This is a second part in our “Alternate Web Server” series, detailing how to use LightTPD as an alternative to Apache. This post will tell you how to install PHP. This is a bit more involved that the Apache version of this post, although you should still be able to complete it with relative ease.

The first thing to note is that you cannot follow the post with instructions for apache, since LightTPD uses the cgi version of php. So this is what you will install instead.

First off install php-cgi:

sudo apt-get install php5-cgi

Follow through the install process and then you need to edit the php.ini file:

sudo nano /etc/php5/cgi/php.ini

At the bottom of the file add the following line:

cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1

Then exit and save the file, you then need enable LightTPD’s fastcgi module, this is a simple process, and all that you need to do is:

sudo lighty-enable-mod

And then when it asks you which module you want to enable, type fastcgi, and then press enter. This will automatically enable that module and tell you to restart LightTPD, do not do this yet as you haven’t quite finished! You need to edit the configuration file for that module:

sudo nano /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled/10-fastcgi.conf

You need to replace:

"bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi"

with

"bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php5-cgi"

And then save the file, and exit. You can now restart LightTPD using the following command:

sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd force-reload

Now you just need to create a phpinfo file to check that it is working, in the document root (normally /var/www/) create a file called phpinfo.php, and the contents of it should be:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save it and browse to that file using your web browser, you should see the standard phpinfo page, and everything should be working correctly! If not post a comment and I will try my best to help.

It’s very useful to be able to view/edit files on your server out of a command-line environment, and the chances are that you have a Windows machine somewhere which you may use on a more daily bases, the difference in operating systems doesn’t have to act as a barrier between everything though, the 2 (or more) computers can easily communicate in perfect harmony with the use of Samba, a free, open source implementation of windows file sharing. When installed and configured correctly you can work on files that are stored on your server as if they were stored locally, all of your digital photo’s can be stored in one place for everyone to access, all your music in one place so you don’t have multiple copy’s on multiple computers, there’s just loads of advantages.

First of all you will need to install the samba server:

sudo apt-get install samba

Just follow the install process until you get back to the normal terminal.

Theoretically, it is now setup and fully configured, but the chances of it working straight away (and how you want it to) are very limited. All the settings are stored in /etc/samba/smb.conf, if you take a look inside that file you will see it seems a bit confusing! So the first thing we will do is get rid of that, so that we can start again.

sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.bak

That will copy the current config file so that it has the “.bak” extension, which means that it won’t be read when samba is trying to start, and is there just in case everything goes wrong! To create a blank configuration file it is easiest to just delete what is there, and create a new, empty file, execute the following:

sudo rm /etc/samba/smb.conf
sudo touch /etc/samba/smb.conf

That will remove the file (rm command) and then recreate it (touch command). You now need to create your new configuration file, here is an example of what it will look like:

[global]
workgroup = YourWorkgroupName
security = share
#Example Shared Folder
[SharedFolderName]
comment = A Comment
path = /path/to/the/folder/
public = yes
writeable = yes
create mask = 0777

That is just a very simple setup, and here is an explanation of what everything does:

workgroup = YourWorkgroupName - This is the name of your workgroup, commonly Home, or MSHome.

security = share - This tells samba to allow anyone connected to the network access to the shared folders, as apposed to requiring password verification.

[SharedFolderName] - Inside the square brackets is the name of the shared folder as you want it to appear when browsing for it, e.g. [Shared Documents] would create a shared folder called Shared Documents.

comment = A Comment - Quite simply a comment about the shared folder.

path = /path/to/the/folder/ - Just the local path to the folder.

public = yes - Allows everyone on the network access to it.

writeable = yes - Allows new files to be created, and current files to be modified.

create mask = 0777 - The permissions of new files created (0777 means read/write/modify/execute by everybody).

Here is an example file which I use to allow me to modify all documents in the root of the webs server, example Samba Config. You just need to insert the contents of that into the current smb.conf file, using:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Once you have finished editing the configuration, you will need to restart samba for changes to take effect, by doing:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba force-reload

Everything should restart by itself, if not check your config & post a comment for any help.

Please note that samba takes into account Ubuntu’s file permissions, so /var/www/ may, by default, only have write access for root, so to allow everyone (i.e. samba clients) to write files there do:

sudo chmod 777 /path/you/want/to/allow/access/to -R

Just remember the -R at the end, as that will apply the changes to all sub-folders and files as-well.

