device (see faq).

I created the following alerts

Alert: Disk Usage higher than 90%

Alert: Load greater than 90 per cent for 1 minute

Alert: Less than 5 percent memory free.

Summary of alerts.

I also added a CPU reached 95% one for 5 mins alert too (but it’s not pictured above)

I forgot to specify alert recipients and methods for each alert so I edited each alert and added the contact.

Now it’s time to test the alerts.

I shut down a server to test alerts

shutdown -h now

Alerts to my defined Email, SMS, Push and Telegram are working a treat 🙂

After I rebooted the server I also received alerts about the server being back up.

The status page showed the server that was offline too.

Nice

Troubleshooting

I had an issue instaling the agent on Debian

I ran the following command

wget --no-check-certificate -N https://www.nixstats.com/nixstatsagent.sh && bash nixstatsagent.sh #######################
--2018-10-02 00:41:38--  https://www.nixstats.com/nixstatsagent.sh
Resolving www.nixstats.com (www.nixstats.com)... 2400:cb00:2048:1::6819:8113, 2400:cb00:2048:1::6819:8013, 104.25.129.19, ...
Connecting to www.nixstats.com (www.nixstats.com)|2400:cb00:2048:1::6819:8113|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 304 Not Modified
File 'nixstatsagent.sh' not modified on server. Omitting download.

nixstatsagent.sh: line 508: [: Installer exited with error code 0. See nixstatsagent.log for details.: integer expression expected

An error occurred, please check the install log file (nixstatsagent.log)!

Contents of nixstatsagent.log

cat nixstatsagent.log
Ign:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates InRelease
Hit:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates InRelease
Hit:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch Release
Ign:5 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic InRelease
Ign:7 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic Release
Ign:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main all Packages
Hit:9 https://packages.sury.org/php stretch InRelease
Ign:10 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main amd64 Packages
Ign:11 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main Translation-en
Ign:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main all Packages
Ign:10 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main amd64 Packages
Ign:11 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main Translation-en
Ign:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main all Packages
Ign:10 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main amd64 Packages
Ign:11 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main Translation-en
Ign:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main all Packages
Ign:10 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main amd64 Packages
Ign:11 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main Translation-en
Ign:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main all Packages
Ign:10 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main amd64 Packages
Ign:11 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main Translation-en
Ign:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main all Packages
Err:10 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main amd64 Packages
  404  Not Found
Ign:11 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic/main Translation-en
Reading package lists...
W: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu cosmic Release' does not have a Release file.
E: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu/dists/cosmic/main/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
nixstatsagent.sh: line 118: apt-get upgrade returned error code 100. Please see nixstatsagent.log for details.: command not found

I asked the Nixstats chat help and I was advised I had a dead repository (I removed this (editing the dead repo in the appropriate file in /etc/apt/) and all was ok)

I had trouble testing my Telegram alerts but it was my fault as I forgot to follow the bot account I created. Telegram does not allow message from a user (bot) unless you follow them.

A chat with the Nixstats staff sorted me out. Thanks, Nixstats chat team.

I had an issue with a missing python mysql package

Load error: No module named MySQLdb

I solved it by instaling python-mysqldb

sudo apt-get install python-mysqldb

Nixstats Help

Nixstats have a help subdomain: https://help.nixstats.com/en/

Error Logs Plugin

I did ask Nixstats on Twitter and they said they are working on a logging plugin, I can’t wait for that.

We’re launching a closed beta for Logging at Nixstats. Contact us to get setup! You can search and tail log files across all your servers! pic.twitter.com/FIeip2SOUw

— Nixstats (@nixstats) October 4, 2018

I now have access to beta log features and can see log tabs in Nixstats

I had or check the version of my rsyslogd

rsyslogd -v
rsyslogd 8.32.0, compiled with:
        PLATFORM:                               x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
        PLATFORM (lsb_release -d):
        FEATURE_REGEXP:                         Yes
        GSSAPI Kerberos 5 support:              Yes
        FEATURE_DEBUG (debug build, slow code): No
        32bit Atomic operations supported:      Yes
        64bit Atomic operations supported:      Yes
        memory allocator:                       system default
        Runtime Instrumentation (slow code):    No
        uuid support:                           Yes
        systemd support:                        Yes
        Number of Bits in RainerScript integers: 64

I edited: /etc/rsyslog.d/31-nixstats.conf

I pasted

##########################################################
### Rsyslog Template for Nixstats ###
##########################################################

$WorkDirectory /var/spool/rsyslog # where to place spool files
$ActionQueueFileName fwdRule1 # unique name prefix for spool files
$ActionQueueMaxDiskSpace 1g # 1gb space limit (use as much as possible)
$ActionQueueSaveOnShutdown on # save messages to disk on shutdown
$ActionQueueType LinkedList # run asynchronously
$ActionResumeRetryCount -1 # infinite retries if host is down

template(name=”NixFormat” type=”string”
string=”<%pri%>%protocol-version% %timestamp:::date-rfc3339% %HOSTNAME% %app-name% %procid% %msgid% [5bb8825c3f0bc16aa068f144@5fJR7vuYTJOX6cEiyZlLv5By tag=\”rsyslog\”] %msg%\n”
)

action(type=”omfwd” protocol=”tcp” target=”log.nixstats.com” port=”514″ template=”NixFormat”)
#################END CONFIG FILE#########################

I restarted the rsyslog service

sudo service rsyslog restart

Live Log Output

I can see a live log from (unknown) logs.

I can see the firewall blocking access to certain ports.

Search logs

Blacklist Checking (Beta)

Nixstats tweeted “We just launched a new blacklist check feature. Monitor your IP and hostname reputation. Free during the Beta!”

I enabled it.

I received a Blacklist notification

I requested removal at junkmailfilter.com

Thanks, Nixstats

Conclusion

This is one of the best software packages I have seen in a while. I have developed status

pages in the past (no more). Great work Nixstats.

Please check out Nixstats today, they are awesome. Signup for a free account and consider the limited time founder plan (it’s a bargain).

Nixstats Live chat support is awesome

Server Plug

If you need a server, consider using my referral code and get $25 UpCloud VM credit if you need to create a server online.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

Ask a question or recommend an article

[contact-form-7 id=”30″ title=”Ask a Question”]

Revision History

v1.3 Blacklist beta

V1.2 Logs beta

v1.1 Logging Tweet

v1.0 Initial Post

Upgrading an Ubuntu server on UpCloud to add more CPU, Memory and Disk Space

June 25, 2018 by Simon

Upgrading an Ubuntu server on UpCloud to add more CPU, Memory and Disk Space

If you have not read my previous posts I have now moved my blog from Vultr to the awesome UpCloud host (signup using this link to get $25 free credit).

Recently I compared Digital Ocean, Vultr and UpCloud Disk IO here and UpCloud came out on top by a long way (read the blog post here). Here is my blog post on moving from Vultr to UpCloud.

Spoiler: UpCloud performance is great.

Why Upgrade

I have 1 CPU, 1 GB memory and 50GB storage and it is running well? I have PHP child workers set up and have set up the preferred use of memory over swap file usage.

Before UpCloud, when I had 512MB ram on Vultr I had multiple NGINX crashed a day so I used a bash script and scheduled a cron job to clear memory cache when memory fell below 100MB (view the script here). To further increase the speed of the WordPress I have configured the OS to use memory over the disk. About once a day free memory falls below 100MB (this is not a problem as my script clears cached items automatically).

I’d like to add more memory as I am working on some things (watch this space) and I will use the extra memory. I’d prefer the server is set up now for the expected workload.

How to Upgrade

This is how I upgraded from 1xCPU/2GB Memory/50GB Storage/2TB Transferred Data to a 2 CPU/4GB Mmeory/80GB Storage/4TB Transferred Data server.

UpCloud Pricing: https://www.upcloud.com/pricing/

Upgrade an UpCloud VM

I shut down my existing VM. Read this guide to setup a VM.

shutdown -P

Login to the UpCloud dashboard, select your server (confirm the server has shut down) and click General Settings, choose the upgrade and click Update.

I confirmed the upgrade options (2x CPU, 4096 MB Memory).

Click Update

After 10 seconds you can start your server from the UpCloud server.

I confirmed the CPU upgrade was visible in the VM

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 63
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W v3 @ 3.10GHz
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x1
cpu MHz         : 3099.978
cache size      : 16384 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 13
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good nopl xtopology cpuid pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm invpcid_single pti fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid xsaveopt arat
bugs            : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass
bogomips        : 6199.95
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 63
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W v3 @ 3.10GHz
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x1
cpu MHz         : 3099.978
cache size      : 16384 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 1
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 1
initial apicid  : 1
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 13
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good nopl xtopology cpuid pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm invpcid_single pti fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid xsaveopt arat
bugs            : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass
bogomips        : 6199.95
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Software Tweaks Post Upgrade.

