Month: February 2021

Hello,

In this week’s feature highlight, we look at How to Install LAMP Stack on AlmaLinux 8

A LAMP stack is a group of open-source software that is typically installed together to enable a server to host dynamic websites and web apps. This term is actually an acronym which represents the Linux operating system, with the Apache web server. The site data is stored in a MySQL database, and dynamic content is processed by PHP.

Install Apache Web Server

First, we will start by installing the Apache web server. To complete the installation, use the following command.

yum install httpd httpd-tools

Output:

[root@server ~]# yum install httpd
AlmaLinux 8.3 - BaseOS                           14 MB/s | 2.6 MB     00:00
AlmaLinux 8.3 - AppStream                        21 MB/s | 6.5 MB     00:00
AlmaLinux 8.3 - PowerTools                      8.0 MB/s | 1.9 MB     00:00
AlmaLinux 8.3 - Extras                           12 kB/s | 1.2 kB     00:00
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package     Arch   Version                                     Repo       Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 httpd       x86_64 2.4.37-30.module_el8.3.0+2016+8bf57d29.alma appstream 1.4 M

Once the installation is complete, enable Apache (to start automatically upon system boot), start the web server and verify the status using the commands below.

systemctl enable httpd

systemctl start httpd

systemctl status httpd

Output:

[root@server ~]# systemctl status httpd
● httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; enabled; vendor prese>
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2021-02-08 15:03:51 EST; 5s ago
     Docs: man:httpd.service(8)
 Main PID: 26398 (httpd)
   Status: "Started, listening on: port 80"
    Tasks: 213 (limit: 23680)
   Memory: 29.1M
   CGroup: /system.slice/httpd.service
           ├─26398 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           ├─26399 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND

To make your pages available to public, you will have to edit your firewall rules to allow HTTP and HTTPS requests on your web server by using the following commands.

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http 

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https 

firewall-cmd --reload

Output:

[root@server ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
success
[root@server ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
success
[root@server ~]# firewall-cmd --reload
success

Verify that the web server is running and accessible by accessing your server’s IP address.

echo "Hello there, Apache webserver is now running" > /var/www/html/index.html

And restart tht Web Server to reflect the changes made.

systemctl restart httpd

From your browser,

http://IP_address

Install PHP

To install PHP on your RHEL 8 use the command below.

yum install -y php-mysqlnd php-dom php-simplexml php-xml php-xmlreader php-curl php-exif php-ftp php-gd php-iconv  php-json php-mbstring php-posix php-sockets php-tokenizer

Now restart your web server so that Apache knows that it will be serving PHP requests as well.

systemctl restart httpd 

Test your PHP, by creating a simple info.php file with a phinfo() in it. The file should be placed in the directory root for your web server, which is /var/www/html.

To create the file use:

echo "<?php phpinfo() ?>" > /var/www/html/info.php

Now again, access http://localhost/info.php or http://yourserver-ip-address/info.php. You should see a page similar to below one.

Install MariaDB Server

MariaDB is a popular database server. The installation is simple and requires just a few steps as shown.

yum install mariadb-server mariadb

Output:

[root@server ~]# yum install mariadb-server mariadb
Last metadata expiration check: 0:05:56 ago on Mon 08 Feb 2021 03:03:08 PM EST.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package                    Arch   Version                      Repo       Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 mariadb                    x86_64 3:10.3.27-3.module_el8.3.0+2028+5e3224e9
                                                                appstream 6.0 M
 mariadb-server             x86_64 3:10.3.27-3.module_el8.3.0+2028+5e3224e9
                                                                appstream  16 M
Installing dependencies:
 mariadb-common             x86_64 3:10.3.27-3.module_el8.3.0+2028+5e3224e9

Once the installation is complete, enable MariaDB (to start automatically upon system boot), start the MariaDB and verify the status using the commands below.

systemctl enable mariadb

systemctl start mariadb

systemctl status mariadb

Output:

[root@server ~]# systemctl status mariadb
● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.3 database server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; vendor pre>
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2021-02-08 15:10:12 EST; 5s ago
     Docs: man:mysqld(8)
           https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/
  Process: 30138 ExecStartPost=/usr/libexec/mysql-check-upgrade (code=exited, s>
  Process: 30004 ExecStartPre=/usr/libexec/mysql-prepare-db-dir mariadb.service>
  Process: 29979 ExecStartPre=/usr/libexec/mysql-check-socket (code=exited, sta>
 Main PID: 30107 (mysqld)

Finally, you will want to secure your MariaDB installation by issuing the following command.

mysql_secure_installation

Output:

[root@server ~]# mysql_secure_installation

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MariaDB, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n] asdfghjkl
Set root password? [Y/n] y
New password:
Re-enter new password:
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!

Once secured, you can connect to MySQL and review the existing databases on your database server by using the following command.

mysql -e "SHOW DATABASES;" -p

Output:

[root@server ~]# mysql -e "SHOW DATABASES;" -p
Enter password:
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
+--------------------+

Done!

