Slicehost has an excellent article repository, containing guides on a number of subjects. After building a fresh Slice, you should first follow Part 1 and Part 2 of Slicehost’s basic setup articles.

I use slightly different coloring in my bash prompt, so, rather than what Slicehost suggests in their article, I add the following to ~/.bashrc:

export PS1='\[\033[0;32m\]\u@\[\033[0;35m\]\h\[\033[0;33m\] \w\[\033[00m\]: '

This is a good time to protect SSH by installing DenyHosts, which I discuss here:

$ sudo aptitude install denyhosts

Ubuntu’s default text editor is nano, which I abhor. Real men use vim. Ubuntu comes with a slimmed down version of vim, but you’ll probably want the full version:

$ sudo aptitude install vim

To change the global default editor variable, execute the following and select the editor of your choice:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config editor

This is also a perfect time to install GNU Screen.

$ sudo aptitude install screen

If you’re not familiar with Screen, Red Hat Magazine has a nice little introduction

My .screenrc looks like this:

# Print a pretty line at the bottom of the screen
hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{= kG}[ %{G}%H %{g}][%= %{=kw}%?%-Lw%?%{r}(%{W}%n*%f%t%?(%u)%?%{r})%{w}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{g}][%{Y}%Y-%m-%d %{W}%c %{g}]'

# Nobody likes startup messages
startup_message off

# Turn visual bell on and set the message to display for only a fraction of a second
vbell on
vbellwait .3

# Set default shell title to blank
shelltitle ''

# Gimme my scrollback!
defscrollback 5000

# Change command character to backtick
escape `` 

# Stop programs (live vim) from leaving their contents
# in the window after they exit
altscreen on

# Default screens
screen -t shell 0 

I prefer to have my bash profile setup to connect me to Screen as soon as I login. If there are no running sessions, it will create one. If there is a current session, it will disconnect the session from wherever it is connected and connect it to my login. When I disconnect from screen, it automatically logs me out. To achieve this, I add the following to ~/.bashrc:

# If possible, reattach to an existing session and detach that session
# elsewhere. If not possible, create a new session.
if [ -z "$STY" ]; then
    exec screen -dR
fi

I would also recommend following Slicehost’s guide to installing chkrootkit and rkhunter.

One more thing: let’s set the timezone of the server to whatever is local to you (Slicehost’s Ubuntu image defaults to UTC). To do that, run:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Next up: install a web server.