I added these settings to the top of /etc/nginx/nginx.conf to ensure the extra CPU was used.

worker_processes auto;
worker_cpu_affinity auto;

I increased PHP FPM ( /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini ) to increase memory usage and child workers. I doubled child workers and max memory limit.

memory_limit = 3072M
pm.max_children = 80
pm.start_servers = 30
pm.min_spare_servers = 10
pm.max_spare_servers = 30

I restarted NGINX and PHP

nginx -t
nginx -s reload
/etc/init.d/nginx restart
service php7.2-fpm restart

I tweaked WordPress max memory limits

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT','3072M');
define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT','3072M');

MySQL Tweaks: I logged into MySQL

mysql -u root -p

I ran “SHOW GLOBAL STATUS” to view stats

mysql> SHOW GLOBAL STATUS;
+-----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Variable_name                                 | Value                                            |
+-----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Aborted_clients                               | 0                                                |
| Aborted_connects                              | 0                                                |
| Binlog_cache_disk_use                         | 0                                                |
| Binlog_cache_use                              | 0                                                |
| Binlog_stmt_cache_disk_use                    | 0                                                |
| Binlog_stmt_cache_use                         | 0                                                |
| Bytes_received                                | 3179986                                          |
| Bytes_sent                                    | 223872114                                        |
| Com_admin_commands                            | 0                                                |
| Com_assign_to_keycache                        | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_db                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_db_upgrade                          | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_event                               | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_function                            | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_instance                            | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_procedure                           | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_server                              | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_table                               | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_tablespace                          | 0                                                |
| Com_alter_user                                | 0                                                |
| Com_analyze                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_begin                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_binlog                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_call_procedure                            | 0                                                |
| Com_change_db                                 | 284                                              |
| Com_change_master                             | 0                                                |
| Com_change_repl_filter                        | 0                                                |
| Com_check                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_checksum                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_commit                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_create_db                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_create_event                              | 0                                                |
| Com_create_function                           | 0                                                |
| Com_create_index                              | 0                                                |
| Com_create_procedure                          | 0                                                |
| Com_create_server                             | 0                                                |
| Com_create_table                              | 0                                                |
| Com_create_trigger                            | 0                                                |
| Com_create_udf                                | 0                                                |
| Com_create_user                               | 0                                                |
| Com_create_view                               | 0                                                |
| Com_dealloc_sql                               | 0                                                |
| Com_delete                                    | 18                                               |
| Com_delete_multi                              | 0                                                |
| Com_do                                        | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_db                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_event                                | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_function                             | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_index                                | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_procedure                            | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_server                               | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_table                                | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_trigger                              | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_user                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_drop_view                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_empty_query                               | 0                                                |
| Com_execute_sql                               | 0                                                |
| Com_explain_other                             | 0                                                |
| Com_flush                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_get_diagnostics                           | 0                                                |
| Com_grant                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_ha_close                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_ha_open                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_ha_read                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_help                                      | 0                                                |
| Com_insert                                    | 342                                              |
| Com_insert_select                             | 0                                                |
| Com_install_plugin                            | 0                                                |
| Com_kill                                      | 0                                                |
| Com_load                                      | 0                                                |
| Com_lock_tables                               | 0                                                |
| Com_optimize                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_preload_keys                              | 0                                                |
| Com_prepare_sql                               | 0                                                |
| Com_purge                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_purge_before_date                         | 0                                                |
| Com_release_savepoint                         | 0                                                |
| Com_rename_table                              | 0                                                |
| Com_rename_user                               | 0                                                |
| Com_repair                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_replace                                   | 0                                                |
| Com_replace_select                            | 0                                                |
| Com_reset                                     | 0                                                |
| Com_resignal                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_revoke                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_revoke_all                                | 0                                                |
| Com_rollback                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_rollback_to_savepoint                     | 0                                                |
| Com_savepoint                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_select                                    | 16358                                            |
| Com_set_option                                | 849                                              |
| Com_signal                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_show_binlog_events                        | 0                                                |
| Com_show_binlogs                              | 0                                                |
| Com_show_charsets                             | 0                                                |
| Com_show_collations                           | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_db                            | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_event                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_func                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_proc                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_table                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_create_trigger                       | 0                                                |
| Com_show_databases                            | 3                                                |
| Com_show_engine_logs                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_engine_mutex                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_engine_status                        | 0                                                |
| Com_show_events                               | 0                                                |
| Com_show_errors                               | 0                                                |
| Com_show_fields                               | 921                                              |
| Com_show_function_code                        | 0                                                |
| Com_show_function_status                      | 0                                                |
| Com_show_grants                               | 0                                                |
| Com_show_keys                                 | 1                                                |
| Com_show_master_status                        | 0                                                |
| Com_show_open_tables                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_plugins                              | 0                                                |
| Com_show_privileges                           | 0                                                |
| Com_show_procedure_code                       | 0                                                |
| Com_show_procedure_status                     | 0                                                |
| Com_show_processlist                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_profile                              | 0                                                |
| Com_show_profiles                             | 0                                                |
| Com_show_relaylog_events                      | 0                                                |
| Com_show_slave_hosts                          | 0                                                |
| Com_show_slave_status                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_status                               | 6                                                |
| Com_show_storage_engines                      | 0                                                |
| Com_show_table_status                         | 0                                                |
| Com_show_tables                               | 2                                                |
| Com_show_triggers                             | 0                                                |
| Com_show_variables                            | 6                                                |
| Com_show_warnings                             | 1                                                |
| Com_show_create_user                          | 0                                                |
| Com_shutdown                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_slave_start                               | 0                                                |
| Com_slave_stop                                | 0                                                |
| Com_group_replication_start                   | 0                                                |
| Com_group_replication_stop                    | 0                                                |
| Com_stmt_execute                              | 4                                                |
| Com_stmt_close                                | 4                                                |
| Com_stmt_fetch                                | 0                                                |
| Com_stmt_prepare                              | 4                                                |
| Com_stmt_reset                                | 0                                                |
| Com_stmt_send_long_data                       | 4                                                |
| Com_truncate                                  | 2                                                |
| Com_uninstall_plugin                          | 0                                                |
| Com_unlock_tables                             | 0                                                |
| Com_update                                    | 70                                               |
| Com_update_multi                              | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_commit                                 | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_end                                    | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_prepare                                | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_recover                                | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_rollback                               | 0                                                |
| Com_xa_start                                  | 0                                                |
| Com_stmt_reprepare                            | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_accept                      | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_internal                    | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_max_connections             | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_peer_address                | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_select                      | 0                                                |
| Connection_errors_tcpwrap                     | 0                                                |
| Connections                                   | 292                                              |
| Created_tmp_disk_tables                       | 1124                                             |
| Created_tmp_files                             | 30                                               |
| Created_tmp_tables                            | 1369                                             |
| Delayed_errors                                | 0                                                |
| Delayed_insert_threads                        | 0                                                |
| Delayed_writes                                | 0                                                |
| Flush_commands                                | 1                                                |
| Handler_commit                                | 6094                                             |
| Handler_delete                                | 33                                               |
| Handler_discover                              | 0                                                |
| Handler_external_lock                         | 38571                                            |
| Handler_mrr_init                              | 0                                                |
| Handler_prepare                               | 0                                                |
| Handler_read_first                            | 2299                                             |
| Handler_read_key                              | 134761                                           |
| Handler_read_last                             | 237                                              |
| Handler_read_next                             | 310119                                           |
| Handler_read_prev                             | 2733                                             |
| Handler_read_rnd                              | 222350                                           |
| Handler_read_rnd_next                         | 472820                                           |
| Handler_rollback                              | 0                                                |
| Handler_savepoint                             | 0                                                |
| Handler_savepoint_rollback                    | 0                                                |
| Handler_update                                | 15605                                            |
| Handler_write                                 | 17310                                            |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_dump_status                | Dumping of buffer pool not started               |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_load_status                | Buffer pool(s) load completed at 180624 23:38:01 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_resize_status              |                                                  |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_data                 | 1035                                             |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_bytes_data                 | 16957440                                         |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_dirty                | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_bytes_dirty                | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_flushed              | 1936                                             |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_free                 | 7144                                             |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_misc                 | 13                                               |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_total                | 8192                                             |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_ahead_rnd             | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_ahead                 | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_ahead_evicted         | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_requests              | 306665                                           |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_reads                      | 950                                              |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_wait_free                  | 0                                                |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_write_requests             | 26509                                            |
| Innodb_data_fsyncs                            | 1229                                             |
| Innodb_data_pending_fsyncs                    | 0                                                |
| Innodb_data_pending_reads                     | 0                                                |
| Innodb_data_pending_writes                    | 0                                                |
| Innodb_data_read                              | 16273920                                         |
| Innodb_data_reads                             | 1078                                             |
| Innodb_data_writes                            | 2857                                             |
| Innodb_data_written                           | 53379584                                         |
| Innodb_dblwr_pages_written                    | 1275                                             |
| Innodb_dblwr_writes                           | 109                                              |
| Innodb_log_waits                              | 0                                                |
| Innodb_log_write_requests                     | 450                                              |
| Innodb_log_writes                             | 585                                              |
| Innodb_os_log_fsyncs                          | 793                                              |
| Innodb_os_log_pending_fsyncs                  | 0                                                |
| Innodb_os_log_pending_writes                  | 0                                                |
| Innodb_os_log_written                         | 664064                                           |
| Innodb_page_size                              | 16384                                            |
| Innodb_pages_created                          | 56                                               |
| Innodb_pages_read                             | 988                                              |
| Innodb_pages_written                          | 1936                                             |
| Innodb_row_lock_current_waits                 | 0                                                |
| Innodb_row_lock_time                          | 0                                                |
| Innodb_row_lock_time_avg                      | 0                                                |
| Innodb_row_lock_time_max                      | 0                                                |
| Innodb_row_lock_waits                         | 0                                                |
| Innodb_rows_deleted                           | 2                                                |
| Innodb_rows_inserted                          | 19219                                            |
| Innodb_rows_read                              | 249102                                           |
| Innodb_rows_updated                           | 77                                               |
| Innodb_num_open_files                         | 81                                               |
| Innodb_truncated_status_writes                | 0                                                |
| Innodb_available_undo_logs                    | 128                                              |
| Key_blocks_not_flushed                        | 0                                                |
| Key_blocks_unused                             | 12751                                            |
| Key_blocks_used                               | 645                                              |
| Key_read_requests                             | 321877                                           |
| Key_reads                                     | 648                                              |
| Key_write_requests                            | 196                                              |
| Key_writes                                    | 150                                              |
| Locked_connects                               | 0                                                |
| Max_execution_time_exceeded                   | 0                                                |
| Max_execution_time_set                        | 0                                                |
| Max_execution_time_set_failed                 | 0                                                |
| Max_used_connections                          | 3                                                |
| Max_used_connections_time                     | 2018-06-24 23:43:48                              |
| Not_flushed_delayed_rows                      | 0                                                |
| Ongoing_anonymous_transaction_count           | 0                                                |
| Open_files                                    | 229                                              |
| Open_streams                                  | 0                                                |
| Open_table_definitions                        | 206                                              |
| Open_tables                                   | 786                                              |
| Opened_files                                  | 502                                              |
| Opened_table_definitions                      | 208                                              |
| Opened_tables                                 | 817                                              |
| Performance_schema_accounts_lost              | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_cond_classes_lost          | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_cond_instances_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_digest_lost                | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_file_classes_lost          | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_file_handles_lost          | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_file_instances_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_hosts_lost                 | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_index_stat_lost            | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_locker_lost                | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_memory_classes_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_metadata_lock_lost         | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_mutex_classes_lost         | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_mutex_instances_lost       | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_nested_statement_lost      | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_prepared_statements_lost   | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_program_lost               | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_rwlock_classes_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_rwlock_instances_lost      | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_session_connect_attrs_lost | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_socket_classes_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_socket_instances_lost      | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_stage_classes_lost         | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_statement_classes_lost     | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_table_handles_lost         | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_table_instances_lost       | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_table_lock_stat_lost       | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_thread_classes_lost        | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_thread_instances_lost      | 0                                                |
| Performance_schema_users_lost                 | 0                                                |
| Prepared_stmt_count                           | 0                                                |
| Qcache_free_blocks                            | 1                                                |
| Qcache_free_memory                            | 16760152                                         |
| Qcache_hits                                   | 0                                                |
| Qcache_inserts                                | 0                                                |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes                          | 0                                                |
| Qcache_not_cached                             | 16355                                            |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache                       | 0                                                |
| Qcache_total_blocks                           | 1                                                |
| Queries                                       | 19164                                            |
| Questions                                     | 19155                                            |
| Select_full_join                              | 0                                                |
| Select_full_range_join                        | 0                                                |
| Select_range                                  | 2677                                             |
| Select_range_check                            | 0                                                |
| Select_scan                                   | 2098                                             |
| Slave_open_temp_tables                        | 0                                                |
| Slow_launch_threads                           | 0                                                |
| Slow_queries                                  | 0                                                |
| Sort_merge_passes                             | 12                                               |
| Sort_range                                    | 4859                                             |
| Sort_rows                                     | 244452                                           |
| Sort_scan                                     | 854                                              |
| Ssl_accept_renegotiates                       | 0                                                |
| Ssl_accepts                                   | 0                                                |
| Ssl_callback_cache_hits                       | 0                                                |
| Ssl_cipher                                    |                                                  |
| Ssl_cipher_list                               |                                                  |
| Ssl_client_connects                           | 0                                                |
| Ssl_connect_renegotiates                      | 0                                                |
| Ssl_ctx_verify_depth                          | 0                                                |
| Ssl_ctx_verify_mode                           | 0                                                |
| Ssl_default_timeout                           | 0                                                |
| Ssl_finished_accepts                          | 0                                                |
| Ssl_finished_connects                         | 0                                                |
| Ssl_server_not_after                          |                                                  |
| Ssl_server_not_before                         |                                                  |
| Ssl_session_cache_hits                        | 0                                                |
| Ssl_session_cache_misses                      | 0                                                |
| Ssl_session_cache_mode                        | NONE                                             |
| Ssl_session_cache_overflows                   | 0                                                |
| Ssl_session_cache_size                        | 0                                                |
| Ssl_session_cache_timeouts                    | 0                                                |
| Ssl_sessions_reused                           | 0                                                |
| Ssl_used_session_cache_entries                | 0                                                |
| Ssl_verify_depth                              | 0                                                |
| Ssl_verify_mode                               | 0                                                |
| Ssl_version                                   |                                                  |
| Table_locks_immediate                         | 11962                                            |
| Table_locks_waited                            | 0                                                |
| Table_open_cache_hits                         | 19395                                            |
| Table_open_cache_misses                       | 817                                              |
| Table_open_cache_overflows                    | 12                                               |
| Tc_log_max_pages_used                         | 0                                                |
| Tc_log_page_size                              | 0                                                |
| Tc_log_page_waits                             | 0                                                |
| Threads_cached                                | 2                                                |
| Threads_connected                             | 1                                                |
| Threads_created                               | 3                                                |
| Threads_running                               | 1                                                |
| Uptime                                        | 2944                                             |
| Uptime_since_flush_status                     | 2944                                             |
+-----------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
353 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Read more on SHOW GLOBAL STATUS here. Read more on the values here.

