Comment by mememememememo

The rest of the owl: go to provider, set up VM (20 questions) log into root. SSH for login. set up firewalls. create non-root user. useradd or adduser? depends if you want a home dir I guess. debug why you can't ssh in. Finally get in. sudo apt update. sudo apt install git (or is it named something else?). install failtoban. install fw.

then do above.

then troubleshoot.

set vm backup policy.

save myriad passwords and secret to bitwarden.

get ubuntu to stay up to date.