Quick Lockdown on New Server?

What is the FIRST thing you should do to create a temporary lock down immediately after getting your set-up email from a dedicated provider? In other words:

1. Get set-up email and passwords from provider (a Cpanel server, in this case)

2. SSH in as root and IMMEDIATELY lockdown your server to anyone and everything except YOU

3. Now do a full lock-down at your leisure

4. Reopen the fully secured server to regular traffic and web services

I want to take my time and do this right, without worrying about getting attacked in the meantime by some unknown exploit. If it takes me three days to get everything locked down, I want to make sure nothing happens in the meantime. But I also don't want to lock myself out of my box (lol) or prevent myself from making the changes and updates I will I need.

Is it as simple as using APF or iptables to only allow traffic from my single, dedicated IP? Or is this still vulnerable to other exploits?

I have a couple ideas but I am curious if there are any best practices for this.

 

 

 

 

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