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VPS Setup Checklist

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🚀 VPS Setup Checklist

In this blog, I want to share the checklist that I have come to follow while setting up a VPS. This is not going to be a comprehensive guide, because I feel that there are certain things or style that is specific to the individual and their needs. And I think everyone would agree that most often than not, you would forget certain steps and you have to go back and forth to remember what you did. It's a pain, so I made my own checklist. This would kind of serve as a reference for me to remember what I did and what I need to do. So let's get started! 📝

📋 Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have:

  • A VPS (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Linode, etc.) 🖥️
  • A domain name (Cloudflare, etc.) 🌐
  • A basic understanding of Linux 🐧
  • A basic understanding of SSH 🔐
  • A basic understanding of the command line 💻

✅ Quick Checklist

Here's the high-level checklist we'll be covering:

  • [ ] Set up a VPS
  • [ ] Set up a domain name
  • [ ] Configure DNS records
  • [ ] Set up Docker and Docker Compose
  • [ ] Configure firewall
  • [ ] Set up Coolify (or alternative)

🖥️ Set up a VPS

Choosing a VPS Provider

I would say that Hetzner is one of the best VPS providers out there. There are other good providers like DigitalOcean, Linode, etc. But I have personally used Hetzner and I have been happy with their service. 💯

Creating an Instance

After you sign up to the VPS provider of your choice, you need to create a new instance. I have always chosen Ubuntu as the operating system. Go with the suitable resource allocation for your needs.

Once the instance is created, you'll get root access. Using SSH, you can connect to the instance:

ssh root@your-server-ip

Now you're connected to the instance! Let's move on to the next steps. 🎯

🌐 Set up a Domain Name

Now, you need to set up a domain name. I already have a domain name with Porkbun. I like their service and they are very affordable. As for management, I use Cloudflare to manage my domain name. So I update the nameservers to the ones provided by Cloudflare. We will get to DNS records later. 📍

🐳 Setting up Docker and Docker Compose

What's the most important thing to setup first? Docker and Docker Compose. For me, this is de facto my first thing to setup. I use Docker to containerize my applications. This is a great way to deploy my applications and it is very easy to manage.

Installing Docker and Docker Compose

Since we are using Ubuntu, we can use the apt repository way to install Docker and Docker Compose. The Docker Docs has the detailed instructions.

🎯 Docker Context (Pro Tip)

There is a thing called docker context. It is a way to manage multiple docker hosts when you have multiple machines or you want to switch between them easily. You can create a context for each machine and then switch between them easily.

# Create a context for remote Docker host
docker context create my-context --docker host=ssh://user@host

# Switch to the context
docker context use my-context

This is super useful when managing multiple servers! 🔄

🔥 Firewall Configuration

For Ubuntu, you can use ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall) to manage the firewall. It is a great tool to manage the firewall. It is very easy to use and it is very powerful.

Here are the ports I typically open:

# Allow HTTP and HTTPS
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp

# Allow SSH (important!)
ufw allow 22/tcp

# Allow Coolify dashboard
ufw allow 8000/tcp

# Allow additional ports if needed (e.g., for specific services)
ufw allow 6001/tcp
ufw allow 6002/tcp

# Enable the firewall
ufw enable

Note: Make sure to allow SSH (port 22) before enabling the firewall, or you might lock yourself out! ⚠️

🚀 Setting up Coolify

Coolify is a great self-hosted PaaS that simplifies application deployment. It is a great way to deploy my applications and it is very easy to manage.

This has been my go-to for nearly a year now. Because it is very easy to setup and manage. It allows you to:

  • ✅ Deploy and manage your applications
  • ✅ Built-in Traefik as a reverse proxy and Let's Encrypt as an SSL certificate provider. So you can easily setup SSL certificates for your domain.
  • ✅ Easily deploy any kind of services, from a simple web server to a complex application (Docker Compose with many services). Also allows one-click setup for a lot of services like Postgres, MySQL, etc.
  • ✅ Push to Deploy
  • ✅ Automatic backups
  • ✅ Real-time terminal access to your applications
  • ✅ And many more features!

Installing Coolify

There are a few prerequisites for installing Coolify. It's pretty basic things like making sure you are root user (which we already are), SSH config, and making sure curl is installed.

To install, the only thing you need to run is the following command:

curl -fsSL https://cdn.coollabs.io/coolify/install.sh | bash

Once the installation is complete, you can access the Coolify dashboard at http://your-server-ip:8000.

Configuring Domain for Coolify

Now this is a good time to set up the domain name. I have already set up the domain name with Cloudflare. So I need to add the DNS records to the domain name.

Step 1: Point Coolify dashboard to the domain name

  • Go to Coolify dashboard → Settings → Domain
  • Add the domain name (e.g., coolify.yourdomain.com)

Step 2: Add DNS records in Cloudflare

  • Add an A record with coolify as the subdomain and the IP address of the VPS as the value

Step 3: Set up wildcard domain (optional but recommended)

  • Go to server settings in Coolify and add the wildcard domain (e.g., yourdomain.com)
  • In Cloudflare, add an A record with name * and the IP address of the VPS as the value

And now you can access the Coolify dashboard at https://coolify.yourdomain.com! 🎉

🔧 Alternative: If Not Using Coolify

Well, if you are not using Coolify, going the manual route I would say Docker Stack or Docker Swarm. These are the two most popular ways to deploy applications on a VPS. They have great tooling for production-ready deployments. And you can easily scale your applications. Like providing simple Blue/Green deployment strategy, scaling using the docker service scale command, etc.

For more details on manual Docker deployment, you can check out the official Docker Swarm or Docker Stack documentation.

🎯 Conclusion

It's pretty simple, but this could work as a foundation for all VPS setup. For instance, Coolify or not, there are other steps for those specific tooling. This checklist serves as a starting point, and you can customize it based on your specific needs. Happy deploying! 🚀