I can see NO major errors here (possibly due to UpClouds awesome disk IO) so I won’t be making memory tweaks in MySQL. Sign Up using this link and get $25 credit free on UpCloud and see for yourself how fast they are.

Configure Ubuntu System Memory Usage

Edit /etc/sysctl.conf

Add the following to allow things to sit in ram longer

vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

Snip from: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt

This percentage value controls the tendency of the kernel to reclaim the memory which is used for caching of directory and inode objects.

At the default value of vfs_cache_pressure=100 the kernel will attempt to reclaim dentries and inodes at a "fair" rate with respect to pagecache and swapcache reclaim.  Decreasing vfs_cache_pressure causes the kernel to prefer to retain dentry and inode caches. When vfs_cache_pressure=0, the kernel will never reclaim dentries and inodes due to memory pressure and this can easily lead to out-of-memory conditions. Increasing vfs_cache_pressure beyond 100 causes the kernel to prefer to reclaim dentries and inodes.

Increasing vfs_cache_pressure significantly beyond 100 may have negative performance impact. Reclaim code needs to take various locks to find freeable directory and inode objects. With vfs_cache_pressure=1000, it will look for ten times more freeable objects than there are."

Read these pages here and here regarding setting MySQL memory.

Reboot

shutdown -r now

Resize the disk

The 2x CPU, 4GB memory plan comes with 80GB storage allowance. My disk at present is 50GB and I will update the size soon following this guide soon.

Quick Benchmark

I used loader.io to load 500 users to access my site in 1 minute.

The benchmark worked with no errors.

This benchmark was performed with no Cloudflare caching. I should get Cloudflare caching working again to lower the average response time. I loaded my website manually in Google Chrome while loader.io threw 500 users at my site and it loaded very fast.

