Creating a ssh key

Creating an ed25519 key pair for SSH in Linux is straightforward. Follow these steps:

1. Open a Terminal

Open a terminal on your Linux system.

2. Generate the Key Pair

Use the ssh-keygen command to create an ed25519 key. Run the following command:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

Replace "your_email@example.com" with an appropriate label for the key. This is optional and typically used to identify the key.

3. Specify File Location

When prompted to specify a file to save the key:

• Press Enter to save it in the default location (~/.ssh/id_ed25519), or
• Specify a different path if needed.

4. Set a Passphrase (Optional)

You’ll be asked to enter a passphrase. This adds an extra layer of security.

• Leave it empty for no passphrase (not recommended for security reasons), or
• Set a strong passphrase.

5. Key Generation Complete

Once complete, the keys will be saved in the specified location. You should see output like this:

Your identification has been saved in /home/username/.ssh/id_ed25519
Your public key has been saved in /home/username/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Gits History

History of Git

Git, a distributed version control system, has a fascinating history rooted in open-source software development. Its journey reflects innovation and the needs of large-scale collaborative projects.

Origins

Before Git, version control systems like CVS (Concurrent Versions System) and SVN (Subversion) dominated the scene. These systems were centralized, which posed significant challenges for large, distributed projects.

The Linux kernel project initially relied on a proprietary system called BitKeeper, which allowed for distributed workflows crucial for the globally spread Linux developer community.

The Creation of Git (2005)

The BitKeeper Conflict

In 2005, the relationship between the Linux community and BitKeeper’s creator, Larry McVoy, broke down. As a result, the Linux kernel project lost access to BitKeeper.

A New Solution

Faced with this challenge, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, decided to develop a new system with the following goals:

• Distributed: Each developer has the complete history of the project.
• Fast: Efficient performance for large-scale repositories.
• Scalable: Suitable for massive projects like the Linux kernel.
• Free and Open-Source: Accessible to everyone.

Thus, Git was born in April 2005. The name “Git” was humorously chosen by Linus as a self-deprecating term.

Early Features of Git

1. Snapshots, Not Deltas
   Unlike other systems that stored changes (deltas), Git stored snapshots of the entire project tree, enabling faster and more efficient operations.

2. Distributed Model
   Every Git clone is a complete repository with the project’s entire history.

3. Lightweight Branching
   Git introduced efficient branching and merging, allowing developers to work on multiple features without disrupting the main codebase.

Evolution and Adoption

Under Junio Hamano

Linus handed over Git’s maintenance to Junio Hamano in mid-2005. Hamano has overseen Git’s evolution, ensuring its stability and adding features.

Widespread Adoption

By the late 2000s:

• Git became popular among open-source projects like GNOME and KDE.
• Platforms like GitHub (launched in 2008) simplified its use, accelerating adoption.

Git in the Modern Era

• DevOps Integration: Git is central to modern workflows, supporting CI/CD pipelines.
• Extensions and Tools: Innovations like Git LFS (Large File Storage) and GUI clients extend its capabilities.
• Community: Git’s vibrant ecosystem of users and contributors continues to grow.

Legacy

Git revolutionized version control with its efficiency, flexibility, and scalability. It’s now the de facto standard for software development, empowering collaboration across projects of all sizes.

Whether it’s a small hobby project or an enterprise-level application, Git plays a pivotal role in modern development.

Creating a Droplet on DigitalOcean

Deploying a Virtual Private Server (VPS) isn’t as hard as it might seem. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the process of setting up a server correctly. I’ll be using Pop!_OS (built on Ubuntu) for my main computer and Ubuntu Server for my VPS. For this tutorial, I’ve chosen DigitalOcean as my VPS provider.

Step 1: Set Up a DigitalOcean Account

Start by creating an account on DigitalOcean. It’s a simple process, and with my referral link, you’ll receive $200 in credit to use on DigitalOcean for 60 days.

Step 2: Generate an SSH Key

You’ll need an SSH key for secure authentication. If you don’t already have one, follow These instructions to create an SSH key.

Step 3: Create a Droplet

Once your account is set up, navigate to the DigitalOcean dashboard and click on Create > Droplets. DigitalOcean refers to their VPS instances as “Droplets.”

Select Data Center

Choose a data center closest to you or your target audience.

Choose an Image

Select Ubuntu 24.10 x64 as your operating system.

Choose a Plan

For small websites, the $4/month plan is sufficient. This plan includes:

• 1 CPU
• 512 MB of RAM
• 10 GB SSD
• 500 GB of transfer bandwidth

If your needs grow, you can always upgrade later.

Authentication Method

Use SSH key authentication—it’s more secure than using a password. To add your SSH key:

1. Open a terminal on your main desktop and run the following command:

   cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

   

2. Copy the output starting with ssh-ed25519 and ending with your email address.

3. Paste it into the New SSH Key section on the DigitalOcean dashboard, name it, and click Add SSH Key.
   

Step 4: Finalize and Create Your Droplet

Scroll down, change the hostname to something meaningful, and click Create Droplet.