Hello,

In this week’s feature highlight, we look at How to Install WordPress on AlmaLinux 8

Prerequisites:

WordPress requires LAMP stack installed and running

For detailed installation, refer to LAMP Stack on Almalinux 8

Allow firewall HTTP and optionally HTTPS port 80 and 443:

Allow the firewall to HTTP and HTTPS and reload it with following commands

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https

firewall-cmd --reload

Output:

[root@my ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
success
[root@my ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
success
[root@my ~]# firewall-cmd --reload
success
[root@my ~]#

Start and enable both the Apache webserver and the MariaDB services:

Start and enable both the Apache webserver and the MariaDB services to start after system reboot

systemctl start mariadb

systemctl start httpd

systemctl enable mariadb

systemctl enable httpd

Secure MariaDB installation:

Next, we secure our MariaDB installation and setup a root password for MariaDB

mysql_secure_installation

Output:

[root@my ~]# mysql_secure_installation
NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!
Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n] y
New password:
Re-enter new password:

Creating the new database:

Log into MySQL with the following command,

mysql -u root -p

First, we’ll create a new database,

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;

Next, create a new MySQL user account that we will use to operate on WordPress’s new database, with username “admin”

CREATE USER `admin`@`localhost` IDENTIFIED BY '<Enter Strong Password here>';

Link the user and DB together by granting our user access to the database,

GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO `admin`@`localhost`;

Flush the privileges so that MySQL knows about the user permissions we just added,

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit out of the MySQL command prompt by typing,

exit

Output:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.000 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER `admin`@`localhost` IDENTIFIED BY '<Enetered Password>';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.000 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO `admin`@`localhost`;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.000 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.000 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]>

Download and extract WordPress:

Download the wordpress by using curl command and extract the downloaded file

curl https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz --output wordpress.tar.gz

tar xf wordpress.tar.gz

Copy the extracted WordPress directory into the /var/www/html directory:

cp -r wordpress /var/www/html

Change permissions and change file SELinux security context:

chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/wordpress

chcon -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/html/wordpress -R

Navigate your browser:

http://server_IP/wordpress

Start WordPress installation by clicking on the Run the installation button:

Provide the requested information:

Once the wordpress is installed login with your new user credentials:

Hello,

In this week’s feature highlight, we look at How to Install Ubuntu 20.10 on your KVM VPS

Login to your Panel (https://crownpanel.com/)

To start the installation, First we mount the Ubuntu 20.10 ISO.

To mount the ISO click on CD-ROM and then select the “ubuntu-20.10-live-server-amd64” ISO from the drop-down menu and click on Mount button (It will take 2-3 minutes)

Once the ISO has mounted (Task Log tab will show the status of the task), navigate to “Power Control” tab and then perform a Shutdown and Boot task on the server.

Next, Switch to the “VNC” Tab, Launch VNC to start the installation.

If VNC doesn’t show the Ubuntu 20.10 installer, please click on CTRL+ALT+DEL from the VNC console to send a reboot.

Select the desired language and click on continue.

Select the desired keyboard layout and click on done.

Select the Network configuration and click done.

You can either set up a static network configuration or simply go ahead with DHCP (Simply press ENTER here)

You can configure proxy for the server in this part of the process if needed. Ideally, in most cases you don’t need to, just leave it blank and proceed.

Next, in the mirror selection we keep the default mirror address that Ubuntu detects for us,

Disk partitioning, we can go ahead with “Use an entire disk (X)”

Review the partitions and then proceed.

Confirm and press continue.

Profile setup, fill the form and press enter.

The details entered below (username, password etc) would be used for SSH as well!

We will check this package since OpenSSH server package is essential if you need to connect using a PuTTY.

The Ubuntu 20.10 installer also has other packages available for pre-install, you can pick any you wish to pre-install on your server, in this guide we will keep it at bare minimal (ie, no extra packages selected),

At this stage, Ubuntu will start the installation to the disk.

Once the install is complete, go ahead with the reboot.

After you select to reboot the VPS, Ubuntu will prompt you to unmount the installation medium.

To unmount the ISO, switch back to CrownPanel, Select the “CD-ROM” tab and click on “Unmount”,

Next, switch back to the VNC Window, and press ENTER to reboot the VPS,

The VPS will then reboot into your installation of Ubuntu 20.10

This completes the installation of Ubuntu 20.10

You can now login to the server using the credentials that were set earlier (under the “Profile setup” part of this guide)

Sample Output:

crowncloud@104.200.67.187's password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 20.10 (GNU/Linux 5.8.0-25-generic x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

  System information as of Tue Oct 27 07:47:17 PM UTC 2020

Enabling Firewall:

Ubuntu by default uses UFW to easily manage IPTables firewall configurations. Let us enable Firewall incase it’s inactive.

Allowing SSH connection,

We will allow SSH’s default port so we can connect to the server without any disruption after enabling UFW,

sudo ufw allow 22

Enabling UFW

UFW can be enabled with the following command.

sudo ufw enable

For more information regarding Firewall, Kindly refer to our Guide on UFW.