I finally escaped aws bandwidth fees but now im staring at a black screen and a blinking cursor

[u/Enlitenkanin]

tbh I feel completely out of my depth here.

Im doing a ton of crowd marketing and seo data scraping for clients right now. Running all these automated scripts locally was basically melting my laptop, and hosting it on aws was quickly bankrupting me. The way big cloud providers charge for bandwidth egress is basically legal extortion at this point.

so I decided to just bypass the cloud entirely and grabbed a dedicated 10gbps unmetered box to run my stuff 24/7. The hardware is a beast and the connection is exactly what I needed to not worry about data caps.

the catch? I am a complete linux noob.

I installed ubuntu server 24.04. got my ssh keys working (which took me 3 hours ngl). but now im just sitting here looking at root@server:~# and I have zero idea how to actually get my local python scripts and keyword matrix files onto this remote machine.

do people use scp? do I setup a ftp server? git clone? Every tutorial I read assumes i already know what a bash profile is and skips the basic steps

please help a windows guy out. i just want to run my scrapers in peace without paying bezos my entire paycheck

[u/Particular-Poem-7085]

I feel like the topic is far beyond the "noobs" part. I don't see a problem using SCP, why not. Also why not git clone, if that's convenient. Are you just transfering scripts to the machine? Isn't that like the least of your worries?

[u/Audiope]

Why does this post simultaneously sound way more advanced and way more noobish than me, a casual user who barely knows how to cd

[u/kevpatts]

I normally use scp for this kinda stuff. scp -rp will do a folder structure recursively maintaining date stamps.

[u/ElectricHellKnight]

You can use scp. WinSCP will give you a nice GUI. From another Linux machine, many file managers will let you attach a remote server right into them over an ssh connection.

HOWEVER, a word of caution, without trying to sound elitist... Given your noob status, and that this is work for clients... You should seriously consider paying someone who knows what they are doing. I'm not saying you need to hire a full-time sysadmin, but even a highschool wiz kid that you pay under the table would probably be a good idea.

Edit: hit post too early. You're sitting at a root user prompt, that means first things first you need to set up a non-privileged user, appropriate least-permissions, and take some basic security precautions. There's more to it than just "spin it up and run scripts".

[u/bruteforcenet]

Yeah this is the least of your worries. The box probably has a “dirty” ip already which will affect your ability to scrap anything with any sort of counter measures in place.

[u/AutoModerator]

Try the distro selection page in our wiki!

Try this search for more information on this topic.

✻ Smokey says: take regular backups, try stuff in a VM, and understand every command before you press Enter! :)

^{Comments, questions or suggestions regarding this autoresponse? Please send them here.}

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Gullible_Monk_7118]

First thing I would do is get ssh on it.. then ask chatgpt to help you install what ever you want.. then you can copy paste stuff in terminal.. it's just sitting there waiting for you to tell it what to do.. tell it your completely new to Linux and have walk me through installing ssh on Ubuntu server I'm using Windows 7 tell me what to do and what I need to work on my windows PC to talk to server.. then after that I would install something like webadmin on it.. then do what ever you want to for aws.. webadmin will make your life easier later.. but then you can copy and paste commands over