What should I do after my VPS is delivered?

After the delivery of your KVM VPS, you receive the IP address and the login details by email. Complete these basic steps right away.

1. Log in via SSH

From Windows (PowerShell), macOS or Linux, connect with:

ssh root@your-server-ip

2. Change the password immediately

The initial password was sent by email, so change it right away:

passwd

Choose a long, unique password that you do not use anywhere else.

3. Install updates

On Debian and Ubuntu, update the system with:

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Repeat this regularly, or set up automatic security updates with the unattended-upgrades package.

4. Set up a firewall

With ufw you only allow the traffic you actually need:

apt install ufw
ufw allow OpenSSH (important, otherwise you lock yourself out)
Allow any other services, for example ufw allow 80/tcp and ufw allow 443/tcp for a web server
ufw enable

5. Use SSH keys

SSH keys are more secure than passwords. Create a key pair on your own computer with ssh-keygen and copy the public key to the VPS with ssh-copy-id root@your-server-ip. Once logging in with the key works, disable password login by setting PasswordAuthentication no in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and restarting SSH with systemctl restart ssh.

That covers the basics. Questions about your VPS? Reach us through a support ticket or Discord, available daily from 10:00 to 22:00.

Tip: check out our HostValues view our VPS hosting plans for a fully managed server.