Linux server setup, hardening, rescue and ongoing care.
I set up Linux servers properly and then keep them that way. Fresh VPS builds, LAMP and LEMP stacks, control panels, firewalls, SSL and backups on AWS, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vultr, Linode and Contabo. I also rescue servers that are already broken, and audit the ones that are still working but nobody has checked in years. Most of my clients do not have a sysadmin, and this is the part of the job that would otherwise be nobody's.
DELIVERABLES
Setup and hardening
Firewall, SSH hardening, SSL, fail2ban, automatic security updates and a LAMP or LEMP stack on a fresh VPS. Control panels too, from cPanel and WHM to Plesk, HestiaCP and CyberPanel, and WHMCS if you resell hosting.
Rescue and recovery
Server down, 502 and 504 errors, disk full, high load, mail blacklisted, locked out of SSH, post-hack cleanup. I look for the cause rather than restarting things until the symptom goes away.
Audits and ongoing care
A written review of what is exposed, what is unpatched and what has no working backup, with an order to fix them in. Or the ongoing version, with patching, backups and monitoring handled for you.
HOW IT WORKS
Assess
I look at what is running, what is reachable from outside, what is out of date, and what has no working backup. You get an honest picture of the server's state before anything changes.
Stabilise
Whatever is broken or dangerous gets handled first: the outage, the security hole, the disk that is three days from full. Cosmetic work waits.
Harden
Firewall, SSH lockdown, SSL, fail2ban, least-privilege services, automated backups. Then I restore one of those backups onto a clean machine to confirm it works.
Watch
Uptime and resource monitoring, with alerts that come straight to me. During waking hours I am usually on it within a couple of hours. Outside those, it gets picked up as soon as I am up. A server that goes down on a Thursday evening does not sit there until Monday.
FROM SERVER CLIENTS
All 2,200+ reviews →“Working with shafa for my web development needs has been an pleasure. His professionalism and expertise are unmatched. Every time I had an urgent project that needed to be solved, shafa was there to save the day. I highly recommend him as a reliable partner for any web development needs”
“Delivered as expected! Pleasure to work with! Got my server fixed and ready to go quicker than I thought.”
CASE STUDY
All case studies →WHAT PEOPLE SEARCH FOR
- vps setup
- A new server taken from a blank image to something it is safe to put a live site on.
- set up a cloud server on aws
- EC2 from scratch, and the same job on DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vultr, Linode or Contabo.
- linux server administration
- Looking after a machine somebody set up once and nobody has opened since.
- server hardening
- Firewall, SSH lockdown, fail2ban, least-privilege services and automatic security updates on a server that is currently wide open.
- server audit
- A written review of what is exposed, what is unpatched, and what has no working backup, with an order to fix them in.
- whmcs
- Billing and provisioning set up for hosting resellers, on a server configured to run it.
- cpanel and whm
- Control panel installs and repairs, including Plesk, CyberPanel, HestiaCP and DirectAdmin.
- server down
- 502 and 504 errors, high load, a full disk, or a machine nobody can SSH into any more.
Tell me about your server.
What it runs, who set it up, and what is going wrong. If nothing is wrong yet, that is a better time to talk.
Get in touch →