Just spent the last few days trying to get clean urls to work on my Ubuntu apache2 server, and finally found a thread on a Drupal forum. It turned out that you have to activate mod rewrite in Apache before any of the settings in the .htaccess file will take place. Also need to remember to modify /etc/apache2/sites-availabe/default to AllowOverride All in the server settings for your domain. Once this is done, then this command gets Apache doings its mod rewrite thing: sudo a2enmod rewrite Simple as that. Restart or reload Apache, and now mod rewrite / clean URLs will work on your Ubuntu Drupal CMS installation. Suggested Reading:Rock and Roll! .htaccess is runningFinally got Apache 2.2.3 set up with virtual hostsLinux Apache MySQL PHP Server aka LAMPInstalling ApacheInstalling PHP on Ubuntu

What a night. I have spent most of the last few days faffing around trying to set up virtual hosts on my Ubuntu Apache server. I had almost given up. I tried using Webmin, but failed. I read many tutorials, which led me to installing Virtualmin at one point, which was useless. Some tutorials suggested that I need change settings in DNS / Bind, but that was a red herring. In the end, the only changes that I had to make were in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default – i.e. ignoring the httpd.conf file, and not using the include method in the apache2.conf file either (which Webmin seems to prefer to set up). Here is the successful code: NameVirtualHost * <virtualhost 80=”"> ServerName www.domain.co.uk ServerAdmin jonpaulade@gmail.com DocumentRoot /var/www/domain <directory> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </directory> <directory var=”" www=”" uk=”"> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All Order allow,deny allow from all # This directive allows us to have apache2′s default start page # in /apache2-default/, but still have / go to the right place #RedirectMatch ^/$ /apache2-default/ </directory> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ <directory usr=”" lib=”" bin=”"> AllowOverride None Options ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow,deny Allow from all </directory> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, [...]

I seem to be speeding ahead here. I am actually starting to read through the Ubuntu documentation, and it is very informative, and presented in a logical fashion. Just found the page on installing domain name services. Once again, this is so far a breeze, i.e. At a terminal prompt, enter the following command to install dns: sudo apt-get install bind9 Ubuntu ships with BIND (Berkley Internet Naming Daemon), which is the most common program used for maintaining a name server on a Linux server. Results: Reading package lists… Done Building dependency tree Reading state information… Done Suggested packages: bind9-doc The following NEW packages will be installed bind9 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded. Need to get 303kB of archives. After unpacking 807kB of additional disk space will be used. Get: 1 http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main bind9 1:9.3.4-2ubuntu2.1 [303kB] Fetched 303kB in 0s (677kB/s) Selecting previously deselected package bind9. (Reading database … 105852 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking bind9 (from …/bind9_1%3a9.3.4-2ubuntu2.1_i386.deb) … Setting up bind9 (9.3.4-2ubuntu2.1) … Adding group `bind’ (GID 120) … Done. Adding system user `bind’ (UID 111) … Adding new user `bind’ (UID 111) with group `bind’ … Not creating home directory [...]

OK. just read up on what Molly-Guard is, and it is just a way to prevent the server being accidentely shut down remotely. There is a nice little story behind its definition: What is Molly Guard? A shield to prevent tripping of some Big Red Switch by clumsy or ignorant hands. Originally used of the plexiglass covers improvised for the BRS on an IBM 4341 after a programmer’s toddler daughter (named Molly) frobbed it twice in one day. Later generalised to covers over stop/reset switches on disk drives and networking equipment. So by simply typing in: apt-get install molly-guard this is the result: Reading package lists… Done Building dependency tree Reading state information… Done The following NEW packages will be installed molly-guard 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded. Need to get 6716B of archives. After unpacking 81.9kB of additional disk space will be used. Get: 1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/universe molly-guard 0.2.2-1 [6716B] Fetched 6716B in 0s (52.6kB/s) Selecting previously deselected package molly-guard. (Reading database … 105840 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking molly-guard (from …/molly-guard_0.2.2-1_all.deb) … Setting up molly-guard (0.2.2-1) … So this is step one in the journey of a thousand miles of improving [...]

Well, it seemed extremely easy in the end to set up a home server. I feel that I have not advanced my understanding of Linux a great deal, but I did manage to get a server up an running, of sorts. At least, I think that it is up and running OK. I accessed my router controls, on IP address http://192.168.0.1, and in the Firewall section I opened up port 80 for HTTP and port 22 for SSH. I still could not access my server using PuTTy, which confused me. I thought that I had to change some configuration settings in Apache, and spent almost a day reading and searching the internet for tutorials. In the end, sort of out of desperation, I typed “sshd” (I saw a thread in a forum somewhere referring to running sshd to allow ssh access) into the Linux terminal, and received this reply: The program ‘sshd’ is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: apt-get install openssh-server So that is what I did, I typed “apt-get install openssh-server” and was greeted with this output: Reading package lists… Done Building dependency tree Reading state information… Done Suggested packages: rssh molly-guard The following NEW [...]

