Server Setup and DevOps Services for Secure, Reliable Deployments

Hostinger

Shared hosting, cloud hosting, domains, email services, and self-managed VPS. Provisioning, dashboard access, hostnames, domains, SSH, SSL, operating systems, backups, firewalls, Docker, and application installation.

Bluehost

Shared hosting, cPanel, WHM, domains, mailboxes, DNS, and VPS. Administration through portal, WHM, cPanel, and command-line access depending on the selected plan.

VPSBG

Cloud servers including Linux, applications, security, migrations, and Docker-based environments. Bulgarian cloud hosting focused on cloud servers, Linux systems, networks, and hosting infrastructure.

GoDaddy

Domains, DNS, shared hosting, cPanel, Plesk, WHM, email, SSL, and VPS. OS selection, SSH, cPanel/WHM or Plesk, backups, monitoring, and managed or self-managed options.

Hetzner

Hetzner Cloud servers, networking, firewalls, storage, snapshots, backups, Docker, databases, and production applications. Configurable virtual servers with primary IPs, firewalls, volumes, backups, and snapshots.

Vercel

Next.js and supported web applications: domains, environment variables, Git-based deployments, preview and production releases, redirects, caching, and deployment troubleshooting.

Infrastructure Discovery

Determines whether the project needs shared hosting, managed hosting, VPS, cloud, serverless, containers, multiple servers, managed databases, or external email.

• Website or application, technology stack, traffic, databases, storage, and email requirements
• Background jobs, regions, security needs, current provider, costs, and existing errors
• Development team, deployment process, and backup requirements

Hosting and Provider Assessment

The lowest-cost server is not always the most economical choice when maintenance, downtime, and migration work are considered.

• CPU, RAM, storage, traffic, network location, control panel, and root access
• Docker support, backups, scaling, support quality, cost, email, and application compatibility

Shared Hosting Setup

Shared hosting may suit small business sites, content sites, WordPress, landing pages, and lightweight PHP apps—not extensive Docker or full OS control.

• Domain, DNS, cPanel or custom panel, website files, PHP, databases, and email
• SSL, backups, cron jobs, WordPress, file permissions, and redirects

VPS Provisioning

Server size should be based on real application requirements rather than guessing from traffic alone.

• Server plan, region, operating system, IPv4/IPv6, hostname, and SSH keys
• Root access, firewall, backups, storage, private network, labels, and rescue options

Linux Operating-System Setup

Initial configuration for Ubuntu, Debian, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, and other provider-supported distributions.

• Package updates, locale, time zone, hostname, users, SSH, and firewall
• Automatic security updates, swap, time sync, log rotation, and required repositories

Server Version and Lifecycle Planning

Production should normally use stable supported releases rather than untested pre-release versions.

• OS, runtime, Docker, database, web-server, and application versions
• Support lifecycle, upgrade dependencies, end-of-life risks, and team experience

Server User and Permission Setup

Daily administration should not depend entirely on unrestricted root access.

• Separate users for administrators, developers, deployment, applications, databases, backups, and monitoring
• Sudo access, groups, home directories, shell restrictions, ownership, service accounts, and SSH keys

SSH Configuration

SSH access is tested before restricting existing login methods to avoid locking the customer out.

• SSH keys, key-only login, root and password controls, allowed users, and session timeouts
• Connection logging, port review, brute-force protection, and recovery access

Firewall Configuration

Rules may exist at provider, OS, Docker, Cloudflare, and application levels—kept as narrow as practical.

• Allowed traffic for SSH, HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, email, databases, monitoring, and app ports
• Hosting-provider, OS, Docker, Cloudflare, and application-level rule coordination

Brute-Force and Intrusion Protection

Security controls are tested so they do not block legitimate administrators, integrations, or automated deployments.

• Login-attempt limits, Fail2ban, SSH monitoring, and web-server limits
• Administrative-route protection, IP restrictions, cloud firewall, Cloudflare controls, and alerts

Web Server Setup

Nginx, Apache, Caddy, reverse proxy, provider-managed, or application-server configuration.

• Domains, virtual hosts, HTTPS, redirects, proxying, compression, and caching
• Static files, upload and request limits, headers, logs, and error pages

Reverse Proxy Configuration

Routes traffic to Next.js, Node.js, PHP, Laravel, Docker containers, APIs, WebSockets, admin panels, and monitoring tools.

• Hostname and path routing, TLS termination, upstream services, and timeouts
• Headers, WebSockets, health checks, and load distribution

PHP Server Setup

Supports WordPress, WooCommerce, Laravel, and custom PHP applications.

