Tutorial - Tech Sovereign: Setting up a Private Server

Tech Sovereignty is all about being in control of your own contracts with others. End User Licence Agreements(EULAs) frequently require you to relinquish your personal Sovereignty, but I want to help users to learn technology so that they can take it back.

This post will show you a way you can hire a private server from one of several providers for only a few dollars a month. This private server can then be used for your family or small business for a variety of things such as hard drive backups, cloud storage, running a mumble server for private encrypted chat and hosting your own blogs or website.

I will show you how you can set it up your own server with the company Vultr because they have an option to include startup scripts when you first install, and I will provide you with some startup scripts which should mean that you can install the services above, using the scripts that I provide to you, without you needing to know how to program or touching the command line interface(CLI).

Note you could also use Linode, Digital Ocean or some other provider, but I will show you how to use Vultr. If you use one of the services in this paragraph, please use the links in this paragraph to visit the site, some of these services may give you free credit when you sign up through an affiliate link(Digital Ocean does), so that you can try out the services for free( I also get a bonus if you end up spending money on the service).

This tutorial will only show you how to setup a private server. In future tutorials I will show you how to setup services on these servers.

Start off by going to vultr.com and click Create Account at the top right. Enter your email and password, and verify your account with your email address.

At https://my.vultr.com you should be able to see a screen that looks similar to the one below. You may or may not get the opportunity to get free credit from Tweeting. Take the opportunity if you feel like it.

Next, Navigate to the Servers tab and create a new server. Note, different locations offer different options. At the moment, the New York location offers servers for $2.50 /month. An excellent deal if you don't want to spend money, if you got free credit from tweeting, then you won't have to spend any money at all, you will already have enough credit to run the cheapest server for just over a month.

Select the CentOS operating system, and I recommend choosing the cheapest Server Size available for the purposes of this tutorial.

The Startup Script area allows you to run a custom script when the server first installs. A startup script can be used to install services like NextCloud, Mumble, IPFS, a website or blog or any open source software you can possibly think of. In future tutorials I will provide you with custom scripts to put here so that you can start such services without having to work out how to do it yourself. You can just copy and paste the code I give you into a startup script and it will install everything automatically.

When you have chosen the settings you want, if you would like click Deploy Now at the bottom right of the screen. Because I have not given you a startup script, the server will be blank, and not much use unless you install something on it yourself. So you may wish to wait for me to give you a startup script in the next tutorial before you deploy the server.

If you go ahead and deploy the server, you will need to secure shell(SSH) into the server with the command line, alternatively, there is an online interface you can use to log in, but note: you will need to use the command line interface either way.

Thanks for reading this far. Please let me know if everything was clear, and perhaps which kind of services you would like to have installed on your server in the future. In the next tutorials, I will give you a startup script so you don't need to log in with the CLI unless you wish to do so.