OK, just found out where I am going wrong. And I am going wrong in more ways than one. Firstly, I need to modify the /etc/apache2/sites-available/default to allow .htaccess rules to override the httpd.conf. Really I should not use .htaccess, but as I am using my Linux as a test environment for my Tranquillizer website, which does use .htaccess, I will stick with it for now. So this is what I am about to do: In /etc/apache2/sites-available/default: Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow from all # Uncomment this directive is you want to see apache2′s # default start page (in /apache2-default) when you go to / #RedirectMatch ^/$ /apache2-default/ I shall change “AllowOverride None” to “AllowOverride All” This tells Apache that it’s okay to allow .htaccess files to over-ride previous directives. This means that I can get php code parsed inside html files, which is essential for my template system. I place this code into my .htaccess: RemoveHandler .html .htm AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html Then I need to restart Apache so that the changes take effect. I’ll report back in a moment. Update: Success!!! I did not need to restart Apache, the instruction was: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 [...]

Just found this page on the Ubuntu website, bookmarking it here. Looks like need to make some changes to get the .htaccess working. Also seems that I could have installed LAMP automatically with this command: To install the default LAMP stack in Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) In Feisty, the Ubuntu base system includes Tasksel. You can either install LAMP using tasksel or install the LAMP packages as detailed above. sudo tasksel install lamp-server The site also explains how to uninstall if everything goes pearshaped. Hopefully it will not come to that! Suggested Reading:Linux Ubuntu – a Whole New WorldInstallation of Domain Name Service (DNS) – BindBluefish – Linux just gets better.Mod rewrite / clean urls for Drupal on Ubuntu Apache ServerLinux, Apache, PHP Success. Next MySQL…

Well, everything seems to be going exceptionally smoothly so far. Time for bed now, but next time I will be installing MySQL. Then once that is set up I should in theory have a test environment to test database driven websites such as Drupal and WordPress. And this will help me on my journey to become a web designer, or as decided today, a web solutions manager. Personally, I feel that hacker is still more apt for my skills. But they are getting there. Although I am not entirely sure what I have learnt this evening, other than with Ubuntu / Linux it is very easy to install Apache and PHP. Hopefully I will have time to install MySQL tomorrow night. For now, I want to quickly check that I can view a simple static html page on my Apache web server…… Excellent, it worked. In the terminal I typed sudo gedit /var/www/index.html which opened the text editor. I copied the source code of the index page of my Tranquillizer website, saved, then pointed my browser at http://localhost/ and the page is there, in all its glory. Just to be sure (I am like that) I created a page called [...]

I guess this is where I find out if it is working…… Apache restarting with sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart I have only ever done this through the control panel of my web host so far. So interesting to see how it is really done! OK, the results: jon@jon-desktop:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart * Forcing reload of web server (apache2)… apache2: Could not reliably determine the server’s fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName apache2: Could not reliably determine the server’s fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName [ OK ] I hope that those messages are standard, i.e. “Could not reliably determine the server’s fully qualified domain name” Time to test if it has worked……… Yippee! Yes, entering http://localhost/testphp.php into the browser has produced a result, so PHP is working. I tried previously before installing Apache and PHP, and I simply got to option to download the file in which I had typed The results are: PHP Version 5.2.1 System Linux jon-desktop 2.6.20-16-generic #2 SMP Fri Aug 31 00:55:27 UTC 2007 i686 Build Date Jul 17 2007 17:59:41 Server API Apache 2.0 Handler Virtual Directory Support disabled Configuration File (php.ini) Path /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini Scan this dir for additional .ini files /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d [...]

OK, this post will seem very strange to most readers. I am in the process of installing Apache onto my Ubuntu distribution, and I want to record everything that happens. So I am simply copying to this blog the terminal output. To most people this will seem like a crazy thing to do, but if I have a problem, then I already have a copy of everything that happened, and can hopefully get some advice! It is also a learning process for me. So here goes. jon@jon-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install apache2 Password: Reading package lists… Done Building dependency tree Reading state information… Done The following extra packages will be installed: apache2-mpm-worker apache2-utils apache2.2-common libapr1 libaprutil1 libpcre3 libpq5 The following NEW packages will be installed apache2 apache2-mpm-worker apache2-utils apache2.2-common libapr1 libaprutil1 libpcre3 libpq5 0 upgraded, 8 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 2311kB of archives. After unpacking 6443kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y Get: 1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main libapr1 1.2.7-8.1 [109kB] Get: 2 http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main libpq5 8.2.4-0ubuntu0.7.04 [223kB] Get: 3 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main libaprutil1 1.2.7+dfsg-2build1 [70.2kB] Get: 4 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main libpcre3 6.7-1ubuntu2 [167kB] Get: 5 http://security.ubuntu.com feisty-security/main apache2-utils [...]