Configure the server

The user may open a secure shell on the server using the Secure Shell Protocol (SSH). The instruction uses the ssh command, available on Unix-like operating systems (e.g. Linux, MacOS). On a Windows operating system, ssh may be executed in the Git Bash application installed with Git for Windows.

Required inputs

server
funded NearlyFreeSpeech account

Instruction set

Open a secure shell on the server.
- Open a shell (e.g. bash).
- Execute ssh root@ip replacing ip with the IP address of the server, found in the Digital Ocean project.
- Enter the server password.
Install package updates.
- Execute apt update to identify package updates, using the apt package manager.
- Execute apt dist-upgrade to install package updates.
Create a non-root user, hereinafter called the user. See discussion here.
- Execute adduser user replacing user with the user.
- Enter password; confirm password.
- Optionally enter additional information (e.g. Full Name); if not, press Enter to skip.
Allow the user super user privileges.
- Execute usermod -aG sudo user replacing user with the user.
Execute exit to terminate the server shell.
Optionally generate and copy SSH keys for the user; see discussion here. Otherwise, continue opening server shell using the password.
- Execute ssh-keygen to generate the SSH keys.
- Set file to /home/local-user/.ssh/hostname_user_id_rsa replacing:
  - local-user with the name of the user of the local computer (displayed before @ in the shell)
  - hostname with the server hostname (e.g. domain-1)
  - user with the server user.
- Set the passphrase.
- Execute ssh-copy-id -i /home/local-user/.ssh/hostname_user_id_rsa.pub user@ip replacing:
  - local-user with the name of the user of the local computer
  - hostname with the server hostname
  - both instances of user with the server user
  - ip with the IP address of the server
- Enter the server user's password.
Open a secure shell on the server.
- If using SSH keys, execute ssh user@ip replacing user with the user and ip with the IP address of the server, then enter the SSH key passphrase.
Install nginx, software that serves files using HTTP.
Temporarily configure nginx to return an HTTP 200 reponse; this is required for Stripe account creation.
- Execute cd /etc/nginx/conf.d to enter the nginx configuration directory.
- Execute sudo nano default.conf to edit the default nginx server configuration file in the nano text editor; the first ten lines are below:
- ```
server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;
    #access_log  /var/log/nginx/host.access.log  main;
    location / {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }
}
```
- Replace the above with the below, replacing both instances of root_domain with the root domain (e.g. domain.org):
- ```
server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  root_domain;
    #access_log  /var/log/nginx/host.access.log  main;
    location / {
        #root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
        #index  index.html index.htm;
        default_type text/html;
        return 200 "<!DOCTYPE html><p>root_domain is currently under construction; it will be available following Stripe integration.</p></html>";
    }
}
```
- Press ctrl+o to save, Enter to confirm save, and ctrl+x to exit nano.
- Execute sudo systemctl start nginx to start nginx.
- Execute sudo systemctl status nginx to confirm ngnix is active.
- Enter the IP address of the server in a browser to confirm the response set in the temporary nginx configuration.
Add a DNS Resource Record to map the domain to the IP address of the server.
- Log in to NearlyFreeSpeech.
  - Manage DNS of the domain.
  - Add an A DNS Resource Record.
    - Leave Name blank.
    - Set Type to A.
    - Set Data to the IP address of the server.
    - Set Time-to-live to 180 seconds.
- After 180 seconds, enter the root domain in a browser to confirm the DNS Resource Record.