HotCRP Conference Management on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Why the cloudimg image

cloudimg ships HotCRP already wired to a web server, PHP and a database with a local mail path, so a working submission and review site is ready minutes after launch with nothing to assemble. The image is secure by default and contains no administrator account and no database configuration at all: first boot mints a unique administrator password and a unique database password, creates the conference database, writes the configuration and seeds the single system administrator account, then proves the new credentials sign in through the real form and that common defaults do not, before it completes. Because HotCRP grants administrator rights to the first account created on a fresh site, the web tier is held behind a bootstrap marker until that administrator is seeded, so no visitor can ever register as the first administrator. The database and the mail transport are bound to the loopback interface, the base is fully patched with unattended security upgrades enabled, and every deployment is paired with a step by step deploy guide, backed by 24/7 cloudimg support.