Boostrapping and securing an Ubuntu server

This repository contains Ansible scripts for bootstrapping and securing an Ubuntu server. Scripts have been tested on Ubuntu 14.04 hosted on RunAbove and DigitalOcean.

The included tasks are following:

• Update and upgrade Ubuntu packages via apt-get
• Configure locale
• Install ntp to synchronize time
• Install vim and mc (my personal preference)
• Install fail2ban to block ssh brute-force attempts
• Delete root password
• Lock down sudo
• Lock down ssh to prevent root and password login
• Setup the ufw firewall
• Configure unattended security upgrades
• Install collectd deamon and collect-web front-end client (optionally)
• Create users (optionally)

Ansible

First of all, install the latest version of Ansible, in Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ansible/ansible
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install ansible

Clone scripts

Next, clone this repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/zenzire/ansible-bootstrap-ubuntu.git

Configuration files

Copy sample configuration files:

$ cp hosts.sample hosts
$ cp global_vars/server.yml.sample global_vars/server.yml

Edit configuration files (hosts and global_vars/server.yml) with your own configuration.

Prerequisites for RunAbove hosting

Set password for admin user and assing this user to sudoers group.

$ ansible-playbook user.yml

Enter username: admin
Enter password: 
confirm Enter password: 
Enter id_rsa.pub path [~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub]: 
Add user to sudoers group (y/n) [n]: y

Prerequisites for DigitalOcean hosting

Create admin user and assing this user to sudoers group.

$ ansible-playbook user.yml --user root

Enter username: admin
Enter password: 
confirm Enter password: 
Enter id_rsa.pub path [~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub]: 
Add user to sudoers group (y/n) [n]: y

Script execution

Finally, execute bootstrap Ansible task for admin user:

$ ansible-playbook bootstrap.yml --ask-sudo
sudo password:

Reboot

After successfully bootstrapping and securing your server, reboot server for kernel updates.

$ ansible-playbook reboot.yml --ask-sudo
sudo password: 
Are you sure you want to reboot server (yes/no)? [no]: yes

Collectd

Also you can install collectd, deamon which collects system performance statistics periodically and collectd-web, web-based front-end for data collected by collectd.

$ ansible-playbook collectd.yml --ask-sudo

Users

You can add new user or update the existing one using the following script:

$ ansible-playbook user.yml --ask-sudo

License

Released under the MIT License, Copyright (c) 2015 - Marcin Mierzejewski