• PHP version, PHP-FPM, extensions, memory, upload, and execution limits
• Process pools, error reporting, production logging, Composer, queue workers, and cron jobs

Node.js Runtime Setup

Runtime versions are pinned or documented to reduce differences between environments.

• Node.js version, npm/pnpm/Yarn/Bun, process manager, and environment variables
• Build process, application user, logs, memory limits, and restart behaviour

Python Runtime Setup

Where required for application servers, workers, and reverse-proxy integration.

• Python version, virtual environments, package management, and application server
• Background workers, environment variables, dependencies, logs, and restart policies

Database Setup

MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, SQLite where appropriate, and provider-managed databases.

• Database creation, users, passwords, permissions, network access, and character sets
• Time zone, connection limits, backups, index review, and logging

Database Security

Public database ports are not opened without a documented operational reason.

• Local-only access, private networks, firewall rules, dedicated users, and limited privileges
• Strong credentials, TLS where required, backup encryption, and access logging

Database Migration

Export, integrity and encoding review, import, connection update, testing, record checks, and rollback copy.

• MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, WordPress, ecommerce, and application databases
• Export, integrity review, encoding, import, users, connection update, and rollback copy

Docker Engine Installation

Official package repositories are generally preferable to manually installed static production binaries.

• Docker repository, Engine, CLI, container runtime, and build tools
• Compose plugin, user permissions, daemon configuration, logging, and storage location

Docker Version Management

Avoid automatically upgrading production without checking application, Compose, storage, network, and restart impact.

• Stable-channel selection, version pinning, upgrade and release-note review, and staging testing
• Backup before upgrade, daemon restart planning, compatibility checks, and rollback procedure

Docker Compose Setup

Multi-service stacks for web, API, database, Redis, queue, scheduler, reverse proxy, monitoring, and backups.

• Images, builds, networks, volumes, environment variables, and health checks
• Restart policies, resource limits, dependencies, and logging

Docker Image Versioning

Avoid relying permanently on unrestricted tags such as latest for critical production releases.

• Semantic versions, Git commit hashes, release numbers, build numbers, and image digests
• Environment tags and identifiable production release references

Dockerfile Development and Review

Multi-stage builds may separate build dependencies from the production runtime.

• Base image, runtime version, dependency installation, build stages, and non-root users
• File permissions, production dependencies, health checks, startup command, size, and cache efficiency

Container Security Review

Containers should not receive unrestricted host access unless there is a specific, reviewed requirement.

• Root execution, exposed ports, unnecessary packages, secrets, and writable filesystems
• Volume permissions, image source, vulnerability updates, privileged mode, and Docker socket exposure

Docker Networking

Internal databases and services can remain unavailable from the public internet while accessible to approved containers.

• Networks for web, API, database, Redis, reverse proxy, queue workers, and internal tools
• Isolation between public traffic and private service communication

Docker Volumes and Persistent Data

Containers may be temporary, but important business data must persist outside the replaceable filesystem.

• Persistent storage for databases, uploads, application files, logs, certificates, and backups

Container Health Checks

HTTP response, database connection, process state, dependency availability, ports, and status endpoints.

• Health checks for web, API, database, queue, worker, and reverse-proxy services

Container Logs

Uncontrolled container logs can consume the full server disk.

• Application and error output, rotation, driver, retention, and central collection
• Disk-usage controls and sensitive-data exposure review

Development, Staging and Production Environments

Production credentials should not be copied casually into development systems.

• Development, preview, staging, and production with separate domains and databases
• Separate environment variables, credentials, analytics, and restricted staging access

Environment Variable Management

Secrets should not be committed to public source-code repositories.

• Database credentials, API keys, application URLs, email, and authentication secrets
• Payment keys, analytics IDs, storage configuration, and feature flags

Secret Management

Hosting panel, Vercel env vars, protected server files, Docker secrets, CI/CD secrets, or cloud secret managers.

• Secret owner, environment, usage, rotation responsibility, and recovery process

Git Repository Setup

GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or customer-approved repositories.

• Repository ownership, branches, access, protection rules, and pull requests
• Releases, tags, deployment keys, and webhooks

CI/CD Pipeline Setup

Automation should stop the release when required checks fail.

• Checkout, dependencies, type checking, linting, testing, and production build
• Docker image build/push, staging and production deploy, migrations, health checks, and notifications

GitHub Actions Deployment

Credentials are stored through protected repository or environment secrets.

• Build applications and Docker images, deploy through SSH, and publish images
• Run tests, clear caches, restart containers, run migrations, and notify the team

Vercel Project Setup

Framework-aware web deployment with preview and production environments.