What’s Next?

Congratulations! You’ve successfully created your first Droplet. Now, you can begin configuring it for your specific needs.

Setting Up and Securing Your Ubuntu Server

Introduction

DigitalOcean provides the option to configure your own VPS server. Now that your server is set up, it’s time to connect and secure it. Follow these steps to get started:

Step 1: Connect to Your Server

First, get the IP address of your new server. Then, open a terminal and type the following command:

ssh root@{ip_address_of_the_server}

Press Enter.

The first time you connect, you’ll see a prompt asking if you want to continue. Type yes and press Enter.

Step 2: Update Your System

Once connected, update your server to ensure it’s secure by running the following commands:

apt update && apt upgrade -y

This will apply all updates to your server. You should run this command regularly (weekly or monthly). If the updates include a kernel update, reboot the server with:

reboot

Wait a minute or two for the server to restart, then reconnect using the same ssh command as before.

Step 3: Create a New User

For security, avoid logging in as the root user. Create a new user with the following command:

adduser chris

Replace chris with your desired username. Follow the prompts to set a password and skip additional questions by pressing Enter multiple times. Confirm the information at the end by pressing Enter again.

Next, add the new user to the sudo group:

usermod -aG sudo chris

Replace chris with your username.

Step 4: Configure SSH Keys

Copy your SSH public key to the new user’s home directory:

cp -r ~/.ssh /home/chris/.ssh

Update the ownership of the .ssh directory:

sudo chown -R chris:chris /home/chris/.ssh

Test logging in as the new user:

ssh chris@{ip_address_of_the_server}

Step 5: Disable Root SSH Login

Open the SSH configuration file:

sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Find the line PermitRootLogin yes and change it to PermitRootLogin no. Press i to edit, make the change, then press ESC and type :wq to save and exit.

Restart the SSH service to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart sshd

Step 6: Set Up a Firewall

To block unwanted traffic, configure the Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW):

1. Deny all incoming traffic:

   sudo ufw default deny incoming

   

2. Allow all outgoing traffic:

   sudo ufw default allow outgoing

   

3. Allow SSH connections:

   sudo ufw allow OpenSSH

   

4. Verify the rules:

   sudo ufw show added

   

5. Enable the firewall:

   sudo ufw enable

   Press y to confirm.

   

Conclusion

Your server is now secure and configured to allow only SSH connections. Regularly update your server and monitor firewall settings to maintain security.

What is docker

In recent years, the use of Docker has skyrocketed in popularity, especially within the development community. Docker is an open-source containerization platform that simplifies the process of building, deploying, and managing applications. It provides a lightweight, portable, and self-sufficient runtime environment that can run on any machine. In this article, we will dive deep into Docker, its components, how it works, and its benefits.

Understanding Docker Architecture

Docker architecture comprises several components that work together to provide a complete containerization solution. Here are the key components of Docker:

Docker Daemon: It is the core component of Docker that runs in the background and manages the container’s lifecycle.

Docker Client: It is the command-line tool that interacts with the Docker daemon to create, run, and manage containers.

Docker Images: They are read-only templates that contain all the necessary files and configurations to run an application.

Docker Containers: They are the runtime instances of Docker images.

Docker Registry: It is a centralized repository that stores Docker images, making them available for sharing and distribution.

How Does Docker Work?

Docker uses a client-server architecture where the Docker daemon runs on the host machine and listens for Docker client requests. The Docker client communicates with the daemon via a REST API, and the daemon performs the requested actions, such as creating or deleting containers.

Docker uses a layered filesystem that allows multiple Docker images to share a common base image. The base image is read-only, and every subsequent layer is writeable. When a new container is created, a new writable layer is added on top of the base image layer. This allows the container to modify files without affecting the base image or other containers.

Docker Benefits

Portability: Docker containers are lightweight and portable, making them easy to move across different environments, such as development, testing, and production.

Isolation: Docker containers provide a high degree of isolation, allowing multiple applications to run on the same machine without interfering with each other.

Scalability: Docker containers can be scaled up or down quickly and easily to meet changing demands.

Resource Efficiency: Docker containers are lightweight and use fewer resources compared to traditional virtual machines, making them more efficient.

Consistency: Docker containers ensure that the application runs consistently across different environments, reducing the risk of errors and inconsistencies.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1. How is Docker different from virtual machines?

A1. Docker containers are lightweight and share the same host kernel, while virtual machines require a separate operating system kernel for each instance.

Q2. Can Docker run on Windows and macOS?

A2. Yes, Docker can run on Windows and macOS using Docker Desktop, which provides a native Docker experience on these platforms.

Q3. How can I share my Docker images with others?

A3. You can push your Docker images to a public or private Docker registry, such as Docker Hub or Amazon ECR, and share the image tag with others.

Q4. How can I debug my Docker containers?

A4. You can use Docker’s logging and debugging features, such as docker logs and docker exec, to diagnose and fix issues with your containers.

Q5. How can I ensure the security of my Docker containers?

