2. Preliminary notes

All the Linux commands in this guide will be given as they are, without prepending sudo to every command. We recommend disabling root login for SSH access, as described further on, and logging in as a regular user, then switching to the root user, and running all the commands as root. Good quality Linux programs like the ones we describe in this guide (Nginx, Postfix, ClamAV, SpamAssassin, ProFTPD, Memcached, BIND, etc.) run under their own user, even if they are installed as root. This means that you are not weakening the security of your system by installing such programs as root. In this situation, where you install and configure specific high quality programs on your own server, as the only user running commands on the server, there is no reason to use a regular user and write sudo in front of every command. If you still have doubts on this subject, you can read this article.

After editing a file, we won’t mention that you have to save it and then close it. We recommend using nano to edit files. After you open a file with nano filename and edit it, you can save it by pressing Ctrl + x, then y, then Enter. A file can be also saved with Ctrl + s while editing it.

All the text in red should be replaced with your own data. For instance example.com must be replaced with your own domain name.

Some applications need other applications to be installed in advance. For example, to install WordPress, you need to have Nginx, MariaDB and PHP already installed. All the applications are presented in the order in which they should be installed. If you try to install them in a different order, you can run into problems.

By applying any of the instructions presented in this guide, you acknowledge that you agree to our Terms and that you have read the Introduction.

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