Build a Linux Webserver for Drupal in 8 Quick Steps
March 19, 2010
Recently I’ve had a cluster of projects that required setting up a large number of LAMP environments for Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Servers. Since these servers come with nothing, you have to install everything but the OS from scratch. This article describes how to do that in almost no time.
The examples below assume you’re running Ubuntu 9.10 (or 10.4) and are logged in as root.
0. Update
sudo apt-get update
1. Install Apache 2
sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2.2-common apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils libexpat1 ssl-cert
2. Install the MySQL Server and Client
sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
During the installation process, you’ll be prompted to create a password for the root user.
3. Install PHP5 with MySQL, GD and Memcache support
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 php5 php5-cli php5-common php5-curl php5-dev php5-gd php5-imagick php5-mcrypt php5-memcache php5-mhash php5-mysql php5-pspell php5-snmp php5-sqlite php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl
sudo apt-get install memcached
4. Install and Configure an FTP Daemon
apt-get install vsftpd
Next, upen vsftpd.conf (vi /etc/vsftpd.conf) and set the following configuration options:
anonymous_enable=NOlocal_enable=YESwrite_enable=YESlocal_umask=022chroot_local_user=NO
Restart the FTP daemon: /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart. (In some case I’ve noticed that changes in vsftpd.conf are not recognized until the server is rebooted.)
Finally, create a new user to use for FTPing:
adduser username (Follow prompts to enter a password and other information.)
5. Install sendmail and zip/unzip
sudo apt-get install sendmail
While you’re at it, install zip/upzip, which you’ll probably need at some point:
sudo apt-get install zip
6. Enable mod_rewrite for Clean (SEO-friendly) URLs
First, enable Apache’s mod_rewrite module. To do this, create a link to rewrite.load in /etc/apache2/mods-enabled:
ln -s -T /etc/apache2/mods-available/rewrite.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/rewrite.load
Lastly, open /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default and look for
<Directory /var/www/>
...
</Directory>Make these changes:
- Change
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
toOptions Indexes FollowSymLinks(remove ‘MultiViews’) - Change
AllowOverride None
toAllowOverride All - Add the following lines:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
If you want to password-protect* the site using HTTP Basic Auth, then add those directives here also:
AuthUserFile /etc/htpass/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Enter Password"
AuthType Basic
require user drupaluser
(*Outside the scope of this article; Google for an htpasswd tutorial.)
7. Restart Apache
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Confirm that Apache is loading the rewrite module:
apache2ctl -M
The module rewrite_module should be included in the list.
8. Install Drupal with the Zen theme and the CCK, FileField and Views modules
8.1 Create a database for Drupal to use:
mysql -u username -ppassword -e "create database database_name"
8.2 Install Drupal and set up directories:
cd /var/www
wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-6.19.tar.gz
gunzip drupal-6.19.tar.gz
tar -xvf drupal-6.19.tar
rm drupal-6.19.tar
mv drupal-6.19/* ./
rm -R drupal-6.19
cp /var/www/sites/default/default.settings.php /var/www/sites/default/settings.php
chmod -R 0777 /var/www/sites/default
cd /var/www/sites/all
mkdir modules
mkdir themes
Get the Zen base theme:
cd /var/www/sites/all/themes
wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/zen-6.x-1.1.tar.gz
gunzip zen-6.x-1.1.tar.gz
tar -xvf zen-6.x-1.1.tar
rm zen-6.x-1.1.tar
Install modules:
These will vary according to your requirements. These are the ones I include by default.
cd /var/www/sites/all/modules
wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/cck-6.x-2.6.tar.gz
gunzip cck-6.x-2.6.tar.gz
tar -xvf cck-6.x-2.6.tar
rm cck-6.x-2.6.tar
wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/filefield-6.x-3.3.tar.gz
gunzip filefield-6.x-3.3.tar.gz
tar -xvf filefield-6.x-3.3.tar
rm filefield-6.x-3.3.tar
wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/views-6.x-2.10.tar.gz
gunzip views-6.x-2.10.tar.gz
tar -xvf views-6.x-2.10.tar
rm views-6.x-2.10.tar
wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/advanced_help-6.x-1.2.tar.gz
gunzip advanced_help-6.x-1.2.tar.gz
tar -xvf advanced_help-6.x-1.2.tar
rm advanced_help-6.x-1.2.tar
wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/xmlsitemap-6.x-2.0-beta1.tar.gz
gunzip xmlsitemap-6.x-2.0-beta1.tar.gz
tar -xvf xmlsitemap-6.x-2.0-beta1.tar
rm xmlsitemap-6.x-2.0-beta1.tar
That’s All!
Open your site in a broswer and follow Drupal’s straightforward setup instructions.