Stack Alpha
Dashboard

AlmaLinux

Package management, EPEL, updates, and firewall setup on an AlmaLinux VPS.

Our AlmaLinux image is the official AlmaLinux Generic Cloud image, provisioned with cloud-init. AlmaLinux is binary-compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, so most RHEL documentation and software applies to it as well. For help deciding whether AlmaLinux is right for you, see Choosing a Linux distribution.

What’s in the image

  • Packages: a minimal AlmaLinux install with dnf, OpenSSH, and cloud-init.
  • Networking: configured by cloud-init at boot. See VPS networking for how your addresses are assigned.
  • Firewall: the cloud image doesn’t ship with an active firewall. See Set up a firewall.
  • SELinux: enabled and enforcing. Some changes, like moving SSH to a different port, need an SELinux policy update as well.

To check which AlmaLinux release you’re running:

Shell
cat /etc/almalinux-release

Install packages

AlmaLinux uses dnf to install packages:

Shell
sudo dnf install htop

Enable EPEL

AlmaLinux’s own repositories are smaller than Fedora’s or Debian’s. Many common packages, such as htop and fail2ban, are in EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux). To enable it, along with the CRB repository that some EPEL packages depend on, run:

Shell
sudo dnf install epel-release dnf-plugins-core
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb

Update your system

To install the latest updates:

Shell
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

Reboot if the update installed a new kernel. Minor releases, such as 10.0 to 10.1, are delivered as normal updates, so you don’t need to do anything special to move between them.

Automatic updates

To install updates automatically, install dnf-automatic:

Shell
sudo dnf install dnf-automatic

Open /etc/dnf/automatic.conf and set apply_updates = yes in the [commands] section so updates are applied, not just downloaded. Then, enable the timer:

Shell
sudo systemctl enable --now dnf-automatic.timer

Major releases

Each major AlmaLinux release, such as AlmaLinux 10, is supported for about 10 years. Upgrading between major releases in place isn’t recommended. When your release nears the end of its support, we recommend creating a new VPS on the current release and moving your applications over. If you need an in-place upgrade, see AlmaLinux’s ELevate project.

Set up a firewall

AlmaLinux uses firewalld, the same as Fedora. Our hardening guide walks through installing and configuring it. Follow the Fedora instructions.

Next steps

Our non-root user and hardening guides apply to AlmaLinux. Follow the Fedora instructions in each. Install fail2ban from EPEL.