Setting up a web server with Ubuntu 7.04 desktop linux

On this page I describe how I turned my old work PC into a web server for our work intranet, to host a wiki and so on.

The PC in question was an Athlon 64 2800+ (socket 754), with 1 GB of RAM, and a 120 GB hard disk. I can't recall what graphics card it has but it is something like an Nvidia 5700. It was previously running Windows XP Pro.

In summary, this is what I did:

• Installed Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn” Desktop.
• Installed gVim text editor.
• Set up OpenSSH server.
• Enabled VNC remote access.
• Installed Apache 2 web server.
• Installed PHP 5.
• Set up basic website index page (stored at /var/www ).

Installed Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn” Desktop Edition.

• Set computer name to hostname
• Used eth1 (Realtek?) as default network adapter
• Disk is in 2 partitions - one main one and one small swap.

Installed gVim

• Did this using “Add/Remove Programs” under GNOME menu.

Installed OpenSSH server

• Following instructions at http://help.ubuntu.com/7.04/server/C/openssh-server.html
• Installed using:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

• OpenSSH client config file is: /etc/ssh/ssh_config
• OpenSSH server config file is: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
• Made a backup of the server one to sshd_config.original and made it not writeable.
• Left config file as is for now; set up on port 22.
• Tested by logging in from local terminal:

ssh hostname

• Set up custom greeting message by doing the following:
  • Edited /etc/issue.net which is greeting message that will be displayed upon SSH login.
  • Edited /etc/ssh/sshd_config - uncommented a line to show the contents of /etc/issue.net as a banner when someone logs in.
  • Restarted SSH server using:

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

• Tested by logging in using PuTTY from my main Windows PC.

Enabled VNC access

• Under GNOME menu went to System | Preferences | Remote Desktop.
• Allow remote desktop view/control. Set password. No confirmation.
• Tested using Real VNC viewer client on my main PC.

Tried to install LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP).

• To install tried:

sudo tasksel install lamp-servero

• Failed (got message “tasksel: aptitude failed (100)” )

Installed Apache and PHP manually

• Going to install required stuff manually…
• DokuWiki requires Apache and PHP
• To install Apache 2 and PHP 5:

sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5
sudo apt-get install php5

• At this point typing in http://hostname/ in a web browser brings up an index page.
• Started creating website by placing a file index.php at /var/www
• Now going to http://hostname/ brings up that page (where hostname is the name of the PC). :)
• Confirmed that PHP works (tested by creating a PHP file in the /var/www directory which contains the phpinfo() command and viewing it in a web browser).

Installed DokuWiki

• Downloaded DokuWiki version 2007-06-26b from: http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/dokuwiki
• Untar'd the archive using:

tar -zxvf dokuwiki-2007-06-26b.tgz

• Moved/renamed the folder to /var/www/wiki

  sudo mv dokuwiki-2007-06-26b /var/www/
  cd /var/www
  sudo mv dokuwiki-2007-06-26b wiki

• Made a backup of the .htaccess to htaccess.original and made it not readable by group/others.

  cd wiki
  cp .htaccess htaccess.original
  chmod og-r htaccess.original

• Tried to set up DokuWiki by accessing the install file in a web browser http://hostname/wiki/install.php
• The page reported that it didn't have necessary permissions for some folders and subfolders in the wiki directory.
• Apache web server runs as its own user (specified in the apache2.conf config file). So it seems like this user doesn't have write access to my /var/www directory. Looking in apache2.conf, it contains the following two lines in there somewhere:

  User www-data
  Group www-data

• This indicates that Apache is running as user www-data.
• Changed ownership of my wiki directory:

  cd /var/www
  sudo chown -R www-data:www-data wiki

• Now the wiki folder and everything within is owned by www-data and in the www-data group.
• Now opened the install script in a web browser again http://hostname/wiki/install.php
• This time no errors. Entered wiki basic options and hit OK.
• Now can delete the install.php.

  cd /var/www/wiki
  sudo rm install.php

• Now the wiki is configured!
• Can access it at: http://hostname/wiki/
• Logged in. Created start page.

Trying to get DokuWiki to send emails

• Harold tried to register himself as a user on the wiki. It couldn't send him an email with his password. Trying to figure out how to get it to work. See http://wiki.splitbrain.org/wiki:tips:mailconfig
• Based on advice from that page, edited /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
• Changed a line:

sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -smailservername -t -i

(where mailservername is the name of the mail server)

• Restarted Apache:

sudo apache2ctl -k restart

• Still doesn't work. Realised I don't have sendmail installed. Installed using:

sudo apt-get install sendmail

• Restarted Apache:

sudo apache2ctl -k restart

• Still doesn't work.
• Undid changes to /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
• Then tried again using just hostname instead of hostname.domainname.com

Adding new Linux users

• To add a user:

sudo adduser usernamegoeshere

• It will prompt for their password, etc.

Still trying to get DokuWiki able to send emails

• Following instructions at: http://www.metakitto.com/doku.php?id=wiki:dokuwiki_smtp_patch
• Created /web/www/patch.txt and pasted in contents
• Had to rename wiki directory to docuwiki-2006-11-06 to get script to work:

sudo mv wiki docuwiki-2006-11-06

• Applied patch:

patch -Np0 < patch.txt

• Renamed directory back:

sudo mv docuwiki-2006-11-06 wiki

• Using DokuWiki admin config interface, entered email details that are now visible at the bottom of the config page.
• Still doesn't work! :(