Conclusion

After a few days, I checked my memory logs and there were no low memory triggers (just normal internal memory management triggers). Ubuntu was happier.

This graph was taken before I set “vm.vfs_cache_pressure” so I will update this graph in a few days.

I hope this guide helps someone.

Please consider using my referral code and get $25 credit for free.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

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Revision History

1.0 Initial Post

Enabling TLS 1.3 SSL on a NGINX Website (Ubuntu 16.04 server) that is using Cloudflare

April 5, 2018 by Simon

This guide will show you how to enable the latest Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 protocol with it’s predecessor Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) with NGINX and OpenSSL for better website security on an Ubuntu 16.04 server

I have a number of guides on moving hasting away form CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line. Making sure your server is up to date and running the latest SSL software is important. I have updated Open SSL before and blogged about this here. Do back up your server before changing settings and if you use Cloudflare (if you don’t do it now) enable Development Mode (and disable caching until changes are made).

For the best performing VM host (UpCloud) read my guide on the awesome UpCloud VM hosts (get $25 free credit by signing up here).

TLS 1.3 is the latest SSL security protocol that can be used between clients and servers to encrypt connections on the web.

TLS 1.3 uptake is only 60% according to https://caniuse.com/#search=TLS%201.3

Read why TLS 1.3 is important and news on TLS 1.3 can be found here: https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2018/02/08/tlsv1.3/

The Good and Bad

Done be like this commercial site with very poor security (tested with SSL labs and asafaweb)

Here is what the top 1 million sites do

Here it is!! Alexa Top 1 Million Analysis – February 2018 https://t.co/TjBHNX7zTi

— Scott Helme (@Scott_Helme) February 26, 2018

Installing Open SSL on Ubuntu

Connect to your Ubuntu 16.04 server via SSH (I connected to my Vultr server)

Check what version of OpenSSL you have? My OpenSSL is out of date.

# openssl version
OpenSSL 1.1.0g  2 Nov 2017

Tip: What Ciphers does your Open SSL Support?

openssl ciphers -s -v
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD
DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=CHACHA20/POLY1305(256) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=CHACHA20/POLY1305(256) Mac=AEAD
DHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=CHACHA20/POLY1305(256) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AESGCM(128) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(128) Mac=AEAD
DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(128) Mac=AEAD
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA384
ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA384
DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256   TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA256
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA256
ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256 TLSv1.2 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA256
DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256   TLSv1.2 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA256
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA  TLSv1 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA    TLSv1 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA  TLSv1 Kx=ECDH     Au=ECDSA Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA    TLSv1 Kx=ECDH     Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA      SSLv3 Kx=DH       Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1
AES256-GCM-SHA384       TLSv1.2 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(256) Mac=AEAD
AES128-GCM-SHA256       TLSv1.2 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AESGCM(128) Mac=AEAD
AES256-SHA256           TLSv1.2 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA256
AES128-SHA256           TLSv1.2 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA256
AES256-SHA              SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(256)  Mac=SHA1
AES128-SHA              SSLv3 Kx=RSA      Au=RSA  Enc=AES(128)  Mac=SHA1

Time to update Open SSL

OpenSSL 1.1.1 beta is available and supports TLS 1.3 but it is n BETA form. OpenSSL code is available here.

I did the following to download and build the latest version of OpenSSL.

mkdir /openssltemp
cd /openssltemp
sudo git clone git://git.openssl.org/openssl.git
cd openssl/
./config --prefix=/usr/local/ssl --openssldir=/usr/local/ssl -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/ssl/lib
make
sudo make install

I tried to check the open SSL version but had an error?

openssl version 
openssl: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.1: version `OPENSSL_1_1_1' not found (required by openssl)
openssl: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.1: version `OPENSSL_1_1_1' not found (required by openssl)

A quick GitHub ticket revealed I needed to set a path variable.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
echo "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/bin/openssl" >> ~/.bashrc

Open SSL now reports it’s version.

openssl version
OpenSSL 1.1.1-pre3 (beta) 20 Mar 2018

What version NGINX do you have (1.13 supports TLS 1.3) read here

# nginx -v
nginx version: nginx/1.13.9

Backup your NGINX

Do backup your server files and take a snapshot if need be. I am not responsible;e for a broken server,

sudo cp -R /etc/nginx/ /nginx-backup-26thMar-2018

Edit NGINX Configuration

Update NGINX configuration: /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

ssl_ciphers ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_ecdh_curve secp384r1;

tip: Review other NGINX hardening settings here. Also remove TLSv1.0

I tested my NGINX config loaded them and restarted NGINX

nginx -t
nginx -s reload
/etc/init.d/nginx restart

Check the status of NGINX

# /etc/init.d/nginx status

[ ok ] Restarting nginx (via systemctl): nginx.service.
● nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) 
     Docs: man:nginx(8)
  Process: 15154 ExecStop=/sbin/start-stop-daemon --quiet --stop --retry QUIT/5 --pidfile /run/nginx.pid (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 15162 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 15159 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 15166 (nginx)
    Tasks: 4
   Memory: 2.3M
      CPU: 27ms
   CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
           ├─15166 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;
           ├─15170 nginx: worker process
           ├─15171 nginx: cache manager process
           └─15172 nginx: cache loader process

If you have configured Cloudflare then log in and enable TLS support.

Enable TLS 1.3 in Chrome by visiting chrome://flags/#tls13-variant This should be automatic in later versions of Chrome and other browsers.

Verify TLS

I used the developer tools in Chrome to confirm the page was verified in TLS 1.3.

Updated to 1.1.1-pre6-dev

mkdir /temp
cd /temp
sudo git clone https://github.com/openssl/openssl.git
cd openssl/
./config --prefix=/usr/local --openssldir=/usr/local -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local
make
sudo make install
openssl
OpenSSL> version
OpenSSL 1.1.1-pre6-dev  xx XXX xxxx
OpenSSL> exit

Don’t forget to test your SSL strength with https://dev.ssllabs.com/ssltest/

I hope this guide helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.4 fixed typo

v1.3 added bad ssl cert.

v1.2 ssl test v1.1 updated to 1.1.1-pre6-dev

v1.0 Initial post

How to purchase your own domain name and set up a web server from $5 a month

March 28, 2018 by Simon

This guide will show technically minded people how you can purchase your own domain name, set up a web server on Vultr with an online store using WordPress/WooCommerce from $5 a month. Warning this post is technical (if you have never used SSH, Ubuntu, Linux Command Line, hate risk or are not patient then this is NOT the guide you are after).

I personally recommend (not a paid endorsement) the free WooCommerce plugin for the free WordPress.org CMS on the free Ubuntu Operating system with the free NGINX web server and the free MYSQL database engine and free SSL certificates from Lets Encrypt.

Update 2018: For the best performing VM host (UpCloud) read my guide on the awesome UpCloud VM hosts (get $25 free credit by signing up here).

Buy a domain name from Namecheap here.

Sorry for using the word free a lot but I like free things. One of the benefits of a using a self-managed server is you get the option to install free software and configure the server how you want and secure it how you want. Truth be told managed ho (e.g CPanel, etc) are in the business of making money via monthly feed, expensive SSL certificates, taxing your transactions or pushing you to higher-priced tiers.

Legend:

Self Managed Server = A server that you create, you configure patch and support (all the reward and risk is owned by you and costs are low).
Hosted Server = A server you have partial control of and the hosts manage the server and support (You hand away all risk and most of the control and pay for support/features).

I moved to a self-managed server after I was paying $25/m for a poorly performing website and $150/y for a poor quality SSL certificate and a slice of a server that seemed to always say “Usage Limit Exceeded”. Why pay for an insecure website that my visitors could not view because the usage limit was exceeded.

fyi: Fearby.com costs me $10 a month for a server and $5/m for CDN abilities.

CPanel hosts are an option when you don’t want to self-manage a service and take on the hassle but be prepared for server limitations (The image below was taken on an older CPanel based hosts before I moved to a self-managed Vultr server)

I recently discovered a well known and established website hosting service (that I used to use) and a friend is still using is insecure. My friend’s site has a static website on it but the server underneath was very old and insecure. Having a secure web server should be at the top of your list with any self-managed or hosted website (this will help search engine optimization and prevent risks to your website visitors).

Sites like Virus Total, SSL Labs and Alexa Site Info , Qualys are good ways to review a site’s credibility.

fyi: The awesome https://seositecheckup.com/ is awesome for evaluating our sites SEO score.

Before we set up a server with WordPress on your own server let’s quickly look at the alternative commercial ready to go website builders.

Alternative (paid) DIY Website Builders

The following leading commercial sites will allow you to build a site online.

In my opinion, five things matter with setting up site online website.

