vps - Abrarqasim Blogs

Linux Server Hardening on a Small VPS: The Baseline I Run First

A ten-minute baseline for linux server hardening on a small VPS: key-only SSH, a deny-by-default firewall, fail2ban and updates, plus the Docker and ufw trap.

Rayyan | October 16, 2026 | 9 min

DevOps

Caddy vs Nginx on a Small VPS: Where Each One Still Wins

Caddy vs nginx for a small VPS: how certificates, reverse proxy config and health checks differ, and the cases where I would still pick nginx…

Rayyan | October 2, 2026 | 8 min

DevOps

Postgres Encryption at Rest: LUKS vs pg_vault_tde and What Stays Plaintext

Postgres encryption at rest is two different questions. What LUKS already covers, what pg_vault_tde adds, what stays plaintext, and the 1.7.1 TOAST upgrade trap.

Rayyan | September 19, 2026 | 11 min

DevOps

Zstd vs Gzip on a Small VPS: The CPU Win, Not the Size Win

I switched this blog from gzip to zstd after reading Cloudflare's cache post. Real numbers on size and CPU, the Caddy config, and the three…

Rayyan | September 7, 2026 | 9 min

DevOps

Hetzner vs DigitalOcean: What This Blog Actually Runs On

The post you're reading was published by a Hetzner box that's been up for twenty weeks. My honest Hetzner vs DigitalOcean math after paying both…

Rayyan | September 3, 2026 | 7 min