How to Install LAMP, Webmin & ConfigServer

Security & Firewall on a CentOS 6.0 GoGrid Cloud

Server
J uly 19th, 2012 by Michael Sheehan - 25,114 views
Let me preface this post by saying, I am NOT a Linux guru. In fact, I consider myself to be a newbie when it
comes to the intricacies of Linux. I probably know enough to be dangerous, at least dangerous to the server.
So, Im writing this post with the following disclaimer: Dont ask me for any details on the whyor how to do
what Im outlining below differently. But since I figured that lots of you are like me, I wanted to share.
Since Im a Linux newbie, youll probably understand why I wanted to write this post though. Im not a
command line junkieGUIs are much more my thing. But when it comes to running a server that is speedy and
high performance with low overhead (e.g., doing away with GUIs), youre probably looking at various Linux
distros. What I wanted to do was set up a basic Linux system running a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and
PHP) stack that also had a web-interface and some added security controls.
The great thing about doing this type of experimentation in the cloud is that I can create essentially a Dev &
Test environment where I can spin up a server in minutes, install software, configure it, and test everything out.
Then if it doesnt work the way I want it to, I can tear it down and start again from scratch. The cloud lets you do
this quickly, easily, and inexpensively.
In this tutorial, you can basically have the entire configuration up and running in the GoGrid cloud in less than
an hour and only spend about $0.25 to test this out (assumes a 2 GB server running for 1 hour at $0.12/GB
RAM/hr.)
Heres what were using:
CentOS 6.0 (64-bit) with 2 GB RAM
Webmin web-based interface for sysadmins for UNIX that lets users set up user accounts, Apache, DNS, file
sharing, and a whole lot more
ConfigServer Firewall & Security (CFS) a Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall, login/intrusion detection,
and security application for Linux servers
And heres what well do:
Deploy a CentOS server on GoGrid 1.
Install a basic LAMP stack 2.
Install Webmin 3.
Install CSF 4.
Enable CSF within Webmin 5.
Do note: I dont go into how to configure Webmin or ConfigServer. You should read up on the documentation
of each item before you start. Also, just doing the install does NOT mean your server is protected. You need to
enable the appropriate security and protection to best fit your needs!
Lets get started.
1) Deploy a CentOS server
Assuming you have a GoGrid account (if you dont, head over here), you simply log into the GoGrid portal and
ADD a Cloud Server. I chose the CentOS 6.0 (64-bit) image with 2 GB RAM.
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Once the server has been deployed (for that size server, it should take about 3-5 minutes), grab the IP address
and the password (from the Support/Passwords section within the GoGrid portal).
Then, you need to run some sort of SSH program to log into your server. I use PuTTY on Windows, for
example. Put your credentials into the program and connect to your server. Be sure to accept the servers host
key.
Next, ensure your server is up-to-date with the latest versions of the programs on it. To check, run the following
command:
yum update
Accept the defaults and your server will be updated.
2) Install a basic LAMP stack
The next step is to install Apache, MySQL, and PHP. There are three parts to this step.
To install Apache, use the following command:
yum install httpd
Then you want to set Apache to run every time your server starts up. Use the following command:
chkconfig levels 235 httpd on
Lastly, you need to start Apache the first time. Run either the following command:
/etc/init.d/httpd start
OR use this easier-to-remember command:
service httpd start
Test to see if Apache is running by going to http://[YOUR-SERVER-IP-ADDRESS] and look for the
Apache2 splash screen.
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Now you need to install MySQL. Same quick process (but you do need to remember the MySQL root
password you create). First, install MySQL and the MySQL server with this command:
yum install mysql mysql-server
Once MySQL is installed, youll want to have it start on the booting of your server. Use the following
commands:
chkconfig levels 235 mysqld on
/etc/init.d/mysqld start
Remember, you can also use the following command to start your service:
service mysqld start
Once MySQL is running, youll need to set up the passwords for it. By running the next command, youll be
asked a series of questions, including setting up a root password. (Remember to write it down!)
mysql_secure_installation
There typically isnt a current root password, so just hit ENTER.
