linux/doc/Install-a-Server.md

Introduction

This document describes some procedures commonly needed when installing a new server.

It is mostly written for openSUSE (Zypper), but can basically be applied to most Linux distos.

Partitioning

Create a raw image file. This is interesting if you install and prepare a lot of stuff inside a VM (for example to benefit from fast SSD speeds) and copy the image to the destination system afterwards.

It can be written directly onto the disk using dd. Also, the data partition can be grown later.

fallocate -l $((blocks*512)) Disk.img
parted Disk.img
mklabel msdos
mkpart pri fat32 2048s 264191s
mkpart pri linux-swap start end
mkpart pri ext4 start end
set 1 boot on

vboxmanage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename Disk.vmdk -rawdisk Disk.img

Swapfile/Pagefile

Instead of an entire partition, it is also possible to create a swap file.

fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
mkswap /swapfile
chmod 600 /swapfile
swapon /swapfile

In /etc/fstab

/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0

Security

• Sudo config (not needed in Ubuntu):

  • Add group sudo in /etc/group: sudo:x:27:user (Debian GID)
  • Add group sudo to /etc/sudoers: %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
  • In openSUSE: Remove Defaults targetpw and the following line
  • Disable root account (put an asterisk * as password)

• Create SSH user:

  • /etc/passwd: sshuser:x:999:65534::/run:/bin/bash
  • /etc/shadow: sshuser:*:16436:0:99999::::
  • Change its password: $ sudo passwd sshuser

• Edit SSH config /etc/ssh/sshd_config: Port xxx PermitRootLogin no AllowUsers sshuser git ClientAliveInterval 10 ClientAliveCountMax 3

Convenience

~/.bashrc

unalias ls
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias l='ls -Flhtr'
alias ll='ls -al'
alias psl='ps -eo user,pid,ppid,%cpu,ni,vsz,cmd --forest | less'
alias md='mkdir -p'

PS1='\[\e]2;\W (\h)\a\e[31m\]\u@\h:\[\e[36m\]\w\[\e[0m\]*$(__git_ps1 %s)\$ '

~/.inputrc

$include /etc/inputrc
set completion-ignore-case on
TAB: menu-complete

Install packages

DO NOT FORGET to install firmware packages! For instance, a lot of laptops contain a Broadcom wireless card which does not work out-of-the-box. It needs:

• kernel-firmware
• b43-fwcutter
• b43-firmware

Server Software

zypper in --no-recommends git
zypper in mariadb
zypper in php5-fpm php5-phar php5-openssl php5-xdebug php5-mysql

Note: Files created in /tmp by PHP-FPM are actually in a subdirectory named /tmp/systemd-private-* Also see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ServicesPrivateTmp

Crontab

Debian /etc/cron.* times:

# m h	dom mon dow
17 *	* * * # hourly
25 6	* * * # daily
47 6	* * 7 # weekly
52 6	1 * * # monthly

AWstats

mkdir /usr/local/awstats; cd /usr/local/awstats
git init
git remote add origin git://git.code.sf.net/p/awstats/code
git fetch --depth=1 origin tag AWSTATS_7_3
git checkout AWSTATS_7_3

mkdir /usr/local/share/cgi-bin
ln -s /usr/local/awstats/wwwroot /usr/local/share/cgi-bin/awstats

Check version tags:

git ls-remote

Free Space

find /var/log -type f | xargs rm

for f in var tmp root data; do echo Zeroing $f; dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M of=/$f/zero; done
for f in var tmp root data; do rm -v /$f/zero; done

Notes

• dd vs. truncate vs. fallocate