There is a new version of this tutorial available for Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa).

The Perfect Server - Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Apache2, BIND, Dovecot, ISPConfig 3) - Page 3

4 Get root Privileges

After the reboot you can login with your previously created username (e.g. administrator). Because we must run all the steps from this tutorial with root privileges, we can either prepend all commands in this tutorial with the string sudo, or we become root right now by typing

sudo su

(You can as well enable the root login by running

sudo passwd root

and giving root a password. You can then directly log in as root, but this is frowned upon by the Ubuntu developers and community for various reasons. See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=765414.)

 

5 Install The SSH Server (Optional)

If you did not install the OpenSSH server during the system installation, you can do it now:

apt-get install ssh openssh-server

From now on you can use an SSH client such as PuTTY and connect from your workstation to your Ubuntu 12.04 server and follow the remaining steps from this tutorial.

 

6 Install vim-nox (Optional)

I'll use vi as my text editor in this tutorial. The default vi program has some strange behaviour on Ubuntu and Debian; to fix this, we install vim-nox:

apt-get install vim-nox

(You don't have to do this if you use a different text editor such as joe or nano.)

 

7 Configure The Network

Because the Ubuntu installer has configured our system to get its network settings via DHCP, we have to change that now because a server should have a static IP address. Edit /etc/network/interfaces and adjust it to your needs (in this example setup I will use the IP address 192.168.0.100 and the DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 - starting with Ubuntu 12.04, you cannot edit /etc/resolv.conf directly anymore, but have to specify your nameservers in your network configuration - see

man resolvconf

for more details):

vi /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1
        dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4

Then restart your network:

/etc/init.d/networking restart

Then edit /etc/hosts. Make it look like this:

vi /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost
192.168.0.100   server1.example.com     server1

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

Now run

echo server1.example.com > /etc/hostname
 /etc/init.d/hostname restart

Afterwards, run

hostname
 hostname -f

Both should show server1.example.com now.

 

8 Edit /etc/apt/sources.list And Update Your Linux Installation

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list. Comment out or remove the installation CD from the file and make sure that the universe and multiverse repositories are enabled. It should look like this:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list
#

# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 12.04 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20120424.1)]/ dists/precise/main/binary-i386/
# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 12.04 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20120424.1)]/ dists/precise/restricted/binary-i386/
# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 12.04 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20120424.1)]/ precise main restricted

#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 12.04 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20120424.1)]/ dists/precise/main/binary-i386/
#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 12.04 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20120424.1)]/ dists/precise/restricted/binary-i386/
#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 12.04 LTS _Precise Pangolin_ - Release amd64 (20120424.1)]/ precise main restricted

# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any
## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise universe
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise universe
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates universe
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise multiverse
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates multiverse

## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Ubuntu's
## 'extras' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party
## developers who want to ship their latest software.
# deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main
# deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main

Then run

apt-get update

to update the apt package database and

apt-get upgrade

to install the latest updates (if there are any). If you see that a new kernel gets installed as part of the updates, you should reboot the system afterwards:

reboot

 

9 Change The Default Shell

/bin/sh is a symlink to /bin/dash, however we need /bin/bash, not /bin/dash. Therefore we do this:

dpkg-reconfigure dash

Use dash as the default system shell (/bin/sh)? <-- No

If you don't do this, the ISPConfig installation will fail.

 

10 Disable AppArmor

AppArmor is a security extension (similar to SELinux) that should provide extended security. In my opinion you don't need it to configure a secure system, and it usually causes more problems than advantages (think of it after you have done a week of trouble-shooting because some service wasn't working as expected, and then you find out that everything was ok, only AppArmor was causing the problem). Therefore I disable it (this is a must if you want to install ISPConfig later on).

We can disable it like this:

/etc/init.d/apparmor stop
 update-rc.d -f apparmor remove
 apt-get remove apparmor apparmor-utils

 

11 Synchronize the System Clock

It is a good idea to synchronize the system clock with an NTP (network time protocol) server over the Internet. Simply run

apt-get install ntp ntpdate

and your system time will always be in sync.

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10 Comment(s)

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Comments

By: DaleHutch
Reply  

Greetings Falko!

 Should I be concern about Ubuntu complaining that Init.d isn't the preferred method of restarting services? Looks like "Service" is now preferred.

Thanks

By: Anonymous
Reply  

No.  It shouldn't be a problem.  Still works, but may complain.

By: Anonymous
Reply  

if you are setting this up on a home network via virtual machines or physical machines, do not use public dns servers on ur servers and or clients.

 if you are running windows server 2008 as ur adds and dns server for interagation use that servers ip address as ur primary dns server and also use that ip address in ur ubuntu/linux email and web server in dnsname server it will connect just fine worked for me.

 again all clients and servers should have the same primary dns so they can connect.

use ur main servers ip address as primary dns ip in ipv4 settings under tcp/ip 

By:
Reply  

This is a learning exercise for me and I have researched till I am blue.

I am at the following location in my setup process.

1st I cannot run /etc/init.d/hostname restart. I get (No such file or directory

2nd hostname and hostname -f are not the same. when I run vi /etc/hosts it looks like this

127.0.0.1       localhost
192.168.0.100   server1.example.com     server1
# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

When I modify it to make it the same as above it does not save.

can anyone tell me how to make them the same and fix this problem.  Can i use ifconfig to fix this and if so what do I enter.

Now run

echo server1.example.com > /etc/hostname
/etc/init.d/hostname restart

Afterwards, run

hostname
hostname -f

Both should show server1.example.com now.

By: Anonymous
Reply  

Hi, although Falko is asking not to post questions here, rather just comments, I will try to give you an hint.

Make sure you are running as super user e.g. "sudo -s" this may solve a lot of problems.

Cheers!

By: Tapan Upadhyay
Reply  

Thanks you very much for providing such details in details ;-) it really helped me a lot as i was installing server first time in my life time.

Thanks Again

Tapan

By: Henry
Reply  

sale el siguiente error:
ubuntu909 proftpd[3989]: mod_tls/2.4.3: compiled using OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.0e 6 Sep 2011' headers, but linked to OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012' library
ubuntu909 proftpd[3989]: mod_sftp/0.9.8: compiled using OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.0e 6 Sep 2011' headers, but linked to OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012' library
ubuntu909 proftpd[3989]: mod_tls_memcache/0.1: notice: unable to register 'memcache' SSL session cache: Memcache support not enabled
ubuntu909 proftpd[3989]: Fatal: unknown configuration directive 'Alternative' on line 132 of '/etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf'
como resolver el problema

By: Mike
Reply  

Hi,

I followed your guide for Perfect Server 12.04 to the T. It does work. However, I try to use thunderbird to add my email account and the user password is rejected. Tried with squirrelmail also with same result. I am banging my head against the wall. I have been trying to figure this out for a week. I even totally started over several times thinking I missed something. What do you need from me to figure this out? What do you think I am doing wrong. I'm out of ideas!!!

 Thanks for any help.

By: Anonymous
Reply  

I am assuming that one needs to skip steps 1 to 9 and probably 11 if working on dedicated server.

By: virvinia
Reply  

i can't access squirrelmail. what is the username and password?