This will conclude our “Setup a Web Server” series, with a tutorial showing you how to install the MySQL database server. It is very commonly used with PHP to create web apps, as usual installation is simple with the apt-get command, and we will also show you how to install a web-based management script, that allows you to manage your databases in a more “visual” way.

First thing to do is install MySQL itself, it runs as a standalone server, so requires very little configuration to get everything else working. Execute the following command to install the MySQL dayabase server and client tools:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

The simply follow the steps through the install process, at the end of that you will have a fully configured MySQL database server running, although with one main problem: No password has been set. This is usually fine on a local development machine, although it does leave the server open to potential hackers: e.g. a simple PHP script could easily clear all of your databases, so execute the following to set a password:


sudo mysqladmin -u root password {password}
sudo mysqladmin -p -u root -h localhost password {password}


Replacing {password} with the password that you want to use, and thats it. A rather secure database, now onto phpMyAdmin, a popular application for managing MySQL databases.

Install is simple, just needs the following:

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

Obviouslt follow the instructions, and then to see whats happened in a web browser go to http://{server.ip.address}/phpmyadmin, and in the login screen enter the username “root” and the password which you just set. From there you will be able to create new databases, edit current ones, and delete them.

Apache is a great web server, as it is incredibly popular, hence has a large amount of support for it, making it ideal for running dynamic websites that use add-ons such as PHP, as it’s all there for you, pre-configured & ready to install. But, that isn’t for everyone, many people may just want to setup a static HTML home page, with a few images here and there. The kind of stuff that a server just needs to send out, and not process. This is where LightTPD comes in. It is a very light (in terms of resources) server, just because out of the box it doesn’t work with languages such as PHP though, doesn’t mean that it won’t, it’s just that a tiny bit more work is required to get everything talking to each other. In this tutorial we will explain how to setup a simple LightTPD web server.

So, this will be the first and final setup, run the following command (remember you will need root access, and in this example I will assume you are logged in as root, if not prefix the command with sudo).

apt-get install lighttpd

You will need to confirm by pressing y when asked to, although other than that you will be done in a matter of minutes.

Once installed you will need to browse to the server as you would normally, through a web browser, e.g:

lynx localhost

For accessing the home page locally.

Or from another machine connected to the same network, open up your web browser and enter the servers IP address. This will present you with the default install screen.

By default all pages that LightTPD will serve are stored in /var/www, so anything that you want to be able to see will need to be placed in there.

Here are some example uses for a server run using LightTPD:

• To act as a static content server for large webites (e.g. to server static images, javascript files, css).
• To serve basic HTML based websites.
• To run a web server of old/low end hardware.

In this series of posts, PHP will be the second item that we will be installing. It is certainly not a necessity, as many websites are able to run on Apache alone, if they have no “server-side” code, such as static HTML pages, or file servers. But it is installed on many LAMP servers. Example uses of it are to run a forum, through software such as phpBB, to run a website with dynamic content, such as this website, which uses WordPress to manage all of the posts.

The command to install PHP5 (The most up to date version is):

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

This will automatically install, and configure, PHP5 to run with Apache. After this it is recommended that you restart Apache, just to make sure that everything has worked, run:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Remember that you will need administrative privileges to run all of these commands, which is why I have prefixed all of the commands with “sudo”, although if you are logged in as an administrator, then there is no need to do this.

Now the only thing left is to test your install, to do this you will create a phpinfo() file in the root directory of apaches web root, by default this is /var/www/, and that location is what I will be using. Although, if you have changed this please ignore any references to that.

First you need to navigate to apaches web root:

cd /var/www/

Then create a new file called phpinfo.php, you will need root privileges for this:
sudo nano phpinfo.php

In there type the following:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

This will create a php script that, when opened, displays all the information about your PHP install. You now need to access it through a web browser, such as lynx, to test that everything is working. To do this type the following command:

lynx localhost/phpinfo.php

This will tell lynx to access the file at the address localhost/phpinfo.php, which is where your phpinfo.php script is saved. You should then be shown a large list of information. If you have followed these steps, but end up with a blank screen, then please post a comment and I will try my best to help you.

In this tutorial you will learn how to setup the minimum amount of software required for a Web Server, following tutorials will include information on how to expand this to make it more useful to you.

