diff --git a/roles/common/handlers/main.yml b/roles/common/handlers/main.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ec7373e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/roles/common/handlers/main.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+- name: restart rsyslog
+  service: name=rsyslog state=restarted
diff --git a/roles/common/tasks/main.yml b/roles/common/tasks/main.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..818865f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/roles/common/tasks/main.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+---
+# This role installs packages that every Mastodon server needs and does common
+# node setup
+- name: This role installs packages that every Mastodon server needs and does common node setup
+  hosts: all
+  remote_user: root
+- name: Install python-apt, aptitude, and debconf-utils
+  shell: apt-get update && apt-get -y install python-apt aptitude debconf-utils
+- name: Do any package upgrades
+  apt: upgrade=dist
+- name: Set default locale to en_US.UTF-8
+  debconf: name=locales question='locales/default_environment_locale' value=en_US.UTF-8 vtype='select'
+- name: Generate locales
+  debconf: name=locales question='locales/locales_to_be_generated'  value='en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8' vtype='multiselect'
+- name: Set timezone area
+  debconf: name=tzdata question='tzdata/Areas' value='Etc' vtype='select'
+- name: Set timezone
+  debconf: name=tzdata question='tzdata/Zones/Etc' value='UTC' vtype='select'
+  notify:
+  - restart rsyslog
+- name: Add Nodesource apt key
+  apt_key: url=https://deb.nodesource.com/gpgkey/nodesource.gpg.key state=present
+- name: Add Nodesource apt repositories
+  apt_repository: repo={{item}} state=present
+  with_items:
+    - deb https://deb.nodesource.com/node_6.x xenial main
+    - deb-src https://deb.nodesource.com/node_6.x xenial main
+- name: Add Yarnpkg apt key
+  apt_key: url=https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg state=present
+- name: Add Yarnpkg apt repository
+  apt-repository: repo=deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main state=present
+# Note that we don't install nginx, letsencrypt, postgresql and redis here, that will be in different roles
+- name: Update apt cache and install various dependencies
+  apt: name={{item}} state=latest update_cache=yes
+  with_items:
+    - imagemagick
+    - ffmpeg
+    - libpq-dev
+    - libxml2-dev
+    - libxslt1-dev
+    - file
+    - git-core
+    - g++
+    - libprotobuf-dev
+    - protobuf-compiler
+    - pkg-config
+    - nodejs
+    - gcc
+    - autoconf
+    - bison
+    - build-essential
+    - libssl-dev
+    - libyaml-dev
+    - libreadline6-dev
+    - zlib1g-dev
+    - libncurses5-dev
+    - libffi-dev
+    - libgdbm3
+    - libgdbm-dev
+    - yarn
+    - libidn11-dev
+    - libicu-dev
+- name: Add mastodon system user
+  user: name=mastodon state=present
diff --git a/site.yml b/site.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..417a78d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/site.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+- name: Installs Mastodon on a Ubuntu 16.04 server
+
+  roles:
+    - common