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Introduction

This article describes the initial Describes production proven Bonsai Framework approach to setup of a Ubuntu server. Once the base is setup, you can continue the series which proceeds to making the system a web/application/database server.

These articles should work with most distributions of Ubuntu and is routinely tested on the latest LTS edition of Ubuntu Server.

Pre-Requisites

To follow through these tutorials you should have basic understanding of networks and know how to edit files on Ubuntu through terminal or sftp.

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Download

Download LTS version if for production.

Installing from Scratch

If you are installing from scratch I suggest using some kind of virtualization technology.

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1. Select your language and press Enter.
2. On the install screen hit F4
   
   1. Select Install a minimal virtual machine and press enter.
   2. There will be no apparent change on install screen, but don't worry it worked.
3. Install Ubuntu Server should be highlighted by default (if not select it), press enter.
4. You will be prompted for Language, choose English.
5. When asked for Country, choose your country, in our case we use Canada.
6. When asked to configure the keyboard, provided you are using English,
   
   1. Choose No to "Detect keyboard layout"?
   2. Select English (US) to "Country of origin for the keyboard".
   3. English (US) to "Keyboard layout".
7. For hostname, applying the Bonsai framework naming standards we will use, bonsaih0v00a
8. The first account is privileged. Use for Full name: Setup Admin
   
9. Username for your account: setupadmin
10. Password for you acount. The Bonsai Framework password standard should suffice. By default we will not be enabling any services like ssh.
11. "Encrypt your home directory?" No (you can choose yes here, but in a closed server environment this will probably cause more head-ache then add to security)
12. When asked for your time zone, pick your time zone.
13. On Partitions disk choose Guided - use entire disk and set up LVM (Here's what LVM does).
14. When asked to select disk partition, usually you will only have one. By default that will be selected. Just push Enter.
15. "Write the change to disks and configure LVM?" Choose Yes.
16. When it comes to selecting partitions go with the defaults, how big for swap or root ect, just go with defaults. This used to be important but now with LVM and modern Linux systems this is no longer that important.
17. "Write the changes to disks?" Yes.
18. "Amount of volume group to use for guided partitioning:" Continue.
19. "Write the changes to disk?" Yes.
20. HTTP proxy information. Unless you are behind a proxy (unlikely unless you are on a company network owned by a company), leave it blank and choose , Continue.
21. "How do you want to manage to upgrades on this system? That is up to you and your environment. For small production environments where we need " For maximum control, and know exactly when updates are being installed use, No automatic updates. For large enterprise environments consider Ubuntu Landscape. Unfortunately, I don't see anything viable for medium size environments yet.
22. "Choose software to install: Just choose continue. Do not choose to install anything, especially OpenSSH server (yet) if your system " Select OpenSSH server unless system is on the Internet.
23. Assuming this is a new server, Yes to "Install the GRUB boot loader to the master boot record?".
24. Installation complete. Choose Continue to reboot the system.

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