[LightDestory]

As you can read from the thread's title, I have decided to start a series of "tutorial" regarding the setting up of a Ubuntu/CentOS Server from scratch. You can easily find the same type of topics on Internet but I can guarantee that these "guides" will be different: I will not give you "copy&paste" commands, I will try my best to explain what you are doing and why. My personal through is that a "tutorial" is made to share knowledge and not to be a one-time read article.

The purpose of this first thread called "Introduction" is to be a sort of "map" of this series, here you will find a linked list of the available/planned guides, so with this thread you will be able to "navigate" this series chapters but also suggest me new topics to study in deep. Thus, it would be nice if this thread got promoted to "sticky thread", what do you think about it, @deanhills ?

Before starting reading the tutorial, please read carefully this quote:

I'm not responsible for bricked system. I recommend to perform this installation on a clean and update to date system. Fiddling around on a system that has been modified before is mostly a nightmare and almost always a guarantee for something to go really wrong.

**The OSes on which this series is based are: Ubuntu Server & CentOS on their "minimal edition". I will provide a schema of "version-based" command when needed.

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The series will cover up the following topics:

1. Enabling and setting up the Firewall with UFW (a simple wrapper for IPTABLES) 
   
2. Securing SSH
   
3. Installing and setting up FTP - Coming soon
   
4. FTP vs SFTP, setting up SFTP - Coming soon
   
5. Installing and setting up a LEMP (Linux, Nginx (Engine-x), MySQL, PHP) environment
   
   1. Why Nginx? Installing and setting up (latest) Nginx - Coming soon
      
   2. Installing and setting up (latest) MariaDB - Coming soon
      
   3. Installing and setting up (latest) PHP-FPM with unix sock - Coming soon
      
6. Installing and setting up Remote Desktop Access with x2go
   
7. (DNS Management) A records vs CNAME records, using them to make a domain point a host - Coming soon
   
8. Setting up a Let's Encrypt Certificate (Nginx settings) and Auto-renew WHEN USING CLOUDFLARE DNS - Coming soon
   
9. Customizing Bash's prompt
   
10. More in the future
    

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This is a list of good & already existing tutorials by forum-mates that you can read as an extension:

• Installing VNC on CentOS 7 - by @"Hidden Refuge"
  
• Basic firewall rules with IPTABLES - by @"Hidden Refuge"
  

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Please read the following rules about this series:

1. The only usage of Introduction thread is to: "comment the series", "request a particular topic", "give news about the on-going of the series";
   
2. Questions and problems regarding a topic NEED TO BE POSTED on its dedicated thread;