Debian-Based Server Setup

Debian 12 with Desktop

Run update and upgrade distro first. Install NTP package is there are errors with that. Reboot

Setup powertop and powersaving features

apt install powertop
powertop --auto-tune

Powersave governor and at reboot. Remember to run the command again

@reboot echo "powersave" | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor >/dev/null 2>&1

Ensure these packages are installed

powertop htop ctop iotop fio curl gnupg wget ntfs-3g neofetch ca-certificates lsb-release hdparm openssh-server

HDD

lsblk and blkid to get the ntfs hard drive /dev name and the /dev/by-uuid/...

Edit the fstab to mount the drive, same entry for nvme drive

UUID=CC34294F34293E38 /mnt/data ntfs-3g 0 0

If the mounted device is HDD array, need to spindown disk with hdparm

hdparm -B 120 /dev/sdb # set the APM level
hdparm -S 241 /dev/sdb

For the -S spindown, 0-240 is multiple of 5s, 241-255 is multiple of 30 min. The above command set spindown every 30min.

Sudo without password, go to visudo and add the lines to the bottom

$USER ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Edit shortcuts in bashrc

alias ll='ls -lah'
alias la='ls -A'
alias l='ls -CF'

source .bashrc

OpenSSH with Keys

Open Putty software and generate a key

1. Copy the red part and use nano to add it in the server ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
2. Make sure permissions are correct

3. mkdir -p ~/.ssh
   chmod 700 ~/.ssh
   chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
   nano ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

4. Save private key as ppk file on the root ssh folder.
5. Convert the private key Conversion > Export OpenSSH Keys and save the file to a folder OpenSSH Keys