Install a new server

Install a new server Organic Design procedure

Download and install Debian

If the server has no OS then download and install Debian first. Depending on the kind of access you have to the server and the kind of media it can accept, the following links may be of interest.

• Debian Conversion - Change an existing Linux distro into Debian using only SSH access
• Debian installation from memory stick - This is actually one of the most convenient means of installation even when DVD/CD are available

Dell Servers

Dell servers may require the bnx2 non-free firmware for Broadcom LAN cards.

Setting up the software environment

Ensure that you're using the same package repository for your Debian installation as we are:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free

Bring the system up to date and install the organicdesign-server package:

echo "deb http://packages.organicdesign.co.nz main/" >> /etc/apt/sources.list apt-get update apt-get upgrade apt-get install organicdesign-server

If you would like math markup support, also install the following, and see Enabling math markup for more details.

apt-get install dvipng tetex-extra cjk-latex ocaml

You will have a functioning server and LAMP environment.

Post install checklist

• /etc/hostname, hostname -F /etc/hostname, /etc/hosts
• tzselect, tzconfig
• DB info for wikia, webmail, crm
• /etc/ssh/sshd_config
• /etc/crontab
• /var/www/backup.pl
• /var/www and /home structures (should be automatically maintained by adding new server as a peer)
• Exim4 (this will need to be configured even for sending mail, see Configure mail server)
• Import spamassassin bayesian rules

Setting up the Wikia file structure

Either copy the /var/www directory structure from an existing wikia installation (excluding the specific content from the domains and wikis directories). Alternatively, unpack a recent www-yyyy-mm-dd.tgz backup into /var/www and remove specific wiki content.

7za x www-yyyy-mm-dd-tgz tar -xf www.tar /var

You will need to adjust the following items in the structure:

• /var/www/extensions/wikia.php
• /var/www/activity.log
• /var/www/domains
• /var/www/wikis

LAMP configuration

The easiest way to configure this is to copy the vhosts file which originated from the backup file over the default Apache configuration file, and then make the vhosts file a symlink pointing at the default configuration as usual. Then adjust the file to the wikia's specific needs.

mysqladmin -u root -p password ******* mv /var/www/vhosts /etc/apache2/sites-available/default ln /etc/apache2/sites-available/default vhosts a2enmod ssl a2enmod rewrite

Activate the slow query log for mysqld. Make sure this directive is uncommented.

log_slow_queries = /var/log/mysql/mysql-slow.log

The differences to the default php.ini file in our servers are as follows:

max_execution_time = 300 memory_limit = 64M log_errors = On error_log = syslog post_max_size = 100M upload_max_filesize = 100M extension=domxml extension=fileinfo.so

The Apache configuration will already have been configured from within the decompressed FS backup, but if you're not installing from a backup, then here's our typical vhost configuration which maps domains to filesystem structure. We usually just replace the default virtual hosts file with this one which handles all domains and sites.

NameVirtualHost *:80 <VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot /var/www/domains RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|wiki\.)?(.+)$ RewriteRule ^ /%2/wiki/index.php/Main_Page [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/files/thumb/./../.+?/[0-9]+px- RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|wiki\.)?(.+)$ RewriteRule ^.+/(.+?)/([0-9]+)px- /%2/wiki/thumb.php?w=$2&f=$1 [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(wiki/|html|files/|[fF]avicon.ico|[rR]obots.txt) RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|wiki\.)?(.+)$ RewriteRule (.*) /%2$1 [L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|wiki\.)?(.+)$ RewriteRule (.*) /%2/wiki/index.php$1 [L] </VirtualHost>

Domain names

Adjust the names of the symlinks in the /var/www/domains directory to local domain names and ensure that those names are added to the /etc/hosts file.

• Note: If you're installing your wikia structure on a local machine, then you must ensure that your domains such as foo.localhost are set in /etc/hosts as aliases for 127.0.0.1
• DNS: if you need to set up a DNS server or Dymamic DNS system, see Configure DNS

Extracting Databases from a Backup

Extract the most recent database backup (this may overwrite existing databases of the same names)

7za x all-yyyy-mm-dd.sql.7z mysql -u root -p < all.sql mysqladmin -u root -p flush-privileges

Setting up FTP access

Some clients may require standard FTP access which although not very secure, can have some restrictions put on it to make it a little safer such as restricting users to their home directories and using a non standard port. We use the GPL proFTPD server in standalone mode.

apt-get install proftpd

Edit the /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf file and change the port to something other than 22 and add the following directive to restrict users to their home directories.

DefaultRoot ~

Setting up SSL for Apache

• Generate a self signed certificate
• Generate a certificate request for a commercial Certificate Authority

Create a file in the same dir called organicdesign.co.nz with this content.

<VirtualHost organicdesign.co.nz:443> DocumentRoot /var/www/domains ServerAlias private.organicdesign.co.nz ServerAlias www.organicdesign.co.nz LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log common RewriteEngine On SSLEngine on SSLCertificateFile /var/www/ssl/organicdesign.co.nz.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /var/www/ssl/organicdesign.co.nz.key RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|wiki\.)?(.+)$ RewriteRule ^ /%2/wiki/index.php/Main_Page [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/files/thumb/./../.+?/[0-9]+px- RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|wiki\.)?(.+)$ RewriteRule ^.+/(.+?)/([0-9]+)px- /%2/wiki/thumb.php?w=$2&f=$1 [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(wiki/|html|files/|common/|blogs|[fF]avicon.ico|[rR]obots.txt) RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|wiki\.)?(.+)$ RewriteRule (.*) /%2$1 [L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|wiki\.)?(.+)$ RewriteRule (.*) /%2/wiki/index.php$1 [L] </VirtualHost>

Run this line

echo 'Include /var/www/ssl/organicdesign.co.nz' >> /var/www/vhosts

Check the apache config before reloading

apachectl -t

Check the cert with this command:

cd /var/www/ssl openssl s_server -cert organicdesign.co.nz.crt -key organicdesign.co.nz.key

The following output indicates the cert is working correctly

Using default temp DH parameters Using default temp ECDH parameters ACCEPT

If everything is ok reload the server

/etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Check the error log for problems.

tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log

If you see a message like this everything is ok.

[Sat Mar 14 11:32:18 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.9 (Debian) DAV/2 SVN/1.4.2 PHP/5.2.0-8+etch13 mod_ssl/2.2.9 OpenSSL/0.9.8g configured -- resuming normal operations

If you see something like this you have problems:

[Fri Mar 13 21:46:54 2009] [error] SSL Library Error: 218529960 error:0D0680A8:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_CHECK_TLEN:wrong tag [Fri Mar 13 21:46:54 2009] [error] SSL Library Error: 218595386 error:0D07803A:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_ITEM_EX_D2I:nested asn1 error Check permissions and paths of certs and keys. The server will be down now. Comment the last ''Include'' from ''vhosts'' and ''/etc/init.d/apache2 start''. Server will be up now with no ssl.

Install vim (not required)

apt-get -y install vim cat >> ~/.vimrc syntax on <Press Ctrl-D> cat >> ~/.bashrc Alias vi='vim' <Press Ctrl-D>

Next steps

• Configure LAN - DHCP server and firewall
• Configure DNS - LAN/Server based DNS and dynamic DNS solutions
• Configure mail server
• Install a MediaWiki code-base
• Install an IRC server

See also

• Debian Post Install
• Add an IP address to a server