Cleaning up Ubuntu Server

An Ubuntu server instance can be cleaned by removing some unwanted packages and disabling services. This saves some disk space and also frees up memory.

Cleanup unnecessary packages

sudo apt purge --auto-remove snapd squashfs-tools friendly-recovery apport at

Very few server instances utilize these packages. Make sure you don't need them before removing them.

Remove unattended upgrades [CAUTION]

sudo apt purge --auto-remove unattended-upgrades
sudo systemctl disable apt-daily-upgrade.timer
sudo systemctl mask apt-daily-upgrade.service
sudo systemctl disable apt-daily.timer
sudo systemctl mask apt-daily.service

This removes the unattended-upgrades package and the associated services which are reponsible for automatically updating packages in the system. Although removing this package saves disk space and also removes its services running in the background, this is not recommended. You can instead configure unattended-upgrades to install just the security updates.

Enable only security updates by commenting other origins from unattended-upgrades apt configuration. Commented lines start with //.

sudo vim /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Other unwanted services

service --status-all

Use the above command to list all services running in your server. Disable the services you don't need.

Remove orphan packages

sudo apt autoremove --purge

This removes packages required as dependencies of previously installed packages which have been removed now.