A5. You can follow Docker’s best practices for container security, such as limiting container privileges, using trusted base images, and regularly updating your Docker images and containers.

Install docker and portainer

Docker is a popular platform for building, shipping, and running distributed applications. Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. Portainer is a management tool for Docker that makes it easy to manage your containers, images, networks, and volumes. In this article, we’ll show you how to install these tools on a Linux server.

Prerequisites

Before we get started, make sure that you have a Linux server set up and that you have administrative access to that server.

Updating the Package Index

Before installing Docker, it is important to update the package index on your server. You can do this by running the following command:

sudo apt-get update

Installing Docker CE

Next, we’ll install Docker CE (Community Edition) by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install docker-ce

Starting the Docker Daemon

Once the installation is complete, we need to start the Docker daemon by running the following command:

sudo systemctl start docker

Installing Docker Compose

To install Docker Compose, we need to download the latest version of the binary and make it executable. We can do this by running the following commands:

sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.27.4/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Verifying the Docker and Docker Compose Installations

To verify that the Docker and Docker Compose installations were successful, we can run the following commands:

docker --version
docker-compose --version

Installing Portainer

To install Portainer, we can run the following command:

docker run -d -p 9000:9000 -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock portainer/portainer

This command will download the Portainer image and run a container based on that image, exposing Portainer on port 9000.

Accessing Portainer

Once the Portainer container is running, we can access the Portainer web interface by opening a web browser and navigating to http://your_server_ip:9000. We should see the Portainer login screen.

Conclusion

In this article, we showed you how to install Docker, Docker Compose, and Portainer on a Linux server. You can now start using Docker to build, ship, and run your applications, and use Portainer to manage your Docker environment.

I hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below. Thank you for reading!

Dropbox Vs Syncthing

In the video below I will explain the differnece between Dropbox and Syncthing. It will explain why I went with syncthing.

Install syncthing on linux

Step 1 add Syncthing repo to apt sources

Syncthing isn’t available to install using the default repo. So the first step is adding syncthing repo to our apt sources so we can install it on our computer. We need to open up a terminal and run the following command.

echo "deb https://apt.syncthing.net/ syncthing stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncthing.list

Step 2 Installing curl

We must ensure we have curl installed to install the syncthing PGP key. All we need to do is the following command.

sudo apt install curl

If it is already installed, you will get this message

If you need to install it, your screen will look like this one.

Step 3 – Add syncthing’s PGP Keys

The next step we need to do Is add the synching repo PGP key to our apt keys. Without this, apt will not trust synching repo and will not install syncthing.

curl -s https://syncthing.net/release-key.txt | sudo apt-key add -

You should see the following if you added it correctly.

Step 4 – Update apt’s database

We need to update the download package information from synching and your other sources on your computer. We do that by running the sudo apt update.

sudo apt update

Step 5 – Installing Syncthing

We finally get to install Syncthing on Linux. We just need to type the command below and press enter.

sudo apt install syncthing

Step 6 – Enable the Syncthing service

Now we got syncthing installed; we need to enable syncthing to start at boot using the systemctl command. But make sure you replace the username with your user name in the following order. But please don’t use root. It is a security issue.

sudo systemctl enable syncthing@username.service

Step 7 – Start syncthing service up

Let’s start syncthing up for the first time by running this command below. Make sure you change the user name to your user name.

sudo systemctl start syncthing@username.service

(Optional) setting syncthing so you can remotely connect to it

If you want to configure syncthing from another computer, you must change one line in the config file to allow access. It would be best if you had an editor. In this example, I am going to be using pico.

sudo pico .config/syncthing/config.xml

Need to find 127.0.0.1:8384 It is under the . We need to change it from 127.0.0.1:8384 to 0.0.0.0:8384 (/images/syncthing/linux/changeipaddress.webp)

Then we need to restart the syncthing service by running this command. Make sure you change the username to your username again

sudo systemctl restart syncthing@username.service

Installing Syncthing on windows

To Install Syncthing on Windows there are two ways of installing it. One is with synctrazor which I will walkthrough below. It also comes with the benefit of having a GUI(Graphical User Interface).

1. Download Synctrazor

The first step is to download Synctrazor. You can download it from the following link.

https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor/#installation`

When you go to the page you need to click on Download SyncTrayzorSetup-x64.exe. This will download the executable file.

When you go to that page you need to click on Download SyncTrayzorSetup-x64.exe. (/images/syncthing/windows/download.webp#center)

After you click on that link it will take you to this page and then you will click on SyncTrayzorSetup-x64.exe or SyncTrayzorSetup-x86.exe. Most people will want to use the x64 version if they have a computer with windows7,8, 10, or 11.

2. Install Synctrazor

Just click on the executable file and it will install Synctrazor. It will pop up a warning message. This is because synctrayzorsetup isn’t signed by a known publisher of Microsoft. The software is fine to use but it is not a trusted source. So we need to click on the Yes button. (/images/syncthing/windows/accesscontrol.webp#center)

The rest is just pressing next to you click on finish. If you want to watch me do it you can watch the video above.