I’ve been lurking on the form for a bit. Picked up some useful info so I'd like to contribute a bit back.
I always use scripts to setup (most) of the packages and settings on my VPS's. Been modding it some for public use, not hard coded options. Some of the code is copied from the lowendbox script.
https://github.com/slowz/lightmyphp
Feed back would be great.
Edit: Maybe i should have been a little more descriptive. My thought that users would look over the script.
Installs: lighttpd | enables modules accesslog, fastcgi, fastcgi-php
Installs: php5 php5-cgi php5-gd php5-apcu php5-curl php5-gd php5-intl php5-mcrypt php-gettext php5-mysql php5-sqlite php5-cli php-pear sqlite3 php5-imagick
Changes in /etc/php5/cgi/php.ini
upload_max_filesize = 200M
post_max_size = 200M
memory_limit = 36M
expose_php = Off
date.timezone = America/Chicago
Installs: Mysql-server Setting up random root password disables innodb and other low memory tweaks
Setting up first user and domain /home/user/domain/pubilc_html users own database with random password Downloads latest adminer in public_html/adminer_random.php
Changes SSH port, your choice.
Installs logwatch with off-site emails
Fixes errors in minmal ubuntu vps templates. ( locales and keys )
Changes to inetutils-syslogd.
Choice to install webmin from repos.
Choice to enable unattended upgrades.
Extra: bsdutils dnsutils acct man tmux nano wget dialog sudo curl grc xtail htop iftop vim-nox grc xtail mc iotop zip unzip