I would want to make a little step by step documentation about setting up a Linux based server. This configuration is running successfully in some Digital Ocean Ubuntu Server 12.04 based server. But this, with a few modifications will be valid in another Linux based systems.

The goal is to have a fully functional LAMP (Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP), mail server, ftp and some basic tools to manage the remote server as comfortable as possible. If you want to learn more about Linux commands such as the grep command, visit the site.

Note 2017-01-01: I’m starting a new guide with examples, alternatives, trying to make it as detailed as possible to get a full-featured LAMP + Mail + Apps + Security server under GNU/Linux. I’m trying to make it practical and make it a big starting point to make your Linux personal server. Sorry, I’ll publish this guide in Spanish first, you can follow this link: Monta tu VPS desde cero.

This guide is divided in several steps:

1. SSH Configuration (Updated 05-01-2013)
2. Little things to do before installing anything (Updated 02-18-2015)
3. SWAP disk setup (Updated 06-01-2013)
4. Installing and configuring web server (Updated 06-07-2013)
   1. Optimizations: Configure log in pipes instead of files (Updated 03-01-2014)
   2. Option: Configure PHP as CGI (Updated 03-21-2014)
   3. Option: Configure PHP-FPM FastCGI (Updated 12-10-2015)
   4. Option: Use hhvm to speed up! (Update 03-23-2014)
   5. MySQL Troubleshoot: “host is blocked because of many connection errors.” (Updated 04-01-2014)
5. Installing FTP server (vsftpd) (Updated 25-06-2016)
6. Setting up mail server (Updated 06-19-2013)
   1. Managing mail users (Updated 06-19-2013)
   2. Configure ingoing mail server: Cyrus (Updated 06-20-2013)
   3. Configure outgoing mail server: Postfix (Updated 06-20-2013)
      1. Postfix error: mail for domain.com loops back to myself (Updated 31-03-2014)
      2. Postfix error: connect to HOST[/var/run/cyrus/socket/lmtp]: Permission denied (Updated 09-10-2014)
   4. Configure IMAP folders
   5. AntiSPAM with SpamAssassin (Updated 06-22-2013)
      1. Multi user configuration (Updated 06-23-2013)
      2. Move mails to Junk folder (Updated 06-23-2013)
   6. Configure Roundcube Webmail
   7. Tools for maintenance
7. Installing a firewall (UFW) (Updated 03-27-2014)
8. Create SSL certificates (Updated 08-22-2014)
   1. Installing SSL certificates in Apache (Updated 10-25-2014)
   2. Install SSL certificates in our mail server (Postfix + Cyrus) (Updated 08-23-2014)
9. Monitoring
   1. Monitoring: Logwatch to be aware of what is happening (Updated: 02-18-2015)
10. Clustering
    1. Configure a replicated filesystem between two servers with GlusterFS (Updated 05-10-2015)
11. Webography (Updated 06-23-2013)

This guide isn’t something closed, your comments, suggestions and alternatives are welcome, and some of them may be merged into this guide to help everyone interested on it.