002-initial-setup-amazon-ec2-ubuntu-instance.md

Initial setup of Amazon EC2 Ubuntu instance

1. Install aptitude, and update system:

sudo apt-get install -y aptitude
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude upgrade -y

2. Reboot instance:

sudo shutdown -r now

3. Install essential packages (some might be already installed):

sudo aptitude install -y git \
  python2.7-dev python2.7 \
  wget curl \
  build-essential \
  screen \
  ufw \
  rsync

4. Create local temp directory:

mkdir ~/temp

5. Make sure Python is available via the python command:

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/python

6. Install pip for Python:

cd ~/temp
wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py
rm -rf get-pip.py

6.5. Install pip3:

curl -sS https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | sudo python3

7. Install glances monitoring tool:

sudo pip install glances

8. Enable 4GB Swap partition (see original instructions):

sudo /bin/dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap.1 bs=1M count=4096
sudo /sbin/mkswap /var/swap.1
sudo chmod 600 /var/swap.1
sudo /sbin/swapon /var/swap.1

9. Enable Swap partition during boot. To update /etc/fstab file, run:

echo "/var/swap.1   swap    swap    defaults        0   0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

10. Reboot instance:

sudo shutdown -r now

11. Configure rules for ufw, and enable it:

sudo ufw allow 22   # enable SSH
sudo ufw allow 873  # enable rsync
sudo ufw enable