Configure Name-based Virtual Hosts

There are different ways to set up virtual hosts, however we recommend the method below. By default, Apache listens on all IP addresses available to it.

First, create a file in the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory for each virtual host that you want to set up. Name each file with the domain for which you want to provide virtual hosting. See the following example configurations for the hypothetical “example.com” and “example.org” domains. Substitute your own domain names for those shown below.

File:/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
     ServerName example.com
     ServerAlias www.example.com
     DocumentRoot /srv/www/example.com/public_html/
     ErrorLog /srv/www/example.com/logs/error.log
     CustomLog /srv/www/example.com/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

File:/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.org

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin webmaster@example.org
     ServerName example.org
     ServerAlias www.example.org
     DocumentRoot /srv/www/example.org/public_html/
     ErrorLog /srv/www/example.org/logs/error.log
     CustomLog /srv/www/example.org/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Notes regarding this example configuration:

• All of the files for the sites that you host will be located in directories that exist underneath /srv/www. You can symbolically link these directories into other locations if you need them to exist in other places.
• ErrorLog and CustomLog entries are suggested for more fine-grained logging, but are not required. If they are defined (as shown above), the logs directories must be created before you restart Apache.

Before you can use the above configuration, you’ll need to create the specified directories. For the above configuration, you can do this with the following commands. Substitute your own domain names for those shown below.

mkdir -p /srv/www/example.com/public_html
mkdir /srv/www/example.com/logs

mkdir -p /srv/www/example.org/public_html
mkdir /srv/www/example.org/logs

After you’ve set up your virtual hosts, issue the following commands:

a2ensite example.com
a2ensite example.org

This command symbolically links your virtual host file from sites-available to the sites-enabled directory. Finally, before you can access your sites you must reload Apache with the following command:

service apache2 reload

Assuming that you have configured the DNS for your domain to point to your Linode’s IP address, Virtual hosting for your domain should now work.

The a2dissite command is the inverse of a2ensite. For example, if you wanted to disable the example.com site, you would issue the following command:

a2dissite example.com

After enabling, disabling, or modifying any part of your Apache configuration, you will need to reload the Apache configuration again with the “service apache2 reload” command. You can create as many virtual hosting files as you need to support the domains that you want to host with your Linode.

Install MySQL

The first step is to install the mysql-server package, which is accomplished by the following command:

apt-get install mysql-server

During the installation you will be prompted for a password. Choose something secure (use letters, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters) and record it for future reference.

At this point MySQL should be ready to configure and run. While you shouldn’t need to change the configuration file, note that it is located at /etc/mysql/my.cnf for future reference.

Configure MySQL and Set Up Databases

After installing MySQL, it’s recommended that you run mysql_secure_installation, a program that helps secure MySQL. While running mysql_secure_installation, you will be presented with the opportunity to change the MySQL root password, remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of localhost, and remove test databases. It is recommended that you answer yes to these options. If you are prompted to reload the privilege tables, select yes. Run the following command to execute the program:

mysql_secure_installation

Next, you may create a database and grant your users permissions to use databases. First, log in to MySQL:

mysql -u root -p

Enter MySQL’s root password, and you’ll be presented with a MySQL prompt where you can issue SQL statements to interact with the database.

To create a database and grant your users permissions on it, issue the following command. Note, the semi-colons (;) at the end of the lines are crucial for ending the commands. Your command should look like this:

create database lollipop;
grant all on lollipop.* to 'foreman' identified by '5t1ck';
flush privileges;

In the example above, lollipop is the name of the database, foreman is the username, and 5t1ck is the password. Note that database user names and passwords are only used by scripts connecting to the database, and that database user account names need not (and perhaps should not) represent actual user accounts on the system.

With that completed, you’ve successfully configured MySQL and you may now pass these database credentials on to your users. To exit the MySQL database administration utility issue the following command:

quit

With Apache and MySQL installed you are now ready to move on to installing PHP to provide scripting support for your web pages.

max_execution_time = 30
memory_limit = 64M
error_reporting = E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR
display_errors = Off
log_errors = On
error_log = /var/log/php.log
register_globals = Off