Linux Admin class Final Project

I am a Junior in college going for my Cyber Security degree. I am currently taking Linux Administration and have a final project I need to do for the class. So I am making a private server for 3 group members so the group has an easier time working together on the project without having 3 VMs with 3 set ups. I know it is lame but I feel using a service like Linode is perfect for this. I also have to travel and my main machine cannot come so having it on the web makes it so my laptop has the system

The Professor wants us to quote-

  1. Set authorization access and restrictions to certain employees through user accounts and groups. Create a user accounts for 5 new employees. Create the groups managers, sales, and production. Assign at least one of the users to each group (users can be members of more than one group, but must be a member of at least one group). Suitably restrict group permissions and assign users to groups based on job description (25 points).

  2. Ensure that the network, security, and virus protection software are up to date. How will you automate maintenance and updates for the OS and software? Show the configuration used to accomplish the automation (25 points).

  3. Write a script to automate the creation of new users and groups (25 points).

  4. Configure Linux to log security events of interest. Pick 3 events to log and explain why you chose to log failure or success for the event. Show how you implement this logging (25 points).

If I think of something cooler I might change this.

Theres is a guide on here about using SAMBA4 to build a linux based AD server. With it you could automate most of those actions. And yes, a cloud based server would be good.