Here are the questions youll be asked (and suggested answers):
Set root password >Y
New password >set a good one (mixture of numbers, letters, different cases, characters, etc.)!
Re-enter new password >get it right!
Remove anonymous users >Y
Disallow root login remotely >Y
Remove test databases and access to it >Y
Reload privilege tables now >Y
Now that your MySQL is set up, move on to installing PHP. First you need to download and install PHP with
the following command:
yum install php
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/etc/init.d/httpd restart
With that, your LAMP stack install is complete. Note: This is the BASE installation of these items. There are
other security and performance tuning you can do as well. Luckily, for those of us who are a bit command-line
weak, the next step of installing Webmin will help with the configurations you need within a web-based GUI.
3) Install Webmin
The next step is installing Webmin which is a web-based graphical interface to let you manage your system on
CentOS (or other Linux distros).
First you need to set up the repository to get Webmin. Note: You have to know a bit about Linux editor
commandsin this case Viif you want to continue down the WYSIWYG route; otherwise, you can use a text
editor and an SFTP program. Optionally, you can use the free text editor called Notepad++which has a plugin
called NppFTP that lets you do SFTP and create/edit docs on your server. There are also emacs-style editors
that can be installed on the server, like Nano.
(Note: these commands were slightly modified based on Jacks comments below. Modified on 12/21/12.)
Here are the commands to run:
cd /tmp
wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
rpm import jcameron-key.asc
vi /etc/yum.repos.d/webmin.repo
Note: You can omit the last line if youre going to use a text editor to edit the doc. But the doc you just
created/need to create is located at /etc/yum.repos.d/ and is called webmin.repo. It needs to be edited
with the following lines:
[Webmin]
name=Webmin Distribution Neutral
#baseurl=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum
mirrorlist=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum/mirrorlist
enabled=1
Once you have that repository set, you can simply run the Webmin install:
yum install webmin
Youre almost finished with this step. Because GoGrid servers have many of the ports disabled as a security
measure, youll need to punch a hole in your IPTables (firewall) to allow remote access to the web-based
administration of Webmin. To do so, issue the following command:
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp dport 10000 -j ACCEPT ;
Then save this configuration:
/etc/init.d/iptables save
With that, you should now be able to access Webmin using the following URL:
http://[YOUR-SERVER-IP-ADDRESS]:10000 (thats port 10,000).
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J ust use rootand your server password to log in.
Now on to the next step.
4) Install ConfigServer Security & Firewall
Were almost done with the process. The next item to install is CSF (ConfigServer Security & Firewall). Once
properly configured, this application will provide even more protection for your server.
First, be sure that you have the Perl prerequisites installed:
yum install perl-libwww-perl
Note: I needed to install another library (Time-HiRes) for the 64-bit CentOS 6.0 server I was using:
yum install perl-Time-HiRes
Then you need to download and install CSF with the following commands:
cd /tmp
wget -c http://www.configserver.com/free/csf.tgz
tar xzf csf.tgz
cd csf
sh install.sh
The CSF is now installed, but it is only in testingmode, meaning theres NO protection enabled. Youll need to
make some changes to the configuration (.conf) file prior to turning off testing mode. Using your favorite editor
(command line or text), do the following to the CSF configuration file (located at: /etc/csf/csf.conf):
Find the TCP_IN variable and change it to:
TCP_IN = 20,21,22,25,53,80,110,143,443,465,587,993,995,3000:3050,10000
This step enables default ports used on a webserver and programs like Webmin. Note: you may want to audit
exactly which ports you truly need, for example, the minimum would be typically 22, 80, 443 and 10000 (for
Webmin).
Then change the UDP_OUT variables to:
UDP_OUT = 20,21,53,113,123,33434:33523
This step allows for the use of the Traceroutecommand (you need to have the range at the end for traceroute
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Save the config file!
