Creating a Hetzner Cloud Server

Fabian — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 14:44:33 +0000

Day 1 - Renting my first Hetzner Server

Today I created my first Hetzner server. I didn't know I am simply renting CPU, RAM and SSD... I spun up a Ubuntu VM on top.

Setting up a firewall

"a good firewall blocks everything"

Port 22 SSH (the remote control to my server on an unsecured network)

(will add later)
Port 80 HTTP (standard unencrypted network traffic)
Port 443 HTTPS (web traffic secure i.e the little lock icon in tab)
ICMP (let's me ping the server)

SSH

for default path we can find it using ssh cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

I can ssh into my server using

ssh root@MY_SERVER

Main Lesson

before running software, I need to control access.

Next Steps

making sure everything is secure!

Why SRE?

Fabian — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:02:48 +0000

Google pAIr mentoring program

Out of 1,500 applicants 15 of us were selected to take part in google's pAIr program, the first in Dublin HQ.

The program is designed to empower you to excel in securing your dream role at Google.

Mentorship

Each of us was assigned a mentor. I was very fortunate to meet Neil who has been working in SRE at Google for over a decade.

Plan

The targeted skill development aspect of the program really stuck out to me. After discussing with Neil we both agreed on a two month plan for me to really up skill in software reliability engineering.

I decided to document the entire journey.

DEV Community: Fabian