Chris Lamb has a good Debian installation checklist, from which I stole most of this list.
1 # Configure sudo, adding my user to the sudo group so I don't get password prompts
2 apt install sudo
3 adduser xjjk sudo
4 echo '%sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL' > /etc/sudoers.d/No-Passwords-for-sudo-Group
5 chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/No-Passwords-for-sudo-Group
6
7 # Disable installation of recommended packages
8 echo 'APT::Install-Recommends "false";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/90recommends
9
10 # Configure locales to prevent harassment about it later
11 apt install locales
12 export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
13 export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
14 export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
15 locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
16 dpkg-reconfigure -plow locales
17 # …or install all locales so they don't need to be configured/reinstalled
18 apt install locales-all
19
20 # Enable log compression with date suffixed extension
21 cat /etc/logrotate.conf | sed "s/#compress/compress\ndateext/" > /etc/logrotate.conf.tmp
22 mv /etc/logrotate.conf.tmp /etc/logrotate.conf
23
24 # Disable root login—public key access only!
25 sed -i \
26 -e "s/[#]*PermitRootLogin yes/PermitRootLogin without-password/g" \
27 -e "s/AcceptEnv LANG LC_\*$/AcceptEnv LANG LC_\* TZ/" \
28 /etc/ssh/sshd_config
29 service ssh restart
30
31 # Prevent PAM from allowing easily-crackable passwords
32 apt install libpam-cracklib
33
34 # Install essential utilities
35 sudo apt install \
36 openssh-server screen \
37 rsync \
38 atool lzma rzip xz-utils \
39 htop dstat iotop \
40 manpages manpages-dev \
41 strace tcpdump lsof \
42 less moreutils \
43 mosh \
44 dnsutils \
45 vim vim-pathogen vim-addon-manager vim-scripts \
46 bash-completion \
47 direnv \
48 sysfsutils procps \
49 vnstat \
50 unattended-upgrades \
51 ncurses-term \
52 molly-guard
53
54 # Optional stuff…
55 sudo apt install \
56 chrony \
57 cpufrequtils powertop
58
59 # Ensure enough entropy is always available
60 sudo apt install \
61 haveged rng-tools
62
63 # I hate rm
64 sudo apt install \
65 trash-cli
66
67 # Reduce bufferbloat
68 echo 'net.core.default_qdisc=fq_codel' > /etc/sysctl.d/reduce-bufferbloat.conf
69
70 # Enable automatic security updates (careful!)
71 sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades
72
73 # HDD Temperature/SMART monitoring utilities
74 apt install hddtemp smartmontools
75 sed -i 's/^#start_smartd=yes/start_smartd=yes/' /etc/default/smartmontools
76 /etc/init.d/smartmontools start
77
78 # Configure rsyslog for daily archival logging
79 cat << EOF > /etc/rsyslog.d/51-cron.conf
80 # Enable cron logging
81 cron.* /var/log/cron.log
82 EOF
83 cat << EOF > /etc/rsyslog.d/99-archive.conf
84 \$template DailyLogs,"/var/log/archive/%\$YEAR%%\$MONTH%/%\$YEAR%%\$MONTH%%\$DAY%.log"
85 # Archive logging
86 *.* -?DailyLogs
87 EOF
88 cat << EOF > /etc/cron.daily/rsyslog-archive
89 #!/bin/sh
90 # Compress *.log-files not changed in more than 24 hours
91 find /var/log/archive -type f -mtime +1 -name "*.log" -exec xz '{}' \;
92 EOF
93 chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/rsyslog-archive
94
95 # Async logging for rsync (commit every 30m)
96 cat << EOF > /etc/rsyslog.d/98-async.conf
97 \$OMFileFlushInterval 1800
98 \$OMFileASyncWriting on
99 EOF
100
101 # Use tmpfs for /var/run and /var/lock (may break some buggy packages), like Ubuntu
102 cat << EOF >> /etc/default/rcS
103 RAMRUN=yes
104 RAMLOCK=yes
105 EOF
106
107 # Allow running X11 apps remotely
108 sudo apt install xbase-clients
109
110 # Add noatime,commit=900 to entries in /etc/fstab
111
112 # Enable SATA ALPM
113 echo SATA_ALPM_ENABLE=true | sudo tee /etc/pm/config.d/sata_alpm
114
115 # Switch to systemd
116 sudo apt install systemd-sysv libpam-systemd
Other sources:
https://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/usual-server-setup/
New account setup
Remote
Locally
Raspberry Pi stuff
1 # Switch from wheezy to testing
2 cd /etc/apt/
3 sed -i 's/wheezy/testing/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
4 #sudo find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/wheezy/testing/g' {} \;
5
6 # Disable tty2–tty6
7 sed -i '/[2-6]:23:respawn:\/sbin\/getty 38400 tty[2-6]/s%^%#%g' /etc/inittab
8 # Disable tty on serial line
9 sed -i '/T0:23:respawn:\/sbin\/getty -L ttyAMA0 115200 vt100/s%^%#%g' /etc/inittab
10
11 # Optimize mounts
12 sed -i 's/defaults,noatime/defaults,noatime,nodiratime/g' /etc/fstab
13
14 # Overclock to 800 Mhz (no overvolting required). Overclocking not forced, but keep it on for the first 2 min during boot
15 echo -e "arm_freq=800\nsdram_freq=400\ncore_freq=300\nforce_turbo=0\ninitial_turbo=120" >> /boot/config.txt
16
17 # Use only 16 MiB for GPU (only run after updating firmware!)
18 echo -e "gpu_mem=16" >> /boot/config.txt
19
20 # Enable IPv6 for Avahi
21 sudo sed -i 's/mdns4_minimal/mdns_minimal/g' /etc/nsswitch.conf
22
23 # Delete default 'pi' user
24 sudo deluser --remove-all-files pi
Some of these are from Raspberry Pi Raspbian tuning / optimising / optimizing for reduced memory usage