Introduction Config Server Firewall (or CSF) is a free and advanced firewall for most Linux distributions and Linux based VPS. In addition to the basic functionality of a firewall – filtering packets – CSF includes other security features, such as login/intrusion/flood detections. CSF includes UI integration for cPanel, DirectAdmin and Webmin, but this tutorial only covers the command line usage. CSF is able to recognize many attacks, such as port scans, SYN floods, and login brute force attacks on many services. It is configured to temporarily block clients who are detected to be attacking the cloud server. The full list of supported operating systems and features can be found on ConfigServer's website. This tutorial is written for Debian based VPS, such as Debian and Ubuntu. The commands should be executed with root permissions, by logging in as root, or initiating a root shell with the following command if sudo is installed: sudo su Note: This tutorial covers IPv4 security. In Linux, IPv6 security is maintained separately from IPv4. For example, "iptables" only maintains firewall rules for IPv4 addresses but it has an IPv6 counterpart called "ip6tables", which can be used to maintain firewall rules for IPv6 network addresses. If your VPS is configured for IPv6, please remember to secure both your IPv4 and IPv6 network interfaces with the appropriate tools. For more information about IPv6 tools, refer to this guide: How To Configure Tools to Use IPv6 on a Linux VPS Features Config Server Firewall offers a wide range of protections for your VPS. Login authentication failure daemon: CSF checks…

This is a guide on setting up an IPSEC/L2TP vpn server with Ubuntu 14.04 using Openswan as the IPsec server, xl2tpd as the l2tp provider and ppp or local users / PAM for authentication. It has a detailed explanation with every step. We choose the IPSEC/L2TP protocol stack because of recent vulnerabilities found in pptpd VPNs and because it is supported on all major operating systems by default. Why a VPN? More than ever, your freedom and privacy when online is under threat. Governments and ISPs want to control what you can and can't see while keeping a record of everything you do, and even the shady-looking guy lurking around your coffee shop or the airport gate can grab your bank details easier than you may think. A self hosted VPN lets you surf the web the way it was intended: anonymously and without oversight. A VPN (virtual private network) creates a secure, encrypted tunnel through which all of your online data passes back and forth. Any application that requires an internet connection works with this self hosted VPN, including your web browser, email client, and instant messaging program, keeping everything you do online hidden from prying eyes while masking your physical location and giving you unfettered access to any website or web service no matter where you happen to be at the moment. This tutorial is available for the following platforms: Raspberry Pi with Arch Linux ARM CentOS 6, Scientific Linux 6 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Ubuntu 13.10 Ubuntu 13.04 Ubuntu 12.10 Ubuntu 12.04…

Introduction Syncing folders and files between computers and devices can be done in many different ways. One method for automatically syncing content isBitTorrent Sync. BitTorrent Sync is a method of synchronizing content based on the popular BitTorrent protocol for file sharing. Unlike traditional BitTorrent, files shared using BitTorrent Sync are encrypted and access is restricted based on a shared secret that is auto-generated. While BitTorrent proper is often used to distribute files in a public way, BitTorrent Sync is often used as a private method to sync and share files between devices due to its added security measures. In this guide, we will discuss how to install and configure BitTorrent Sync on two Ubuntu 12.04 VPS instances. Install BitTorrent Sync To begin, we will need to install BitTorrent Sync on both of our Ubuntu 12.04 instances. If you would like to install BitTorrent Sync on your local computer to allow you to sync with your server, you can find the binary packages here. BitTorrent Sync is relatively easy to install on Ubuntu 12.04, but it is not included in the default repositories. We can use a PPA (personal package archive) so that we can have access to a maintained BitTorrent Sync repository and manage it with our normal apt tools. Ubuntu 12.04 includes the PPA tools in a package called python-software-properties, which we can download through apt: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install python-software-properties After this is installed, we can add the PPA that contains updated Ubuntu packages: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tuxpoldo/btsync Press "enter" to add the new PPA. Once the new repository…

Introduction WordPress is a popular CMS (content management system) that can help you get your site off of the ground quickly and easily. Sometimes, you need to host multiple, unrelated sites on the same server.This guide will cover how to host two separate WordPress instances on one VPS. They will each have their own domain name. This is different from setting up multisite.We will accomplish this through the use of virtual hosts. This guide will use an Ubuntu 12.04 VPS server, but other distributions should function in a similar way. Prerequisites This guide has a few requirements that are covered in-depth in some of our other articles. Before you begin, make sure you have completed the following: Create a new DigitalOcean VPS to host your WordPress sites. Complete the initial server configuration by following this guide.   Set up two domain names with DigitalOcean. Use this guide to learn how to set up domain names with DigitalOcean.   Install a LAMP stack on Ubuntu using this guide.   At this point, you should have LAMP installed on Ubuntu and both of your domain names should be pointing to your droplet.Ensure that this is the case by visiting your domain names in a web browser. Both domains should give you the same default Apache index page:If your domains do not lead to this page, then either you need to wait for the DNS changes to propagate, or you have misconfigured something in the previous steps. Do not continue until this is resolved. Download Wordpress When you are ready, log into your server and change to your…

Author: DigitalOcean Introduction One of the first lines of defense in securing your cloud server is a functioning firewall. In the past, this was often done through complicated and arcane utilities. There is a lot of functionality built into these utilities, iptables being the most popular nowadays, but they require a decent effort on behalf of the user to learn and understand them. Firewall rules are not something you want yourself second-guessing. To this end, UFW is a considerably easier-to-use alternative. What is UFW? UFW, or Uncomplicated Firewall, is a front-end to iptables. Its main goal is to make managing your firewall drop-dead simple and to provide an easy-to-use interface. It’s well-supported and popular in the Linux community—even installed by default in a lot of distros. As such, it’s a great way to get started securing your sever.

About LAMP LAMP stack is a group of open source software used to get web servers up and running. The acronym stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Since the virtual private server is already running Ubuntu, the linux part is taken care of. Here is how to install the rest. Set Up The steps in this tutorial require the user to have root privileges on your VPS. You can see how to set that up in the?Initial Server Setup?in steps 3 and 4.

Author: DigitalOcean Introduction Config Server Firewall (or CSF) is a free and advanced firewall for most Linux distributions and Linux based VPS. In addition to the basic functionality of a firewall – filtering packets – CSF includes other security features, such as login/intrusion/flood detections. CSF includes UI integration for cPanel, DirectAdmin and Webmin, but this tutorial only covers the command line usage. CSF is able to recognize many attacks, such as port scans, SYN floods, and login brute force attacks on many services. It is configured to temporarily block clients who are detected to be attacking the cloud server.