• Project, Git connection, framework settings, build command, output, and Node.js version
• Environment variables, preview deployments, production branch, domains, redirects, headers, and logs

Vercel Environment Management

Prevents test deployments using production databases, real email, live payments, or sensitive preview exposure.

• Separated development, preview, and production values
• Controls for databases, email, analytics, payments, and public preview URLs

Domain and DNS Setup

Hostinger, Bluehost, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Hetzner, Vercel, registrar, or external email provider.

• A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, CAA, SRV, DKIM, SPF, DMARC, and verification records

SSL/TLS Setup

Let's Encrypt, hosting-provider, Cloudflare, Vercel, origin, or commercial certificates.

• Certificate issuance, domain validation, renewal, and full certificate chain
• HTTPS redirects, subdomain and wildcard coverage, and mixed-content review

Reverse Proxy SSL Termination

TLS termination behind Nginx, Caddy, Cloudflare, or another proxy.

• Upstream HTTP or HTTPS, forwarded headers, real visitor IP, and WebSocket support
• Certificate renewal and redirect behaviour

Professional Email Provider Setup

Avoid leaving conflicting MX records from multiple providers active simultaneously.

• Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Titan, cPanel, hosting-provider, or approved platforms
• Mailboxes, aliases, forwarding, MX/SPF/DKIM/DMARC, autodiscovery, clients, and testing

Self-Hosted Email Server Assessment

For many businesses, managed email provides lower operational risk.

• Business requirements, mailbox count, sending volume, recipients, and IP reputation
• Provider restrictions, reverse DNS, maintenance capacity, spam filtering, and backups

Self-Hosted Mail Server Setup

Components are selected according to the project rather than installing an unnecessarily complex stack.

• Mail hostname, SMTP/IMAP, mailboxes, TLS, authentication, and spam filtering
• Queue management, webmail, storage, backups, and monitoring

Email DNS Authentication

Helps recipient systems understand which servers are authorized to send mail for the domain.

• MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, reverse DNS, mail hostname, and verification records

Reverse DNS and Mail Hostname

Reverse DNS is commonly controlled through the VPS or cloud provider rather than the ordinary DNS zone.

• Alignment between server IP, PTR, mail hostname, forward DNS, SMTP greeting, and certificate

Email Deliverability Testing

No implementation can guarantee inbox placement because recipient systems use their own filtering models.

• Sending, receiving, authentication, TLS, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and reverse DNS
• Spam-folder indicators, bounce behaviour, queue status, and common mailbox providers

Transactional Email Setup

Application-generated mail should use a monitored sender and clear bounce-handling process.

• SMTP, email API, hosting mail, or approved third-party provider
• Form confirmations, password resets, orders, bookings, verification, alerts, and notifications

Website Form Email Troubleshooting

Diagnose delivery failures across SMTP, DNS, hosting, plugins, and queues.

• Messages not arriving, spam placement, incorrect sender domain, and SMTP authentication
• PHP mail, DNS, hosting restrictions, plugin config, API errors, queue delays, and form failures

Backup Architecture

Define what must be backed up across application and infrastructure layers.

• Website files, databases, Docker volumes, uploads, configuration, and environment files
• Mailboxes, DNS inventory, SSL material, application data, and Git repositories where needed

Server Backups and Snapshots

Provider backups, snapshots, or external processes—volumes may need separate consideration.

• Frequency, retention, location, encryption, cost, recovery time, and responsible owner

Database Backups

A backup that has never been restored in testing is not fully validated.

• Full dump, compressed storage, scheduled execution, retention, and off-server copy
• Integrity checks, access permissions, and failure notifications

Docker Volume Backups

Account for consistency while services are writing data.

• Database data, uploaded files, application state, configuration, certificates, and queue data

Backup Restore Testing

Document restoration for files, databases, volumes, full servers, snapshots, and disaster recovery.

• Credentials, dependencies, DNS, application start, validation, and data checks

Monitoring Setup

Uptime, HTTP, SSL, CPU, RAM, disk, load, database, Docker, app health, email, backups, and queues.

• Resource, service, certificate, and application-health monitoring coverage

Alerting

Email, Slack, Telegram, monitoring platform, or provider notifications.

• What failed, which environment, when it began, expected action, and whether recovery occurred

Log Management

Web server, application, database, auth, firewall, Docker, email, scheduled tasks, deployment, and backups.

• Rotation, retention, compression, search, central storage, access control, and sensitive-data review

Disk-Space Management

Automated cleanup is configured carefully so it does not remove required production data.