For more information on the apache web server please follow these links:

• http://apache.org/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server

Like most other applications, apache can be installed using the simple apt-get command, remember you will need to be root, so here is the command which you need to use:

apt-get install apache2

This will install and configure the default settings for the Apache web server. To test it out either enter the IP Address /Hostname of the server on another computer connected to the same network, and you should see the default page load up. Alternatively, if you have followed our Tutorial to install a Web Browser, then type type the following command:

lynx localhost

Which will tell the web browser to visit “localhost”, which is the name of the computer which you are using, which will display the default page assuming that everything has worked correctly.

Yes, you are reading correctly, it is possible to install a web browser onto a text-based operating system, albeit a limited one. You won’t get all the fancy features of Firefox; but it is a very quick, small, and efficient browser called Lynx. Like many other things, installation is simple, just one command required:

sudo apt-get install lynx

This will then automatically download and install the software, to run it at the terminal simply type the following command:

lynx

Which will bring up a home page similar to the following:

To navigate to a page press “g” (without quotes) and then enter the url of the site which you want to visit, for example ubuntuserver.info. It will then bring up a text-only version of the website, which, on most sites, will look much different to what you are used to.

You can also open lynx directly at a url using the following command:

lynx ubuntuserver.info

Which will open up ubuntuserver.info, just replace the URL with whatever page you want to see.

Please remember that this is a very basic browser, and definately isn’t best suited to displaying graphics-heavy websites, although separates well coded websites (those that will work in a text only browser) with badly coded websites (those that won’t)

OpenSSH is a free application that allows you to remotely connect into your server, and it will act as if you are logged in locally. It is very similar to telnet, although much greater in the fact that it encrypts data sent over the connection.

The SSH server application, which you will be installing, can easily be installed using the simple apt-get command. Remember that you will need “root” access to install software, and I will be using sudo. At the command line enter the following:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

This should then automatically install OpenSSH, if you receive any errors such as package not found, then please follow this tutorial to add more software repositories.

The server should automatically have started, and you can connect to it using a client such as PuTTY. To do this download PuTTY and open it, you will then be presented with a screen like this:

In the Host Name box enter the host name of your server, or IP address. If you do not know your hostname type the following at the command line:

hostname

Which will display the hostname of your computer. Once you have done this click Open at the bottom, and you will be presented with a screen asking you to login, enter the details of the account you wish to login with, and then you will be able to login and use the server as if you were sitting in front of it, thus removing the need for a monitor, keyboard, or mouse.

Possibly one of the most useful features of Ubuntu Server is the apt-get command, it allows you to install software without having to compile or mess around with too many configuration files.Apt-Get installs software from a database maintained by Ubuntu, and then automatically configures most software.

It knows where to look from a list of “sources” stored in a configuration file, which has references to multiple locations of software sources.

If you wish to download software which isn’t available on one of the sources, or stop your computer from accessing a source you need to edit the sources.list file, located in.

/etc/apt/sources.list

Below are the stages which you need to go through to edit this file.

1. Login, for this task you will require root privileges so follow the instructions set out in this previous post. I will be using the sudo command, since it is probably best practice to do so.
2. You will need to edit the file using a basic text editor, an example of one is pico, which I will be using. This is a easy to use, and simple to learn editor. Type in the following command at the terminal:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

3. You will then be asked to enter your root password, once you have done so press [enter] and then you will be presented with a text editor similar to figure 1.



4. All of the lines with hashes (#) in front of them are commented out, so they will be ignored. The first reference to a source is on the third line, this tells the apt-get software to look on the installation CD-Rom to try to find the software you requested, although this can become a bit of a pain to put in a CD every time you want to install some software, so if you add a # before that line it will be ignored. You can also tell your computer to search in other places by removing the # from a line, below is a copy of sources.list with all repositories open, and all comments removed to make it smaller, you can use this simply by copying & pasting it into the sources.list file.


deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy universe
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy universe
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security universe

Download Here

5. Once you have finished editing sources.list you will need to save it, to do this press [Control]+[Alt]+[X] then follow the onscreen instructions.
6. You will then need to update apt-get by entering the following command:

sudo apt-get update

In tech news recently there has been a lot of coverage of the latest version of Ubuntu, 7.04, although mainly of the desktop version. But at the same time the server version was released, but don’t worry, I’m not going to be out of date for too long, I will have install guides for 7.04 up soon, so be sure to check back!