The Blog of Tom Webster
Chronic Ranter, Reviewer, and Developer
For Ruby applications, managing dependencies manually can be difficult. Luckily RVM is there to make everything easier on us. RVM manages different Ruby versions, dependencies, and gem versions. It is hugely helpful in getting Ruby and Rails installed quickly and easily.
Log into the root account, then install the dependencies: sudo apt-get
-y install build-essential openssl libreadline6 libreadline6-dev curl
git-core zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3
libxml2-dev libxslt-dev autoconf libc6-dev ncurses-dev automake libtool
bison subversion python. After you install that, we need to download RVM
and install RVM and Rails 1.9.3: curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s
stable --rails --autolibs=enabled --ruby=1.9.3.
Now you have Ruby and Rails ready to do your bidding.
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Now that you have a user and are able to upload files, lets get a WordPress blog going. The first thing to do is download the latest WordPress package, extract it, then upload it via your newly created FTP server. I like FileZilla for FTP work, but any FTP client will work.
Head over to the site, you should see that you need to create a
configuration file. If you don't see this, and see an error message
instead, make sure you have php5-mysql installed. You can do this with
apt-get install php5-mysql then service apache2 restart. For the
configuration file, we'll need to first get our database details. This
poses somewhat of a problem, though, we don't have a database currently.
Log onto your server's root account via SSH, then log onto your MySQL
instance with mysql -u root -p and enter your MySQL password (this
should be different from your user password). Follow along with the
commands below to create a new database and authorizations so we can
finish the WordPress setup (all commands should be run from the MySQL
command prompt):
Create a new database: CREATE DATABASE exampledatabase;
Create a new MySQL User: GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON exampledatabase.* TO "exampleuser"@"localhost" IDENTIFIED BY "MakeAComplexPasswordHere";
Refresh permissions: FLUSH PRIVILEGES
Exit the console: exit
Click Let's go! on the WordPress wizard and fill in the details below:
Database Name: exampledatabase
User Name: exampleuser
Password: YourComplexPasswordHere
Database Host: localhost
Table Prefix: wp_
WordPress should then generate a text box with a lot of configuration
data in it. Copy all of this text into a file named wp-config.php, then
upload it to the root of your web directory via FTP.
Now your configuration is done, go ahead and proceed with the install. The rest is simple, set up a name for your site, set up a username/password for WordPress, then get on with building cool things. The internet is ripe with WordPress themes, plugins, advice, and examples, do some Googling, figure out what you want to do from here.
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Now that you have most of what you need to run some simple sites, you
need a way to open it up to people, allow them to upload their own files.
This is where ProFTPd comes in. First, install
it with apt-get install proftpd. There are some configuration options
as you set it up. Right now, select standalone when the installer asks
you whether to run as a service or standalone server.
Now we have to create a user who will manage our domain. I usually set
this name to the domain name itself without the ending (so example
would manage www.example.com). Create a new user with adduser example
and set a good, complex password. Debian will ask you for more details,
but you don't need to fill these out. This creates a new user and home
directory. We actually don't want our user to use /home/example as
their home directory, we want them to be jailed to the web directory.
Open up /etc/passwd in your text editor of choice, we're going to make
some changes to this new user. We need to set a new home directory, and
more imporantly, a new shell, we don't want the user logging on via SSH,
they don't need that kind of access. Check out the example below for
configuration details.
bob:x:0:0:root:/home/bob:/bin/bash
# The above user can log in interactively, and their home folder is in the usual location
alice:x:1000:1000:,,,:/var/www/www.example.com:/bin/false
# The above user can't log in interactively, and their home folder is set to their public website folder.
After you set up your user like alice in the example above, we need to
change the permissions on our new user's home directory. Use this command
to set the owner and group of the folder to your new user: chown -R
example:example /var/www/www.example.com/. Now we're ready to set some
ProFTPd configuration options. Open up /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf and
copy my configuration file below.
#
# /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf -- This is a basic ProFTPD configuration file.
# To really apply changes reload proftpd after modifications.
#
# Includes DSO modules
Include /etc/proftpd/modules.conf
# Set off to disable IPv6 support which is annoying on IPv4 only boxes.
UseIPv6 on
# If set on you can experience a longer connection delay in many cases.
IdentLookups off
ServerName "Debian"
ServerType standalone
DeferWelcome off
MultilineRFC2228 on
DefaultServer on
ShowSymlinks on
TimeoutNoTransfer 600
TimeoutStalled 600
TimeoutIdle 1200
DisplayLogin welcome.msg
DisplayChdir .message true
ListOptions "-l"