• Logs, Docker images, unused containers, database files, backups, uploads, caches, temp files, and mail queues

Docker Resource Cleanup

Volumes are treated carefully because they may contain persistent business data.

• Unused images, containers, networks, build cache, and volumes

Cron Jobs and Scheduled Tasks

Backups, reports, imports, sitemaps, queues, cache cleanup, certificates, maintenance, email, and monitoring.

• User, schedule, working directory, environment, output, error logging, locking, and failure notification

Queue and Worker Management

Email delivery, image processing, imports, reports, notifications, webhooks, and data synchronization.

• Queue service, worker processes, concurrency, restart behaviour, timeouts, and retry policy
• Failed-job storage, logs, and monitoring

Application Process Management

Restart after reboot, failure, deployment, or dependency recovery—without endless restart loops.

• Docker restart policies, systemd, process manager, Supervisor, or platform-managed runtime

Zero-Downtime and Low-Downtime Deployment Planning

Complete zero-downtime deployment is not practical for every application or budget.

• Health checks, rolling restart, multiple instances, reverse-proxy switching, and blue-green deployment
• Versioned containers, database migration strategy, and maintenance windows

Rollback Planning

Database changes require care because application rollback may not reverse migrated data.

• Previous Git release, Docker image, Vercel deployment, server snapshot, database backup, and config restore
• Traffic switch and known-working-state recovery

Website and Server Migration

Migrate between Hostinger, Bluehost, GoDaddy, VPSBG, Hetzner, Vercel, shared hosting, VPS, and Docker servers.

• Files, database, environment variables, email, DNS, SSL, cron jobs, containers, redirects, backups, and testing

Email Migration

Old email environment may remain active temporarily during DNS transition to reduce missed messages.

• Mailboxes, aliases, forwarders, DNS, historical messages, mail clients, authentication, and cutover testing

DNS Cutover Planning

DNS migration should not change unrelated records without a documented reason.

• TTL review, old and new servers, mail, website, APIs, CDN, and verification records
• Rollback values and propagation monitoring

Cloudflare Integration

Coordinate server infrastructure with Cloudflare DNS, proxy, SSL/TLS, CDN, cache, firewall, bots, and redirects.

• DNS, proxying, SSL/TLS, CDN, cache, firewall, rate limiting, bot controls, redirects, and origin protection

Server Performance Optimization

Distinguish infrastructure limitations from application-code problems.

• CPU, memory, disk, I/O, network, web server, PHP, Node.js, database, cache, Docker, and API latency

Scaling Assessment

Scaling should respond to measured bottlenecks rather than assumptions.

• Larger or additional servers, managed database, load balancer, CDN, and read replicas
• Object storage, queue separation, worker servers, caching, and horizontal scaling

Server Hardening

Package updates, restricted ports, SSH keys, limited users, firewall, and secret protection.

• Sudo controls, brute-force protection, secure permissions, service removal, and automatic security updates
• Logging and backup controls

Dependency and Patch Management

Updates may be tested in staging before production deployment.

• OS, Docker, runtime, database, web server, application, CMS, plugins, libraries, and monitoring tools

Security Incident Preparation

Basic response procedures for compromised accounts, leaked keys, malware, abuse, and failed deployments.

• Access revocation, secret rotation, server isolation, log preservation, and restore
• DNS change, customer notification responsibilities, and specialist escalation

Infrastructure Documentation

Document the final setup for long-term ownership and maintenance.

• Provider, server, region, OS, users, SSH, firewall, domains, DNS, SSL, and web server
• Runtimes, Docker, containers, volumes, networks, databases, email, backups, monitoring, and deployment

Version Inventory

Helps identify outdated or unsupported components.

• OS, kernel, Docker Engine, Compose, Node.js, PHP, Python, database, Nginx/Apache, and application release
• Container image versions

Team Handover

Explain how the customer or technical team operates the infrastructure day to day.

• Access, deploy, review logs, restart services, check containers, and restore backups
• Update DNS, renew certificates, add or revoke users, check monitoring, and handle common incidents

Post-Deployment Monitoring

Review availability, errors, containers, resources, SSL, DNS, email, backups, logs, forms, and integrations after launch.

• Website availability, application errors, container status, CPU, RAM, disk, and database
• SSL, DNS, email, backups, logs, performance, forms, and integrations

Ongoing DevOps and Server Maintenance

Continuing support for updates, deployments, backups, monitoring, incidents, and expansion.

• Security updates, Docker and runtime upgrades, application deployments, and backup checks
• Restore tests, monitoring, incident response, email troubleshooting, DNS, certificates, and documentation