apachesurvival
This tutorial is for users of Debian GNU/Linux to set up a LAMP stack, TLS encryption, and a web-server which can serve two or more websites using apache's virtual hosts. I will also discuss how to set up basic protection on your firewall and a script that will make sure apache stays running and keep down time to a minimum. The first step is to create two content directories for each of the websites. Later, we will configure two virtual host configuration files in apache for each of these. Using site1.com and site2.com as an example, do the following and/pr adjust as needed:
sudo apt install apache2 php mariadb-server sudo mkdir -p /var/www/site1.com/public_html sudo mkdir -p /var/www/site2.com/public_html sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/site1.com/public_html sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/site2.com/public_html sudo chmod 755 /var/www
Later, when you change one or both of these sites to a content management system (CMS), you will need to adjust ownership/permissions. For example, WP requires that many directories be owned by www-data, and not the root or other user. however, those changes should be done after this tutorial - not during. Before setting those up, follow these steps and ensure both http/https are working, set up a cert cron job for TLS with LE, and then at that point, install your CMS and tweak ownership/permissions at that time. The next step is to make a small website in each directory:
sudo nano /var/www/site1.com/public_html/index.html
<html>
<head>
<title>site1</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>site1</h1>
</body>
</html>
Make sure to repeat the above steps for site2.com. Once that's done, it is time to set up the virtual host configuration files in Debian's apache implementation:
sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/site1.com.conf
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/site1.com.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin name@site1.com
ServerName site1.com
ServerAlias www.site1.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/site1.com/public_html
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Make sure to repeat the steps above for the second virtual host site2.com.conf. Ok, now time to enable the virtual hosts with the a2ensite command, and disable/backup the default site since you won't need that any longer:
sudo a2ensite site1.com.conf sudo a2ensite site2.com.conf sudo cp -r /var/www/html /root/html-bak sudo rm -r /var/www/html sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
Now, in order for the server to correctly identify itself in headers, for example, when WP or another CMS sends an email to a user to restore their account, you need to adjust your host and domain name in the hosts file. if you prefer put some local dns entries in /etc/hosts
sudo nano /etc/hosts
Append something like this to the bottom:
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx site1.com site1
Make sure to do this for each domain. Check your configurations up until now and then restart the service and check if it starts:
sudo apache2ctl configtest sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
Visit site1.com and site2.com and debug. Once both properly resolve, it is time to set up https. Before we setup Let's Encrypt, we will first create your own self-signed certificates for each virtual host:
sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 7305 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/ssl/private/site1.key -out /etc/ssl/certs/site1.crt
Repeat this for site2.com and make sure to answer the question about your FQDN correctly.
Configure the TLS virtual hosts for each domain previously configured above. If you chose not to do the snippet approach above, then you will start here and skip the snippet portion (and merely add any configurations you need to the ssl virtual hosts directly):
sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl.conf /root/default-ssl.conf.bak sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/site1.com-ssl.conf
Open the first TLS virtual host configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/site1.com-ssl.conf
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost _default_:443>
ServerAdmin name@site1.com
ServerName site1.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/site1.com/public_html
</Directory>
BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>
Repeat the steps above for the site2.com-ssl.conf virtual host. If you want to enter some modules, then do so after the “downgrade line” and before the </VirtualHost> line and start with <IfModules> and end with </IfModules>. Before we test the website for functionality, we need to
sudo a2enmod ssl sudo a2enmod headers sudo apache2ctl configtest sudo a2ensite site1.com-ssl.conf sudo a2ensite site2.com-ssl.conf
Visit both sites using Firefox, and ensure they resolve - if not, check each step and debug. Remember, you can trust the browser warning, because you set this cert up! However, for others to access your site, you need to use a trusted authority like Let's Encrypt. Here's how we do this:
sudo apt install certbot letsencrypt python3-certbot-apache sudo certbot --authenticator standalone --installer apache -d site1.com --pre-hook "systemctl stop apache2" --post-hook "systemctl start apache2"
When LE prompts you, make sure to specify to “redirect” traffic to https. Make sure to run the second command again changing the domain to site2.com. Now, restart the service:
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Let's Encrypt expires often, so you likely want a cron job to update everything for you when/if needed:
sudo crontab -e 30 2 * * 1 /usr/bin/certbot renew >> /var/log/le-renew.log sudo systemctl restart cron.service sudo systemctl restart apache2
If this is a public IP on a VPS and you are new to GNU/Linux, then you should set up a firewall as a precaution. Here is a basic way to do this:
sudo apt install ufw sudo ufw allow 22 sudo ufw allow 80 sudo ufw allow 443 sudo ufw enable
If you are comfortable with GNU/Linux and know how to check netstat -tulpn etc., and properly monitor what services are listening and to what netmask, then you can skip the firewall step. The last thing I usually do on new setups is make a script called apache-restart.sh that monitors apache to ensure its running every minute:
sudo touch /usr/local/bin/apache-restart.sh sudo chmod 750 /usr/local/bin/apache-restart.sh sudo chown $USER:$USER /usr/local/bin/apache-restart.sh sudo nano /usr/local/bin/apache-restart.sh
Ok, now that we created the script file and made it executable, paste in the contents below but adjust them to your needs:
#!/bin/sh
#functions
RESTART="/bin/systemctl restart apache2.service"
SERVICE="apache2.service"
LOGFILE="/home/sexa/Desktop/apache.log"
#check for the word dead in the service output from systemctl
if
systemctl status apache2.service | grep dead
then
echo "Person, apache2 failed at $(date), so I restarted it for you." >> $LOGFILE
$RESTART >> $LOGFILE
mail -s "[apache-restart]-$(hostname)-$(date)" email@email.com < $LOGFILE
else
exit
fi
Alright, no point in making an apache monitoring script unless it runs automatically, so let's create a cron job to do that:
sudo crontab -e * * * * * /bin/bash /usr/local/bin/apache-restart.sh >> /home/user/Desktop/apache-restart.log sudo systemctl restart cron
Also, log files can build up quickly, so adjust logrotate so that you don't use up precious storage recklessly! First, create a new entry in the logrotate daemon directory:
sudo nano /etc/logrotate.d/apache-restart
/home/user/Desktop/apache-restart.log {
daily
rotate 10
delaycompress
compress
notifempty
missingok
size 100000k
}
Awesome! You now have to super basic websites that both resolve and use TLS. Now, consider replacing those basic website shells with some type of CMS or other content. Here are some examples that I provide:
This tutorial is a designated “Invariant Section” of the “Technotronic” section of Haack's Wiki as described on the Start Page.
— oemb1905 2024/02/20 23:00