Lamp

[Randy Schilling]

Where can I go to get my LAMP installation and configuration questions answered?

[Lars Noodén]

Installation is easy.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lamp-server^

Note that the caret (^) is needed.

When you have an idea of what you want to use your LAMP server for you can look for tutorials and howtos and/or ask here in the forums.

One place to start, after installation, would be here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ap...installing_PHP

How do you plan to use the setup? CMS? Static pages?

[Randy Schilling]

I plan to setup a web page for a Coppermine Photo Gallery and another one to
advertise my math tutoring service. I hope to expand the latter web page to a forum,
likely modeled after this forum, where people can go to get there math questions
answered. The first problem one encounters is providing people with a way of entering
mathematical notation. I think I can do better than what's already out there because I have an idea for simplify communication of mathematical notation.

My first reference for this LAMP project was Linux Bible. I looked at
https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/httpd.html.
Then I looked at Apache Cookbook and Apache: The Definitive Guide.
All these seemed either out-of-date or short on details, at least for someone with
my background. Now I'm following the Apache Documentation
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/install.html
and building Apache from source code (versus binaries). This source, combined with what I've learned and tried previously, and things finally seem to be clicking.

I'll look at your suggestions too. Thanks and many kind regards - Randy

[SlugSlug]

phpbb is easy to use web forum software

[Lars Noodén]

With planning two sites, one of the first things to look at and set up will be name-based virtual hosts.

[Randy Schilling]

Mr. Nooden,

Yes. I am working toward setting up name-based virtual hosting, Chapter 4
of "Apache: The Definitive Guide" and your reference. Thanks.

I have two questions below.

I installed apache2 by downloading source code and the commands
$ ./confiure
$ make
$ make install.
The setup you get is different from what is described in the reference
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP;
for instance, there is no directory /etc/apache2.

This has been a big problem when it comes to references. They're
installation dependent. Instructions that apply to say a distribution-based
installation such as
$apt-get install apache2
do not have an obvious carry-over to a source-based installation.

I started with a distribution-based installation, ran into trouble, and
started over using source code because this is what was recommended
by Apache: The Definitive Guide and http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/.
All in all, I'm more comfortable so far with the documentation that comes
with the src-based installation.

Can I install php5 as described in
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP
even though I installed Apache in a different way?

I tested my src-based installation by starting apache,
/usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl -k start,
and the response was this message:
AH00558: httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message.
This is not surprising because the ServerName directive is commented in my file
/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf
I added the directive
ServerName localhost
and got a clean restart of apache.

But I wonder what is the proper choice for ServerName?
Should I get a domain name, say rjs.com, from say GoDaddy.com
and then use this in my ServerName directive,
ServerName rjs.com?

Thanks for your help and I hope you have time to stick with this.
I thinks with some getting started help, I'll eventually be able to get
things on my own.

Randy

[Lars Noodén]

Maintaining a package manually by building from source is a lot of work and can lead to redundancies and incompatibilities. I'd strongly recommend using the package manager instead, it *will* save you a lot of work and trouble. Back when Apache first came out, building from source was necessary. Now it just gets in the way as the package manager does such a good job of handling the details.

About the server name, you'll have to have a hostname or two in DNS matching your IP number. Whether you do that by running dnsmasq locally or on your router or by buying a domain depends on how much of an investment you want to make in your project just now.

But the exact warning message you are getting right now is just a warning and won't actually affect the operation of the server just now.

[Randy Schilling]

Mr. Nooden,

I started with the package-based installation, $apt-get install apache2,
but removed it and went to a src-based installation because much of the
reference material that I had did not seem to apply. For instance,
I could not find the executable httpd and could not perform the simple,
but reassuring sanity checks such as $httpd -l.
I believe you're right though and by the time I understand things a bit better,
I will end up with a package-based installation.

I got a src-based apache2/php5/mysql setup working, finally. It took some time
and that explains the delay in getting back to you. By the way, my best reference
for the scr-based installation is this: http://dan.drydog.com/apache2php.html.
"Working" here means I was able to carry out those sanity checks and I was
able to bring up the php information page, <?php phpinfo(); ?>, in my browser
using http://localhost/phpinfo.php.