Setup Costs, Monthly Cost and Commissions (what are the hidden charges)
Security (having a food SSL Certificate is key to having a good organic traffic from search engines)
Site Speed (Having a slow site will impact search engine optimization and drive visitors away)
Accessibility (if your site is not WCAG accessible it will not rank high on search engines).
Control (will you be able to do everything you want too, nothing worse than going so far and being limited)

Ok, let’s see how much it will cost to set up a simple business site on the sites above.

Wix

Setup: Goto https://www.wix.com/, Login to Wix, click Create Site, click Business, Click Choose a Template, Edit the page, Click Save, Click “Connect your own customized domain“, Click “Connect a domain you already own“.

I was redirected to a Wix plan pricing page where I need to choose a plan to continue. From what I researched you cant control HTML on Wix so can’t add a MailChimp newsletter signup form so you would have to go with the $24.5/m option to enable Email Campaigns.

I could not see information about included SSL certificates, SEO or other chargers. SSL is free after you pay right?

The Wix editor appears OK (it may take a bit of learning though).

I clicked publish and the site was live

A quick check of the SSL, Accessibility and SEO and no obvious deal breakers here apart from the price and platform lock-in.

I performed a security check on the site with https://freescan.qualys.com (passed)

Conclusion: I hear Wix templates are hard to change so choose your template wisely, A large collection of apps are available that you can add to the site.

Although Wix was nice and it does include a full-featured look at the engine it is not for me ($24/m USD is too expensive).

Squarespace

Squarespace basic websites cost $16/$25 a month or $34/52 for online stores: https://www.squarespace.com/pricing/

Setup a Squarespace website: Goto https://www.squarespace.com/, Click Start a Free Trial, Choose a Template, Create an Account (a quick read of the terms of service and privacy policy, #scary), SpareSpace sites are pre-published?

Loading the webpage on a non-logged-in (with SquareSpace login) browser displays a trial warning. Trial pages are essentially restricted (unlike Wix).

The mobile view does not match the template? I guess the chosen template is more of a vibe and not a template.

Setting up a Squarespace website may take some time. Squarespace does have some nifty advance options in a slide-out menu though.

Because the public view of the page is restricted I cannot scan it with WCAG accessibility tools. Scanning the site performance speeds with gtmetrix also fails.

Squarespace is well known to be difficult to set up a website when compared to other drag and drop editors (but Squarespace sites do look nice).

I am not paying $54/m for a website so let’s move on.

Shopify

Shopify Setup: Goto https://shopify.com and click Create, Sign up and enter your store name. Complete the wizard.

Choose a Shopify Plan

Scalping transactions, no thanks. let’s move on.

Weebly

Weebly Setup: Goto https://www.weebly.com/au and click Get Started under Create Store. Enter your account details and click Create Your Site, enter the name of the store, Click I’m just trying Weebly, click the type of product you will be selling.

Weebly Site Setup

Theme Selection

Choose a Domain

Publish the site

Clicking publish appears to be a dead end.

“Please contact Weebly Support to verify your account”, No Thanks, let’s move on.

One candidate remains and that is WordPress hosted (wordpress.com not wordpress.org).

WordPress.com

WordPress.com offer hosted plans for WordPress in the cloud.

Setup a WordPress site, the only one that removes WordPress branding and allows third-party plugins to be installed it the Business plans for $33 a month.

Setup Basics

Choose a WordPress theme.

Assign a Domain

In order to buy a domain, you need to log in (top right) with an account

My working WordPress account (is no longer working), it was in my password manager.

I seem to be stuck in a signup loop

Time to move on. Time to set up my own server on Vultr and setup WordPress and WooCommerce,

But, before we do, let’s ensure our name is secure online.

Search for your Name/Brand

Do search for your website (or thing) in search engines to see if your name is already taken, don’t buy a domain that is owned or has IP or trademark presence. It is a good idea to use sites like https://namechk.com/ to see if your site or social media is already taken.

namechk.com will allow you to search for name availability online. The name “mything” is not fully available online.

You will want to see all green squares (name available) below before buying a domain name. This looks better.

I would recommend you create your social media accounts before or right after buying your domain. Sites like Twitter will insist on short usernames names so get your social media sites first.

Trademark and Brand Search

Also, perform a trademark and IP search.

Australian Trademark Search: https://search.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search/quick

United States Trademark Database: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database

Global brand Search: http://www.wipo.int/branddb/en/

etc

Self Managed Warning

I tend to go the “self-managed server route” and install the free WordPress CMS because:

I can.
I am tight.
I like having full control (usually the best features for online web hosts are hidden behind subscriber tiers, you can install and do whatever you want on your own server like build API’s, distributed MySQL servers, install MongoDB or Redis , use up to date PHP etc).
I have been stung by CPanel hosts charging $150/y for a crappy SSL certificate (You can set up your own SSL certificate for $0 and set up super secure SSL rules).
I can manage WordPress via the command line
I can upgrade the server and restore it whenever I want.
I can manage my own server performance (e.g setup PHP child workers) or install a Content Delivery Network.
I can direct domain email to google G Suite, see pricing here.
etc.

There are many reasons why you would not want to “self-manage” your own server

Technical Requirements (and time to support).
Higher Risk.
Applying Updates and Patches.
etc.

Being technically minded and choosing a “self-managed web servers” can take away time from the fun stuff like SEO, Site Design, customer needs, branding etc.

Self Managed Costs

For $5 a month you can buy a server with enough memory to install WordPress (cheaper if you don’t need WordPress)

Vultr is great. Vultr does have ready to go servers that you can deploy that have WordPress all set up.

The Vultr template above does use the Centos OS (read my guide setting up Centos on a different service provider here) but I prefer to manually setup a server with Ubuntu 16.04 OS on Vultr.

With $5 server you can do what you want with it. I have blogged before about setting up your own Server. e.g Installing Centos and Ubuntu server on Digital Ocean. Digital Ocean does not have data centres in Australia and this kills scalability. AWS is good but 4x the price of Vultr. I have blogged about setting up and AWS server here (and upgrading an AWS instance). I tried to check out Alibaba Cloud but the verification process was broken so I decided to check our Vultr.

Manual Setup of Vultr on an Ubuntu 16.04 server

Deploy a Vultr Server – Guide here ($2.5/m to New Jersey or Florida or $5/m to Sydney, I would recommend you opt-in for the auto backup for $0.50c/m and $1/m respectively).
Setup NGINX.
Setup PHP and PHP-FPM (see guide above), consider adding PHP child workers.
Setup and secure MySQL (see guide above), create a database for WordPress to use.
Instal Adminder MySQL GUI (guide here).
Setup a free Lets Encrypt SSL certificate (guide here).
Install WordPress (and Jetpack plugin).
Install WordPress CLI.
Instal the WooCommerce Storefront WordPress Theme.
Install WooCommerce Plugin.
Secure Ubuntu.
Also consider linking your domain to Cloudflare to boost performance, scanning your site with Qualys Freescan and OWASP ZAP).
Consider setting up a WordPress image compressor and CDN plugin. like EWWW.io

Manual WooCommerce Plugin Setup

Once you setup Woocommerce you can set up the store defaults. Go to the WordPress dashboard and click WooCommerce Settings

Settings – General

Set Address, City and State and Postcode
Set allowed countries to sell in (e.g Australia)
Set allowed countries to ship items to (e.g Australia)
Set Enable Taxes
Set Currency
etc

Settings – Products

Set Weight
Set Dimensions
Enable Product Reviews
Enable Star Ratings on Reviews
etc

Settings – Shipping

Enable Shipping Calculator
Add Shipping Classes
Shipping Zones
etc.

Settings – Checkout

Force Secure Checkup
Create a Terms and Conditions page (and set).
etc

Settings – Account

Set Account Options
etc

Settings – Emails

Set Email Preferences
Set Email Header Image
Set Email Colour
Set Footer Text
etc

Settings – API

API can be disabled if you don’t need it.

Optional Actions

Setup Yoast Plugin
Setup other plugins

Instaling a Woo Commerce Child Theme

Go to https://woocommerce.com/product-category/themes/storefront-child-theme-themes/ and choose a theme.

Purchase and Install the desired child theme (I uploaded it to my /wp-content/themes/ folder with forklift). I chose a free deli theme.

Goto your WordPress then themes folder and activate your new child theme.

Post Site Setup

Just because your site is live does not mean you can rest.

SEO Optimization

Do use sites like https://seositecheckup.com/ and follow recommended actions to improve your SEO like updating meta tags.

More Reading

Attaching an email to your domain

You can pay $5 a month and link a G Suite email to your domain.

