Hosting websites on freeBSD vps guidance

[Hello]

(I was conflicted as to whether I should post this here or web section, but this also goes off-topic, so publishing here to avoid getting banned)

Hey, I am a young adult from a not-so-good country; where work environment is almost always very toxic, pay is shit, no work-life balance, etc, that is if you manage to land an interview to become a slave. Although I initially wanted to make a career (a couple of years ago) in tech industry, my priorities, viewpoints and life has changed. Now I don't want a job at all (at least not in my country, and no, I can't move out as I can't afford it nor do I have experience or expertise to get hired in a decent country), but want to work for myself, regardless of industry/field. I had some ideas, but most were in manufacturing, but that was not possible because: a) money b) no knowledge/experience; a huge gap.

An idea I came across on the internet was making static websites for individuals/businesses and hosting them. What I noticed was every one of them was using "web hosting", which is faster, easier, but more costly with domain limit per plan/package and less flexibility. I thought I could offer a cheaper service by hosting websites on vps, which will be not as easy and take up more of my time, but doesn't have any limit to the number of domains/websites I could host on a single vps. And since they would be static sites, they wont require as much resources, and I am already comfortable with the terminal. (I am in the process of jumping from linux to freebsd. I have never used any server/vps before. I have used freebsd many years ago when I was new to linux, but jumped to linux as browser was slow back then on freebsd. Now I will use freebsd, for both laptop and server.)

Some questions:
1) How secure/private are vps? They are not full disk encrypted right? Anything I do through ssh would be visible to vps provider, along with all data?
2) If there is a way for full disk encryption, scalability would not be possible and I would have to buy secondary vps right?
3) Is default installation of freebsd fine security wise, or are there some recommendations (for example they say openbsd is secure by default).
4) How much resource would a simple static site require (how many domains can I use on one vps).
5) One good thing about "web hosting" vs VPS is that they provide paid email service too, but can I do the same? Meaning hosting multiple different email domains on the same vps all the while keeping security/privacy in mind for each client. (in my country, most individuals and small businesses with website use gmail instead of custom domain, so most of my potential clients won't need email service)
6) A lot of websites use "contact at domain" instead of contact@domain.com to avoid spam. How bad is the situation? Would I really get a lot of spam if I don't obfuscate?
7) Best way to monitor how much resources each website is consuming + overall resource consumption of vps. (any other thing I should monitor?)
8) Should I use firewall? given that there will only be static sites mostly and I will disable ssh login by password. If yes, what kind of rules should be for firewall?
9) What stops a domain registrar from acting malicious? ICANN? For example if I go to renew, and domain registrar decides that the price has increased 10 fold what can I do? Can they also deny or ask insane price for transfering to other registrar?
10) Would it be a bad idea to give subdomain to customers who don't want to pay for custom domain?
11) Any suggestions for good registrars and vps providers who respect privacy, and don't bend down to government orders easily?
12) Thinking to use Hugo to make websites. Do you suggest something else?
13) I'm gonna make changes on my laptop and push the changes to the server. What's the best way of doing this, rsync or something else?
14) Currently I use sftp to share backups from my laptop to phone. Would it be fine if I used the same key pair between my laptop and server too?
15) Is it okay if I only install doas and not sudo? Do some programs, especially that are written with linux in mind only support sudo?

Sorry for so many questions
Thank you for reading or answering any one of them! <3

 

[AlfredoLlaquet]

Welcome, Hello. I've read your message in full. You seem to have a very good notion of what you want to do.

I can answer part of question 1: ssh() connections are encrypted, so the data is not visible to the vps provider. There are many nuances, but they are encrypted in modern systems.

Question 2: You can encrypt whole disk partitions, which is somewhat similar to "encrypt the whole disk," because disks are divided into partitions (see https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/disks/#disks-encrypting). However, this and many other things will depend on the type of access to the virtual server that the provider grants you.

Question 3: When installing FreeBSD you can enable several hardening options for additional security (see https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/bsdinstall/#bsdinstall-hardening).

 

[didal]

You absolutely cannot trust a VPS because it's not your computer in your own technical rooms. Furthermore it is shared with others.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

4) Depends on how big a server you order. Not answerable but we hosted three not-static ecommerce sites on one vps with far less than 20GB.
5) Yes

9) ICANN won't be the problem as they charge far less than a dollar of your total fee. Your registrar might but namecheap increased mine from $11 to $18 over 24 years.

15) I have never used sudo or doas. I don't see the need but some find it helpful. I don't.

Many of your questions need more detail than can be answered thoroughly in this one thread. Most of them aren't FreeBSD related. You should approach them one at a time in their own question.

 

[cracauer@]

Why would you want full disk encryption on a VPS? In case somebody breaks into Amazon datacenters and runs off with your physical instance?

 

[Hello]

4) Depends on how big a server you order. Not answerable but we hosted three not-static ecommerce sites on one vps with far less than 20GB.

I wasn't asking about storage, mostly memory and cpu.

5) Yes

How?

9) ICANN won't be the problem as they charge far less than a dollar of your total fee. Your registrar might but namecheap increased mine from $11 to $18 over 24 years.

I meant as ICANN is the governing body, it might dictate some policies and rules to companies to protect us.

Most of them aren't FreeBSD related.

Yup, that's why posted in off-topic

 

[Hello]

Why would you want full disk encryption on a VPS? In case somebody breaks into Amazon datacenters and runs off with your physical instance?

I might have some personal info for example emails, calendar, notes, use it as a proxy, etc that I want to keep private, including if I decide to host a website with user data. Yes I know I can encrypt files notes, calendar, etc. And if company does violate privacy, there are good chances they share with government. And even if they respect it, they can be compromised by hackers/nation state.