I highly recommend that you read the README file from CSF for all the details on how to fully configure
CSF.
Once you make those configuration changes, restart CSF:
service csf restart
Then youll want to ensure CSF starts on reboot:
chkconfig level 235 csf on
With that, CSF is up and running! To check if CSF is fully operational, run the following command:
perl /etc/csf/csftest.pl
Hopefully, all results pass with an OK status.
5) Enable CSF within Webmin
The last (and easiest) step to ensure that everything is GUI-enabled is to install CSF as a Webmin module.
Open up Webmin in a web-browser (using your servers IP address and port 10000).
Within Webmin, navigate to: Webmin > Webmin Configuration > Webmin Modules > From Local File
From there, youll want to install the CSF script, which is located at: /etc/csf/csfwebmin.tgz
Use the Webmin interface to install the module.
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Bio Latest Posts
From there, you can fully administer ConfigServer Security & Firewall to your liking. I encourage you to read
through the CSF documentation to fully understand what you can configure and how to do so.
Summary
If youve made it through all these steps, you now have a GoGrid CentOS 6.0 cloud server running a LAMP
stack, Webmin, and ConfigServer Security & Firewall. Remember that youll probably want to harden your
server even more by enabling some of the firewalling and security. But from this point, you can now install other
OpenSource applications like WordPress or Drupal or SugarCRM.
The nice thing about building this type of environment in the GoGrid cloud is that the setup time is quick: It
takes about 5 minutes to deploy the server. Also, if you configure a server to your liking, you can save it as a
MyGSI (a personal GoGrid Server Image) that you can then use to spin up clones of your server whenever you
want.
There are some great situations for creating a MyGSI:
Self-training Use the GoGrid cloud and MyGSI functionality to teach yourself more about Linux.
Education If you teach in a classroom, you can give your students access to your GoGrid account and let them
go through the process of creating and configuring servers in an easy-to-manage, cost-effective manner.
Remember: Running this particular example on GoGrid (2 GB RAM for 1 hour) costs about $0.25!
Dev & Test You can create an instance, play with it, then tear it down and try it again, quickly and easily.
Production Use this particular configuration to get your web applications up and running quickly in the cloud.
Please let me know if you have any questions about this process. And although I probably cant geek out too
much on the command-line or application-specific details, I do encourage the conversation. Good luck and let
me know if it worked!
Michael Sheehan
Technology Evangelist at GoGrid
Michael Sheehan is the Technology Evangelist for GoGrid & "Social Media Strategist" as
well. He handles digital media marketing, online audience development, PR, media
relations, content creation and editing as well as a variety of other tasks. He is also an
avid social media pundit and technology blogger.
Related posts:
How to Install phpBB on a GoGrid Cloud Server in less than 10 Minutes 1.
How to Install Drupal on a GoGrid Cloud Server in Less than 15 Minutes 2.
How to: Install WordPress on a GoGrid Server in less than 10 minutes 3.
New & Updated CentOS, Debian, RHEL and Windows Base Cloud Server Images Released on GoGrid 4.
Secure & Protect Your GoGrid Cloud with the New Fortinet Hardware Firewall Solution 5.
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Comments (5)
Sort by: Date Rating Last Activity
57 weeks ago
great tutorial, thanks
47 weeks ago
Good tutorial but some instructions need to be updated:
[Webmin]
name=Webmin Distribution Neutral
#baseurl =http://download.webmin.com/download/yum
mirrorlist =http://download.webmin.com/download/yum/mirrorlist
enabled=1 You should also fetch and install my GPG key with which the packages are signed, with the
commands : wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
rpm --import jcameron-key.asc
1 reply active 47 weeks ago
47 weeks ago
Thanks J ack for the update. I appreciate the feedback!
45 weeks ago
thanks for the help. was having trouble getting lamp to work properly
27 weeks ago
Thank you for posting this tutorial. I am an IT student on my sophomore year and I am in great need of these
tutorials. I want to learn more that's why I am doing a lot of practice.
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