Dedicated professional Google G Suite email account for $5 a month with 30GB storage (If you don’t want ot to buy a G Suite email and link it to your domain then you don’t need this).

Once you have a G Suite account you can link other domains (and domain emails) to it. You can login to your G Suite emails via G Mail and send emails from apps or the command line.

Why Vultr

I use the server host Vultr as they have data centres all around the world and the support of great, Digital Ocean is good too but they don’t have data centres in my country (Australia). Vultr allows you to deploy all over the world upgrade servers, move servers, add storage and restore servers.

Alternatively, you can buy a $2.5/m server and generate a static website

I use the Platforma Web HTML generator to build mobile and WCAG compliant websites.

Buying a domain, I buy my domains from https://www.namecheap.com/ it is a good idea to look for coupons first at https://www.namecheap.com/promos/coupons.aspx before buying a domain.

Once you buy a domain you can point it to a Vultr server and upload your website.

I hope this helps someone.

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Revision History

v.1.2 WordPress WooCommerce

v1.1 SEO

v1.0 Initial Draft

Backing up OSX or an Ubuntu server with Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage from the Command Line

March 14, 2018 by Simon

This computer will show you can back up computer or server with Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage from the Command Line n OSX and Ubuntu.

This post is still being written. I have a number of guides on moving hasting away form CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line. Also, I have blogged about how you can add block storage to a Vultr server, backup and restore snapshots , syncing files with rsync along with using GitHub and Bitbucket but what do you do if you need to backup large amounts of data?

Backblaze has a Cloud storage solution that costs as low as $0.005c a GB (a month), The first 10G is free. Backblaze say “From bytes to petabytes Backblaze B2 is the lowest cost high-performance cloud storage in the world. ”

Back Blaze have open sourced internal drive enclosure designs and drive failure stats and it’s time I gave them a try.

Goto https://www.backblaze.com

Create or sign in.

After you login got the dashboard.

Click Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage

Create a Bucket

Name the bucket (long names with a GUID are good).

You can rename the bucket here and change public/private and or upload/download files manually.

The first thing I did was limit the versions of files under the lifecycle settings for the bucket.

Now I created a series of subfolders to store files from different servers (I could have used many buckets but one bucket will do).

I can upload files via the Backblaze bucket GUI if I needed to.

Back Blaze has a command line tool for uploading: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/quick_command_line.html

Install Steps

Backblaze state “The B2 command-line tool is available from the Python Package Index (PyPI) using the standard pip installation tool. Your first step is to make sure that you have either Python 2 (2.6 or later) or Python 3 (3.2 or later) installed.”

I have Python 2.7 installed

python --version
Python 2.7.10

Install PIP

sudo easy_install pip
Password:
Searching for pip
Best match: pip 1.5.6
Processing pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg
pip 1.5.6 is already the active version in easy-install.pth
Installing pip script to /usr/local/bin
Installing pip2.7 script to /usr/local/bin
Installing pip2 script to /usr/local/bin

Using /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for pip
Finished processing dependencies for pip

I ran into issues updating b2 CLI

sudo pip install --upgrade b2
Requirement already up-to-date: b2 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages
Requirement already up-to-date: arrow>=0.8.0 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from b2)
Requirement already up-to-date: logfury>=0.1.2 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from b2)
Requirement already up-to-date: requests>=2.9.1 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from b2)
Requirement already up-to-date: six>=1.10 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from b2)
Requirement already up-to-date: tqdm>=4.5.0 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from b2)
Requirement already up-to-date: futures>=3.0.5 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from b2)
Downloading/unpacking python-dateutil from https://pypi.python.org/packages/bc/c5/3449988d33baca4e9619f49a14e28026399b0a8c32817e28b503923a04ab/python_dateutil-2.7.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl#md5=5a86a548fe776cc079bf4a835473e3f8 (from arrow>=0.8.0->b2)
  Downloading python_dateutil-2.7.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (207kB): 207kB downloaded
Installing collected packages: python-dateutil
  Found existing installation: python-dateutil 1.5
    Uninstalling python-dateutil:
Cleaning up...
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 122, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/install.py", line 283, in run
    requirement_set.install(install_options, global_options, root=options.root_path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 1431, in install
    requirement.uninstall(auto_confirm=True)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 598, in uninstall
    paths_to_remove.remove(auto_confirm)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 1836, in remove
    renames(path, new_path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/util.py", line 295, in renames
    shutil.move(old, new)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 299, in move
    copytree(src, real_dst, symlinks=True)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 208, in copytree
    raise Error, errors
Error: [('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/parser.pyc', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/parser.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/parser.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/relativedelta.py', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/relativedelta.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/relativedelta.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/zoneinfo-2010g.tar.gz', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/zoneinfo-2010g.tar.gz', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/zoneinfo-2010g.tar.gz'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/__init__.py', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/__init__.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/__init__.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/__init__.pyc', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/__init__.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo/__init__.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/zoneinfo'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tz.py', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tz.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tz.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/relativedelta.pyc', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/relativedelta.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/relativedelta.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/rrule.pyc', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/rrule.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/rrule.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/__init__.py', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/__init__.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/__init__.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/parser.py', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/parser.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/parser.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tzwin.py', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tzwin.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tzwin.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/rrule.py', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/rrule.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/rrule.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/__init__.pyc', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/__init__.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/__init__.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/easter.py', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/easter.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/easter.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/easter.pyc', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/easter.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/easter.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tz.pyc', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tz.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tz.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tzwin.pyc', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tzwin.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil/tzwin.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil', '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-jWEHna-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/dateutil'")]

Storing debug log for failure in /Users/simon/Library/Logs/pip.log

I tried installing via the alternative method (with no luck)

git clone https://github.com/Backblaze/B2_Command_Line_Tool.git
Cloning into 'B2_Command_Line_Tool'...
remote: Counting objects: 5084, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
remote: Total 5084 (delta 1), reused 1 (delta 0), pack-reused 5076
Receiving objects: 100% (5084/5084), 1.25 MiB | 689.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (3622/3622), done.

cd B2_Command_Line_Tool/

I tried running the setup script (with no luck)

sudo python setup.py install
setuptools 20.2 or later is required. To fix, try running: pip install "setuptools>=20.2"

Upgrading setup tools also failed

sudo pip install "setuptools>=20.2"
Downloading/unpacking setuptools>=20.2
  Downloading setuptools-38.5.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl (490kB): 490kB downloaded
Installing collected packages: setuptools
  Found existing installation: setuptools 18.5
    Uninstalling setuptools:
Cleaning up...
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 122, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/install.py", line 283, in run
    requirement_set.install(install_options, global_options, root=options.root_path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 1431, in install
    requirement.uninstall(auto_confirm=True)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 598, in uninstall
    paths_to_remove.remove(auto_confirm)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/req.py", line 1836, in remove
    renames(path, new_path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.7.egg/pip/util.py", line 295, in renames
    shutil.move(old, new)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 299, in move
    copytree(src, real_dst, symlinks=True)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 208, in copytree
    raise Error, errors
Error: [('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc', '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py', '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py', '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/markers.py'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc', '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib/__init__.pyc'"), ('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib', '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib', "[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-8Vu7xp-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/_markerlib'")]

Storing debug log for failure in /Users/simon/Library/Logs/pip.log

Backing up a Mac via command line with B2

More to come when I can get B2 CLI Installed.

Backing up an Ubuntu machine via command line with B2

More to come when I can get B2 CLI Installed.

Update

My ticket with Backblaze was automatically closed with this note “If the issue is persisting, it may be easiest to map the installation to the user folder, rather than the system level.”

No ideas how but something to research.

Ask a question or the recommend an article

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Revision History

V1.1 ticket closed

v1.0 Initial post

Self Managed Server – Frequent Manual Tasks

December 31, 2017 by Simon

Below are the manual Task’s I perform frequently on all self-managed Ubuntu serves I own (along with automated backups and update tasks).

Here is a post on automatically backing up a server to another via crontab entries. I have a number of Ubuntu Servers on Vultr and Digital Ocean (online cloud server for as low as $2.5 a month).

I also perform manual backups to ensure files are backed up.

Manual Backup Files.

First I create the following folder structure on my OSX desktop (for each server I need to backup).

My Server 01

~\Desktop\www.myserver01.com\
~\Desktop\www.myserver01.com\www
~\Desktop\www.myserver01.com\db
~\Desktop\www.myserver01.com\nginx
~\Desktop\www.myserver01.com\misc

My Server 02

~\Desktop\www.myserver02.com\
~\Desktop\www.myserver02.com\www
~\Desktop\www.myserver02.com\db
~\Desktop\www.myserver02.com\nginx
~\Desktop\www.myserver02.com\misc

etc (for each server)

I then use Forklift 3 (not a paid endorsement, I just love it) to manually backup files on the server. I manually copy files that are available via existing SFTP connections in Forklift (e.g WWW, MySQL, NGINX, MongoDB etc).

