On Sun, 2014-12-21 at 15:34 -0600, Keith Smith wrote:

> I was not able to shell into the server and found SSH had not been 
> installed.  I was surprised.  I installed SSHD and now I can access the 
> box via the shell.



The default policy for Ubuntu is "no ports open" which basically is a
means to ensure a new install is "somewhat secure." I believe that the
server edition is slightly different there, and certainly the cloud
images are as well. But that's the basic idea. Limited surface area by
default to target.


> So my main question is, am I going about this correctly or am I not 
> understanding the difference between Ubuntu and RHEL?


I think that building a new user is unnecessary for what you're doing
(from the limited info here). Many of the packages in Ubuntu (web server
being one) automatically builds a new user and runs things under that
user (I believe it's "httpd") which is probably what you want. In
general, that's a good idea, so it has been incorporated into the
package itself.

But, all in all, not a server guy :-)  Hope that helps some.

Ted