🔧 Ansible VPS Bootstrap

Automate the setup and security hardening of a fresh Ubuntu VPS with a single Ansible-based workflow. This project prepares your server for production by installing Docker, configuring a firewall, creating a non-root user with sudo permissions, and securing SSH.

📦 Features

• 🛠️ System update and package installation
• 🐳 Docker & Docker Compose setup
• 👤 User creation with sudo and Docker group access
• 🔐 SSH hardening (disables root login and password authentication)
• 🔥 UFW firewall configuration (only SSH, HTTP, HTTPS allowed)

📁 Project Structure

.
├── .env                 # Environment variables (need to create this file)
├── inventory.ini        # Ansible inventory file (need to create this file)
├── Makefile             # Simplifies playbook execution
├── scripts/
│   ├── init.yml         # Initial setup: system update, package install, user creation
│   └── setup.yml        # SSH hardening, firewall setup

🧰 Prerequisites

• Ansible installed on your local machine
• A freshly provisioned Ubuntu VPS
• SSH access to the VPS (as root)
• SSH key pair (your public key will be added to the server)
• Hashed password.

⚙️ Usage

🔹 Step 1: Configure Inventory

Edit inventory.ini:

[vps]
ansible_host=<your.server.ip>

[vps:vars]
deploy_user=<your-user-name>

[vps_root:children]
vps

[vps_root:vars]
ansible_ssh_user=root
deploy_passwd=<your-hashed-password>

[vps_deploy:children]
vps

and

Edit .env:

HOST_SERVER=<your-user-name>@<your.server.ip>

Replace <your.server.ip> with your actual VPS IP address. And replace <your-user-name> with your new user name for VPS. Update deploy_passwd with a secure password hash.

---

🔹 Step 2: Bootstrap the Server

Run the following:

make run

Or simply:

make

This will:

1. Update and upgrade the system

2. Install required packages (Docker, Docker Compose, UFW)

3. Create a new user with:

   • sudo access
   • Docker group membership

4. Copy your SSH public key to the new user

5. Harden SSH and apply UFW firewall rules

---

🔹 Step 3: SSH into Your Server

ssh <your-user-name>@<your.server.ip>

You should now be able to SSH using your key. Root login and password-based authentication are disabled for security.

🛡️ Security Overview

Feature	Description
🔒 SSH Root Login	Disabled
🔐 Password Auth	Disabled (uses SSH keys only)
🔥 UFW Rules	Only allows ports 22 (SSH), 80 (HTTP), 443 (HTTPS)
🐳 Docker Access	<your-user-name> added to Docker group

♻️ Reinitialization

To reset and re-run everything:

1. Recreate your VPS (fresh Ubuntu image)
2. Ensure your SSH key is updated
3. Run make run again

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2025 

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction...

[Full license text here if not using LICENSE file directly]

🤝 Contributing

Pull requests and issue reports are welcome! If you want to contribute additional roles (e.g., auto-deploy apps, setup monitoring), feel free to fork or open a discussion.

---

Let me know if you want:

• A LICENSE file generated separately
• Additional playbooks (e.g., automatic Docker app deployment)
• A full CI/CD workflow integrated with GitHub Actions
• Template for deploy_passwd generation using Ansible vault or Jinja

Would you like this packaged into a GitHub repo template format too?