I simply drag and drop important file system files in Forklift (from the remote SFTP instance to a local folder).

SFTP copy progress can be viewed in Forklift.

fyi: SFTP is not the fastest transfer protocol. It appears only 39MB (4055 items) has been downloaded in 8 hours over ADSL (on a server that is over 400ms away).

FYI: Slow servers (ping) do not like like SFTP.

ping myserver01.com
PING myserver01 (ip_removed): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 45.x.x.x: icmp_seq=0 ttl=53 time=450.338 ms
64 bytes from 45.x.x.x: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=423.412 ms
64 bytes from 45.x.x.x: icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=458.129 ms
64 bytes from 45.x.x.x: icmp_seq=3 ttl=53 time=462.419 ms

TIP: Consider zipping smaller files first (into one larger file) or using RSync instead.

Pre Zipping up files before backing up.

I used this command to pre-compress entire folders before downloading them over SFTP.

cd / && zip -r -9 /www.zip /www && zip -r -9 /nginx.zip /etc/nginx/ && ls -al

I created a bash script to manually prepare files to backup on each server.

#!/bin/bash
sudo rm  /www.zip -R
sudo rm  /nginx.zip -R
sudo zip -r -9 /www.zip /www
sudo zip -r -9 /nginx.zip /etc/nginx/

Don’t forget to make the script file executable

chmod +X _ManualBackup.sh

Now I call the script to compress files before backup

sudo bash _ManualBackup.sh

TIP: Add other things to back up to the script (e.g MongoDB and MySQL).

Below is my script to backup WWW, NGINX, MySQL and MongoDB and zip them before copying over SFTP.

#!/bin/bash

# Backup WWW Task
echo "Backing up WWW"
sudo rm  /www.zip -R
sudo zip -r -9 /www.zip /www
echo "Finished Backing up WWW"

# Backup NGINX Task
echo "Backing up NGINX"
sudo rm  /nginx.zip -R
sudo zip -r -9 /nginx.zip /etc/nginx/
echo "Finished backing up NGINX"

#Backup MySQL Task
echo "Backing up MYSQL Databases"
sudo rm /*.sql
USER="***********"
PASSWORD="*********************************"
databases=`mysql -u $USER -p$PASSWORD -e "SHOW DATABASES;" | tr -d "| " | grep -v Database`
for db in $databases; do
    if [[ "$db" != "information_schema" ]] && [[ "$db" != "performance_schema" ]] && [[ "$db" != "mysql" ]] && [[ "$db" != _* ]] ; then
        echo "Dumping database: $db"
        mysqldump -u $USER -p$PASSWORD --databases $db > /$db.sql
    fi
done
sudo zip -r -9 /dbs.zip /*.sql
rm /*.sql -R
echo "Finsihed Backing up MYSQL Databases"

# Backup MongoDB Task
echo "Backing up MongoDB"
rm /mondodb.zip -R
sudo zip -r -9 /mongodb.zip /mongodb*
echo "Finsihed Backing up MongoDB"

# Done
ls /*.zip -al
echo "Done"

Thanks to this thread for MySQL export to separate file help.

Note: The warning “Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.” will be shown when exporting a database from the CLI.

Now I can download the 4 outputted files manually from each server.

cd /
ls -al
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username   1615478 Dec 30 13:47 /dbs.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username    753094 Dec 30 13:48 /mongodb.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username     42222 Dec 30 13:47 /nginx.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 239327652 Dec 30 13:47 /www.zip

Snapshot Tasks

Taking snapshots in Vultr is a great way to backup too.

Manually Updating the Server

I also connect to the server via SSH and check for package updates

/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check --human-readable

9 packages can be updated.
3 updates are security updates.

Now I can now manually update packages

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Quick Reboot to ensure packages are updated.

sudo shutdown -r now

More to come (on viewing logs (errors, firewall, stats), backing up php etc).

Here is a post on automatically backing up a server to another via crontab entries. I have a number of Ubuntu Servers on Vultr and Digital Ocean (online cloud server for as low as $2.5 a month).

Hope this helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.0 Initial Version

How to upload and download files to a server with sftp (over the SSH protocol)

December 7, 2017 by Simon

I have blogged about http://c9.io before and how it makes managing a remote Ubuntu server easier. Recently AWS acquired C9 and integrated it into AWS. This has triggered me to find a more open/free way to connect to my servers. I like AWS but I can tell that C9 will someday block you from talking to non-AWS servers.

C9 Aquisition

C9 on AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/?origin=c9io

C9 Aquisition: https://c9.io/announcement

I have blogged about connecting to an AWS EC2 instance with C9 (before AWS acquired C9), The quickest way to set up a scalable development IDE and web server when I was using Digital Ocean Servers, How to buy a new domain (dedicated server from digital ocean) and add an SSL certificate from NameCheap but when I moved to Vultr serves I decided to ditch C9 and save $9 a month. I got used to setting up an SSH connection, using rmate to edit remote files locally with Sublime and SSH’ing into the box with vSSH on OSX but nothing replaced the C9 file management experience.

C9 was a good IDE (but recent price hikes and AWS purchase have made me cautious).

Uploading files without C9 to Ubuntu

Uploading files from an OSX laptop to a remote Ubuntu server is possible with the SCP command

scp ~/Desktop/FilesToUpload.zip [email protected] /www/FilesToUpload.zip
< # Enter the remote server password

Server Actions (to upload the old way, with scp)

#Install Unzip (if you do not have it)
sudo apt-get install unzip

# Unzip the file
cd /www/
unzip /www/FilesToUpload.zip

There has to be a better way

I have used the Forklift 3 program before (my review here) and in recent google searches, it was suggested that Forklift best SFTP program on OSX. Yay. This unix.stackexchange.com thread mentions the difference between SFTP and SSH.

Below are the steps to use SFTP in Foftlift 3 on OSX to connect to a Vultr server (you could use Digital Ocean). Ensure you have a working SSH connection setup from your server to your local OSX.

Setting up an SFTP Connection in Forklift 3

Read my Forklift 3 guide here first.

Update your Forklift to the latest version.

Add a Favorite in Forklift 3

Name the connection

In Forklift edit the connection

Specify SFTP and your servers working SSH username and password, and “/” folders

Save.

Double Click the entry to connect to your server.

To upload or download files with Forklift over SFTP, simply drag and drop.

Simple

You can now use Forklift to navigate folders, delete files, set remote file permissions all from a GUI. You can still use SSH CLI and or Sublime.

Quik Edit works too.

Nice, this gives me a convenient GUI way to upload, download and edit files instead of via CSP/SSH/CLI.

Now is there an SFTP plugin for Sublime?

More to come soon.

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Revision History

v1.0 Initial Draft

Connect to a remote server with ssh keys generated on OSX

November 26, 2017 by Simon

Below is the way I connect to a remote server via SSH keys generated on OSX.

Setting up a server

When you set up an Ubuntu server on Vultr (read my guide on setting up a Vultr server for as low as $2.5 a month) or Digital Ocean (use this link to get two months free when you setup an Ubuntu server on digital ocean) you can specify an SSH key to use for remote connections during the server create stage (old guide here).

How to create an SSH key on OSX to use to connect to a remote server

Run the following command (“sudo ssh-keygen -t rsa“) to generate an ssh key paid in “~/.ssh/” on OSX.

cd ~/.ssh/
sudo ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/var/root/.ssh/id_rsa): test.rsa            
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
Enter same passphrase again: 
Your identification has been saved in test.rsa.
Your public key has been saved in test.rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:sJtlhWremoved2IUp8 [email protected]
The key's randomart image is (edited):
+---[RSA 2048]----+
|    .   +o=+.    |
|   . o + =.o..   |
|  . . + o *o+ .  |
|   .   E B +.=   |
|      o S = +.   |
|       O o..+ o  |
|   * . .o * .    |
|   o  ..*        |
|   ..+..         |
+----[SHA256]-----+

TIP: It is a good idea to also generate a passphrase to use with the key (double protection). You will be prompted to enter this password to use the RSA key.

You can now see the generated keys in ~/.ssh/

ls test* -al
total 224
drwxr-xr-x+ 29 username  staff   928 26 Nov 17:07 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 89 username  staff  2848 25 Nov 19:03 ..
...
-rw-------   1 username   staff  1766 26 Nov 17:07 test.rsa
-rw-r--r--   1 username   staff   412 26 Nov 17:07 test.rsa.pub
...