DenyFilter \*.*/
# Use this to jail all users in their homes
DefaultRoot ~
# Users require a valid shell listed in /etc/shells to login.
# Use this directive to release that constrain.
RequireValidShell off
# Port 21 is the standard FTP port.
Port 21
# In some cases you have to specify passive ports range to by-pass
# firewall limitations. Ephemeral ports can be used for that, but
# feel free to use a more narrow range.
# PassivePorts 49152 65534
# If your host was NATted, this option is useful in order to
# allow passive tranfers to work. You have to use your public
# address and opening the passive ports used on your firewall as well.
# MasqueradeAddress 1.2.3.4
# This is useful for masquerading address with dynamic IPs:
# refresh any configured MasqueradeAddress directives every 8 hours
<IfModule mod_dynmasq.c>
# DynMasqRefresh 28800
</IfModule>
# To prevent DoS attacks, set the maximum number of child processes
# to 30. If you need to allow more than 30 concurrent connections
# at once, simply increase this value. Note that this ONLY works
# in standalone mode, in inetd mode you should use an inetd server
# that allows you to limit maximum number of processes per service
# (such as xinetd)
MaxInstances 30
# Set the user and group that the server normally runs at.
User proftpd
Group nogroup
# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new files and dirs
# (second parm) from being group and world writable.
Umask 022 022
# Normally, we want files to be overwriteable.
AllowOverwrite on
# Uncomment this if you are using NIS or LDAP via NSS to retrieve passwords:
# PersistentPasswd off
# This is required to use both PAM-based authentication and local passwords
# AuthOrder mod_auth_pam.c* mod_auth_unix.c
# Be warned: use of this directive impacts CPU average load!
# Uncomment this if you like to see progress and transfer rate with ftpwho
# in downloads. That is not needed for uploads rates.
#
# UseSendFile off
TransferLog /var/log/proftpd/xferlog
SystemLog /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log
<IfModule mod_quotatab.c>
QuotaEngine off
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_ratio.c>
Ratios off
</IfModule>
# Delay engine reduces impact of the so-called Timing Attack described in
# http://security.lss.hr/index.php?page=details&ID=LSS-2004-10-02
# It is on by default.
<IfModule mod_delay.c>
DelayEngine on
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_ctrls.c>
ControlsEngine off
ControlsMaxClients 2
ControlsLog /var/log/proftpd/controls.log
ControlsInterval 5
ControlsSocket /var/run/proftpd/proftpd.sock
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_ctrls_admin.c>
AdminControlsEngine off
</IfModule>
#
# Alternative authentication frameworks
#
#Include /etc/proftpd/ldap.conf
#Include /etc/proftpd/sql.conf
#
# This is used for FTPS connections
#
#Include /etc/proftpd/tls.conf
#
# Useful to keep VirtualHost/VirtualRoot directives separated
#
#Include /etc/proftpd/virtuals.con
# A basic anonymous configuration, no upload directories.
# <Anonymous ~ftp>
# User ftp
# Group nogroup
# # We want clients to be able to login with "anonymous" as well as "ftp"
# UserAlias anonymous ftp
# # Cosmetic changes, all files belongs to ftp user
# DirFakeUser on ftp
# DirFakeGroup on ftp
#
# RequireValidShell off
#
# # Limit the maximum number of anonymous logins
# MaxClients 10
#
# # We want 'welcome.msg' displayed at login, and '.message' displayed
# # in each newly chdired directory.
# DisplayLogin welcome.msg
# DisplayChdir .message
#
# # Limit WRITE everywhere in the anonymous chroot
# <Directory *>
# <Limit WRITE>
# DenyAll
# </Limit>
# </Directory>
#
# # Uncomment this if you're brave.
# # <Directory incoming>
# # # Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new files and dirs
# # # (second parm) from being group and world writable.
# # Umask 022 022
# # <Limit READ WRITE>
# # DenyAll
# # </Limit>
# # <Limit STOR>
# # AllowAll
# # </Limit>
# # </Directory>
#
# </Anonymous>
This configuration jails users in their home directories, which we've
just set to be the public web directory. You do need to run service
proftpd restart to apply the configuration changes.
Have your users log in with the following details (changed to fit your domain/username of course):
Host: www.example.com
Port: 21
Username: example
Password: # the password you set for this user #
Now your users can push and pull files to set up their websites.
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When I was a kid, I played a ton of the game Museum Madness. An old MECC game that was all about learning various subjects, solving cool puzzles, and enjoying the point-and-click adventure world. Unfortunately, the company eventually went under, leaving the game as Abandonware. Getting this old game to run isn't terrible on Windows 7, but unless you know your way around DosBox or a command line interface, your average user may run into trouble. To fix this problem, I created a double-click-to-run Museum Madness launcher. All of my code is open source and freely available, the game itself is kind of under a grey-ish abandonware type license, so I'm not entirely sure if you can deconstruct it. I grabbed the game data from Abandonia.com, who host a TON of abandoned games, go check it out. In the mean time, here's the game:
Windows XP/7 x86 and x64 - You can try it on other Window's platforms, I haven't tested it though.
Want it ported to a different system? Do it, send me a pull request.
Next on our list, we need to get PHP and MySQL set up if we're ever going
to host something like WordPress or Drupal. Let's get everything
installed with apt-get install php5 mysql-server php5-mysql. During the
setup, you will need to set a password for the root user of the MySQL
server. Make sure to set something long, complicated, and different than
your shell password, you don't want your entire server compromised if
someone figures out your MySQL password.
Now, restart Apache with service apache2 restart so we can start using
PHP.
Next, navigate to where you put the example file last time, remove your
old example file (it should be index.html), and make index.php with
these contents:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Now, head over to your site and take a look, you should see something similar to this:
If you see that, you're done here. Next, we'll set up FTP accounts, then get WordPress running.
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