// blog
One Server Runs This Whole Site: Website, API, Database and Email
AI Web Center runs on one rented Ubuntu server: the website, the C# API behind the examples, PostgreSQL and a mail server. Four steps were done by hand (the server, the domain, DNS and locking down SSH), and an AI coding assistant installed the rest under written rules, with a verify script that reported 33 checks passed. The full walkthrough is in the server setup case study.
Every page on this site, the C# API behind every working example, the PostgreSQL database and the mail for the domain run on one rented Ubuntu server. Only three things on it answer the internet: SSH, the web server and mail. The API and the database listen only on the server itself.
We wrote up how it was built in a new case study: one VPS for a website, an API, a database and email. It goes step by step:
- Rent a server, not a box at home, and check for a static IP, open port 25 and reverse DNS.
- Register the domain and find out which name servers are really in charge.
- Set the DNS records: A, MX, CAA, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and reverse DNS.
- Lock down SSH by hand, first: keys only, no root or password logins, the firewall on.
- Set up the workstation: Git, VS Code and Claude Code.
- Let the AI install the stack, with written rules, a setup script and a verify script.
- Go live with Nginx, Let’s Encrypt and the mail server, and check everything from outside.
The lesson we’d pass on: do access by hand and the installs by script, and ask the assistant for a verify check, not a “done” message. Ours ended with 33 checks passed and none failed.
Read the case study, with every command and the prompts to copy.