You can view the contents of the public file (you can use this when generating Digital Ocean, Vultr, AWS or Azure or other cloud servers).

fyi: Replace 123.123.123.123 with your remote serves ip.

sudo cat /~.ssh/test.rsa.pub
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC...removed...1RL5hCG0lUn 123.123.123.123

How to connect to a server (the old way).

As long as your host added the desired public ssh key file contents to the server (adding the public ssh key contents to “~/.ssh/authorized_keys” you will be able to connect to the server.

Run the following command on OSX command line to connect to the server via SSH.

sudo ssh -i ~/.ssh/test.rsa [email protected]

You should see..

Enter passphrase for key '/Users/username/.ssh/test.rsa': 
> PASSPHRASECREATEDEARLIER
Welcome to Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.4.0-101-generic x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

  Get cloud support with Ubuntu Advantage Cloud Guest:
    http://www.ubuntu.com/business/services/cloud

0 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

Last login: Sun Nov 26 08:47:20 2017 from 123.123.123.123

remoteuser@yourserver:~# ls -al
total 32
drwx------  5 remoteuser remoteuser 4096 Nov 25 12:07 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 remoteuser remoteuser 4096 Nov 25 12:15 ..
-rw-------  1 remoteuser remoteuser 1813 Nov 26 08:57 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 remoteuser remoteuser 3106 Oct 22  2015 .bashrc
...

Congratulations, you should now be able to connect to your server via SSH.

Securing your ubuntu Server

Read my guides here, here and here.

Don’t forget to add a firewall and set up an SSL certificate.

How to connect to a server (faster way).

todo: ~/.ssh/config method

Now we can connect to your remote server with the shorter method.

todo: ~/.ssh/config method

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Revision History

v1.0 Initial Post

etc

Security checklist for securing a self-managed Ubuntu server in the cloud

November 2, 2017 by Simon

Below is a (perpetually updated) security checklist for securing a self-managed Ubuntu server. Recently WordPress released patch v4.8.3 that fixed some SQL injection issues. Is your OS, Database, Web Server, OS and software up to date?

Although I have recently blogged about securing Ubuntu in the cloud, and running a server Audit with Lynus, this new post is really about obtaining a mindset change and allocating time (each week) to ensure your self-managed servers and software is kept up to date. You can easily list down the actions you need to follow but keeping a system up to date is hard work. Sites like www.shodan.io will reveal what servers or services are vulnerable, let software updates lapse long enough and an open exploit may open a hole to your system. It only takes minutes to set up a $2.5 a month Ubuntu server with Vultr, $5 a month Digital Ocean Server or AWS server but you need to maintain it.

I highly recommend that you watch the following video that highlights the need for even minor vulnerabilities to be patched asap. If you leave one minor vulnerability open you will give hackers a foothold into your system.

Follow @jawache on twitter.

Troy Hunt has a great post about the simplicity of hacking. Hacking is child’s play.

General Security Checklist

Do Setup a Firewall and only allow needed ports to accept data (use tools like Portscan and Shodan.io to find open ports).
Use least access permissions (on NGINX, PHP and MySQL processes).
Use strong unique passwords for every service (1Password and sites like Gibson Research Corp have password generators, use www.howsecureismypassword.net to check tour passwords strength)
Enable logging.

Find log files on your system:

cd /
find -iname "*.log"

Output (handy logs to review):

./var/log/mongodb/mongod.log
./var/log/fail2ban.log
./var/log/mysql/error.log
./var/log/ufw.log
./var/log/lynis.log
./var/log/dpkg.log
./var/log/nginx/error.log
./var/log/nginx/nginxcriterror.log
./var/log/nginx/access.log
./var/log/audit/audit.log
./var/log/php7.0-fpm.log
./var/log/mail.log
./backup/backup.log
./scripts/boot.log
etc

Enable brute force detection and banning (fail2ban etc) Read more here.
Secure folders with service accounts.
Do secure software (e.g WordPress Wordfence)
Do use SSL Certificates (and use modern cyphers and test with https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/)
Monitor SSL vulnerabilities.
Do a Lynis security report.
Install a Virus scanner (read here).
Secure MySQL/Databases.

First, find the version of MySQL

mysql --version
mysql  Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.19, for Linux (x86_64)

Read the official MySQL manual here and security guidelines here.

Read this Digital Ocean guide on securing MySQL.

Other: _______

Application (coding) checklist

Retain and protect information.

Disable errors (PHP: turn off or here)
Enable logging (web server, PHP and or node)
Sanitize data (never trust uses data) in code (see how to do this in PHP 7)
Do no develop on production boxes (use parameterised queries and follow OWASP application security procedures.
Read the OWASP Secure Coding Practices – Quick Reference Guide

Infrastructure

Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Use the latest Long Term Support (LTS) version or Ubuntu
Update packages

View app packages (Ubuntu 16.04) with updates

sudo /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check -p

View app packages (Ubuntu 16.04) with updates

apt list --upgradable

To update packages type (remember to backup data and config files first)

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Among other things, you will see the following information

The following packages will be upgraded:
  binutils certbot cracklib-runtime curl distro-info-data grub-common grub-pc grub-pc-bin grub2-common initramfs-tools initramfs-tools-bin initramfs-tools-core libapache2-mod-php7.0
  libcrack2 libcurl3 libcurl3-gnutls libgnutls-openssl27 libgnutls30 libicu55 libpam-systemd libsystemd0 libudev1 linux-firmware linux-libc-dev lshw mdadm mysql-client-5.7
  mysql-client-core-5.7 mysql-common mysql-server mysql-server-5.7 mysql-server-core-5.7 nodejs php7.0 php7.0-cli php7.0-common php7.0-curl php7.0-dev php7.0-fpm php7.0-gd php7.0-imap
  php7.0-intl php7.0-json php7.0-ldap php7.0-mbstring php7.0-mysql php7.0-opcache php7.0-pgsql php7.0-phpdbg php7.0-pspell php7.0-readline php7.0-recode php7.0-snmp php7.0-tidy
  php7.0-xml php7.0-zip python-acme python-certbot python-certbot-nginx python-cffi-backend python-chardet python-idna python-six python3-chardet python3-distupgrade python3-six
  python3-update-manager systemd systemd-sysv ubuntu-release-upgrader-core udev update-manager-core wget

Show available updates

/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check --human-readable
0 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

Only work on code checked into GitHub or BitBucket (You will thank me when data or servers disappear).
Backup configuration files or backup to remote servers (my rsync guide here)
Use snapshots of VM’s.
Use Green/Blue server deployments (toggle one server a Prod and the other and Dev/Test and have one ready for a hot spare). Digital Ocean has a good guide here.
Consider forcing Content Security Polic and Public Key Pinning or at least using LetsEncrypt SSL certificates.
Take Snapshots of VM’s (automate)
Backup MySQL databases:

sudo mysqldump --all-databases > /backup/dump-$( date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S' ).sql -u root -p

Other Useful Linus Terminal Commands.

Mindset/Culture

Dedicate time to securing your site.

Spend one day a week (or automate) the updating of the OS/Software (no excuses).
Follow people on twitter and subscribe to newsletters of those that are security conscious

Don’t forget to read securing Ubuntu in the cloud blog post here.

And check out the extensive Hardening a Linux Server guide at thecloud.org.uk: https://thecloud.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Hardening_a_Linux_Server

More to come..

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v1.2 added link to Hardening Linux Server link

v1.1 added @jawache link

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Connecting to a server via SSH with Putty

Common Terms (Glossary)

Background

Public and Private Keys?

How to create a Public and Private Key on Linux

Public/Private Key Contents

fyi: Putty can create SSH Keys too

Putty SSH Client on Windows

Convert your (Linux generated) private key to (Putty) PPK format with Puttygen

Connecting to your sever via Telnet/SSH wiht Putty.

Alternatives to self-managed VM’s

More Reading

Related Blog Posts

Monitor server performance with NixStats and receive alerts by SMS, Push, Email, Telegram etc

Upgrading an Ubuntu server on UpCloud to add more CPU, Memory and Disk Space

Enabling TLS 1.3 SSL on a NGINX Website (Ubuntu 16.04 server) that is using Cloudflare

How to purchase your own domain name and set up a web server from $5 a month

Self Managed Server – Frequent Manual Tasks

How to upload and download files to a server with sftp (over the SSH protocol)

Connect to a remote server with ssh keys generated on OSX

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Common Terms (Glossary)

Background

Public and Private Keys?

How to create a Public and Private Key on Linux

Public/Private Key Contents

fyi: Putty can create SSH Keys too

Putty SSH Client on Windows

Convert your (Linux generated) private key to (Putty) PPK format with Puttygen

Connecting to your sever via Telnet/SSH wiht Putty.

Alternatives to self-managed VM’s

More Reading

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