Setup Ubuntu Server Minimal on Azure/AWS/GCP

Minimal Ubuntu Server images maintained by Cloud Infrastructure Services are designed for automated deployment at scale. They use the optimised kernels and optimised boot process on their target compute substrate. Faster, More Secure, Smaller footprint. Optimized for speed & performance

These cloud images have a greatly reduced default package set, without many convenience tools for interactive usage. They are much smaller, boot faster, and will require fewer security updates over time since they have fewer packages installed.

• Small but powerful: Minimal Ubuntu is the smallest Ubuntu image for cloud operations being 50 percent the size of the standard Ubuntu server image. Boots up 40 percent faster than the standard image.
• Reduced attack surface: With the decreased quantity of installed packages, Minimal Ubuntu images tend to avoid a lot of security vulnerabilities. Also, it will require fewer updates. Usage of Minimal Ubuntu will minimize the overall bandwidth consumption eventually reducing the requirement for storage.

Minimal instances are not intended to be comfortable to use at the command line, but you can apt-get and snap install anything as usual, so on the occasions when humans do need to use them for debugging purposes, they can be made comfortable. The ‘unminimize‘ command will install the standard Ubuntu Server packages if you want to convert a Minimal instance to a standard Server environment for interactive use.