My problem now is setting up a web-site.

Would you please add more detail to this paragraph:

About the server name, you'll have to have a hostname or two in DNS matching your IP number. Whether you do that by running dnsmasq locally or on your router or by buying a domain depends on how much of an investment you want to make in your project just now.

What is "the server name?"
Is www.rjs.com an example of a "hostname?"
(As you can see, I'm still struggling with terminology.)

I understand something of a correspondence between hostname (I guess) and IP addresses.
The DNS translates hostnames into IP addresses. Is this correct?

I would like to setup a very simple and inexpensive site for now, just a very simple
index.html file that comes up in my browsere under something like
httpd://www.rjs.com/index.html.
This would be a great achievement for me. With it I would have a working example
to build upon and experiment with.

The paragraph suggest that "dnsmasq locally" and "dnsmasq on router" are options to
buying a domain from GoDaddy or some other company. Is this correct?

I'm pretty sure I don't have a router and that would leave me with the setting up
a dnsmasq locally. If this is all correct, I will begin looking into doing that.

Thanks and very grateful to have this forum, Randy

[Lars Noodén]

Another reason for using the package manager to install things is that they will end up in the normal place for Ubuntu. Then it will be possible for them to give relevant answers. If you compile from source and look for the binaries, they could be just about anywhere depending on what your settings were at compile time.

Server name would be like www.rjs.com or www.google.com or similar. It is simply there to stand in place of the ip address it represents. Without it, you would have to type in the ip address to reach a server. Also, multiple host names can stand for the same ip address and vice versa. And yes, the translation is done by DNS.

Using dnsmasq locally would be a temporary alternative to buying
a domain at a registrar like gandi.net or others. There are many to choose from so you can find one with good prices and a good reputation. dnsmasq would only work locally on your LAN but would be enough to get started with. However, if it is too complex, you can always use plain ip addresses while you get used to working with Apache.

[Randy Schilling]

Mr. Nooden,

I know you prefer the package-based setup but would you please
see this src-based setup through just a little bit further?
Conversion table:
location for web documents(src setup): /usr/local/apache2/htdocs
............................................(packa ge setup): /var/www (I think.)
location of configuration files(src setup): /usr/local/apache2/conf
...............................................(pa ckage setup): /etc/apache2/conf.d
main configuration file(src setup): http.conf
.................................(package setup): apache2.conf

My main confiuration document, /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf,
has these setting (and many more, indicated by ...),
...
ServerName localhost
<Directory />
AllowOverride none
Require all denied
</Directory>
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache2/htdocs
DirectoryIndex index.html
...
When I enter the url http://localhost into my browser
the index.html file in DocumentRoot comes up, as it should.
I created a file phpinfo.php, containing <?php phpinfo(); ?>,
added it to DocumentRoot,
and the url http://localhost/phpinf.php works as well.



I setup another web site as follows.
I got a domain name, rjs357.com and I changed an ip address
in GoDaddy's zone editor to the ip address of my pc.
I created a directory /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/rjs357 and added
an index.html and a phpinfo.php file to this new directory.
I created a file /usr/local/apache2/conf/rjs357.conf with content

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.rjs357.com
ServerAdmin rjschilling@comcast.net
DocumentRoot /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/rjs357
#<Directory "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs"></Directory>
DirectoryIndex index.html
ErrorLog logs/error_log
# Redirect permanent /foo http://www.example.com/bar
# Alias /webpath /full/filesystem/path
</VirtualHost>

and added the line Include /usr/local/apache2/conf/rjs357.conf
to my main configuration file.
I restarted apache, apachectl -k restart (having set the appropriate PATH).

The url http://rjs357.com/ brings up the correct index.html and
http://rjs357.com/phpinfo.php contains the correct information as well.

But now when I try the url http://localhost what comes up is the
new index.html, instead of the old original.

What confuses me more is this.
I commented the line Include /usr/local/apache2/conf/rjs357.conf
out of my main configuration file, thinking that this will
take my system back to its original state.
That didn't happen.
When I try the url http://localhost what comes up is the
new index.html, instead of the old original, again!

Thanx and grateful for you help, Randy