title: How to Provision Ubuntu 16.04 Linux Servers on Linode

slug: provision-ubuntu-linux-servers-linode

meta: Learn to provision Ubuntu 16.04 LTS servers on Linode for your web applications.

category: post

date: 2017-09-20

modified: 2017-09-20

headerimage: /img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/header.jpg

headeralt: Ubuntu Linux logo, copyright Canonical Ltd. and Linode logo.

Your live web application must be [deployed](/deployment.html) and run

somewhere other than your local

[development environment](/development-environments.html). That deployment

location is known as a "production environment" and it is built out of

one or more [servers](/servers.html).

Let's learn how to provision an [Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS](/ubuntu.html)

[virtual private server (VPS)](/virtual-private-servers-vps.html) on Linode

that can be used for production or development purposes.

We need a Linode account to provision a server, so start by pointing your

web browser to [Linode.com](https://www.linode.com/). Their

landing page will look something like the following image.

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/linode-landing-page.jpg" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" width="100%">

[Sign up](https://manager.linode.com/session/signup) for an account.

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/linode-sign-up.png" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" style="border:1px solid #ccc" width="100%">

You should receive an email for account confirmation. Fill out the

appropriate information and add initial credit to your account. If you

want to enter a referral code, mine is

`bfeecaf55a83cd3dd224a5f2a3a001fdf95d4c3d`. Your account will go for

a quick review to ensure you are not a malicious spam bot and then

your account will be fully activated.

Once your account is activated refresh the page. The new page will allow

you to add a Linode instance.

Provisioning a server for $5 or $10/month (depending on

how much memory and storage you want) is more than enough for small-scale

Python web applications.

Select the 1024 option and the data center location of your choice. I chose

Newark, NJ because I grew up in northern NJ and otherwise the location is not

important for my deployment. If your most of your users are located in a

specific region then you should select the data center location closest to

them.

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/select-instance.jpg" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" style="border:1px solid #ccc" width="100%">

Click the "Add this Linode!" button and a dashboard will appear that

shows the Linode is being provisioned.

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/dashboard.jpg" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" style="border:1px solid #ccc" width="100%">

Refresh the page and look for the status to change to "Brand New." Write

down or copy the IP address as it will be needed later to SSH into the

server, then click on the name of the Linode. A page will appear to

show more information about your new virtual private server.

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/dashboard-provisioned.jpg" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" style="border:1px solid #ccc" width="100%">

Click the "Rebuild" link.

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/rebuild.jpg" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" style="border:1px solid #ccc" width="100%">

Select Ubuntu 16.04, which is the current Long Term Support (LTS) release

and has a 5 year support lifecycle. This version will receive security

updates until April 2021 as shown on the

[Ubuntu wiki page for LTS releases](https://www.ubuntu.com/info/release-end-of-life).

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/ubuntu-lts-releases.jpg" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" style="border:1px solid #ccc" width="100%">

Enter a root password. Make sure you type the password in carefully and

remember it! The password will be needed when you log into the server

as the root user. The "Deployment Disk Size" and "Swap Disk" can be left as

their default values.

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/deploy-distribution.png" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" style="border:1px solid #ccc" width="100%">

When the build process begins Linode will send us back to our server's

dashboard page. The progress bars will show the status and in a couple of

minutes the server will be ready to boot up.

Click the "Boot" button and the Ubuntu boot process will get started.

Booting should take less than a minute. Bring up your local command line

as we will need it to connect to the remote machine.

<img src="/img/170920-provision-ubuntu-linode/boot.jpg" class="technical-diagram img-rounded" style="border:1px solid #ccc" width="100%">

SSH into your server with `ssh root@{ip.address.here}` where

`{ip.address.here}` is your server's IP address, which can be found on the

Linode dashboard. For example, if your new Linode's IP address

is 66.175.209.129, you'll enter `ssh root@66.175.209.129`.

You'll likely receive a prompt like the following warning. This prompt

states that you've never connected to this server before and it asks if

you are sure that this host's signature matches the server on which you

intend to connect. Enter `yes` then enter the root password you created

during the earlier Linode server provisioning step.

The authenticity of host '66.175.209.192 (66.175.209.192)' can't be established.

or [@mattmakai](https://twitter.com/mattmakai). I'm also on GitHub with

the username [mattmakai](https://github.com/mattmakai).

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