The Perfect Server - Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) with Apache, PHP, MySQL, PureFTPD, BIND, Postfix, Dovecot and ISPConfig 3.1 - Page 2
This tutorial exists for these OS versions
- Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
- Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver)
- Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark)
- Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus)
- Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak)
- Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus)
On this page
8. Install Apache, PHP, phpMyAdmin, FCGI, SuExec, Pear, and mcrypt
Apache2, PHP 7, phpMyAdmin, FCGI, suExec, Pear, and mcrypt can be installed as follows:
apt-get install apache2 apache2-doc apache2-utils libapache2-mod-php php7.0 php7.0-common php7.0-gd php7.0-mysql php7.0-imap phpmyadmin php7.0-cli php7.0-cgi libapache2-mod-fcgid apache2-suexec-pristine php-pear php-auth php7.0-mcrypt mcrypt imagemagick libruby libapache2-mod-python php7.0-curl php7.0-intl php7.0-pspell php7.0-recode php7.0-sqlite3 php7.0-tidy php7.0-xmlrpc php7.0-xsl memcached php-memcache php-imagick php-gettext php7.0-zip php7.0-mbstring
You will see the following question:
Web server to reconfigure automatically: <-- apache2
Configure database for phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common? <-- Yes
MySQL application password for phpmyadmin: <-- Press enter
Then run the following command to enable the Apache modules suexec, rewrite, ssl, actions, and include (plus dav, dav_fs, and auth_digest if you want to use WebDAV):
a2enmod suexec rewrite ssl actions include cgi
a2enmod dav_fs dav auth_digest headers
To ensure that the server can not be attacked trough the HTTPOXY vulnerability, I will disable the HTTP_PROXY header in apache globally.
sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf-available/httpoxy.conf
Paste this content to the file:
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
RequestHeader unset Proxy early
</IfModule>
Enable the config file by running:
a2enconf httpoxy
Restart Apache afterward:
service apache2 restart
If you want to host Ruby files with the extension .rb on your web sites created through ISPConfig, you must comment out the line application/x-ruby rb in /etc/mime.types:
nano /etc/mime.types
[...] #application/x-ruby rb [...]
(This is needed only for .rb files; Ruby files with the extension .rbx work out of the box.)
Restart Apache afterwards:
service apache2 restart
8.1 PHP Opcode cache
APCu is a free PHP opcode cacher for caching and optimizing PHP intermediate code. It is strongly recommended to have one of these installed to speed up your PHP page.
APCu can be installed as follows:
apt-get install php7.0-opcache php-apcu
Now restart Apache:
service apache2 restart
8.2 PHP-FPM
To use PHP-FPM with Apache, we need the mod_fastcgi Apache module (please don't mix this up with mod_fcgid - they are very similar, but you cannot use PHP-FPM with mod_fcgid). We can install PHP-FPM and mod_fastcgi as follows:
apt-get install libapache2-mod-fastcgi php7.0-fpm
Make sure you enable the module and restart Apache:
a2enmod actions fastcgi alias
service apache2 restart
8.3 Additional PHP Versions
It is possible to have multiple PHP versions on one server (selectable through ISPConfig) which can be run through FastCGI and PHP-FPM. To learn how to build additional PHP versions (PHP-FPM and FastCGI) and how to configure ISPConfig, please check this tutorial: How To Use Multiple PHP Versions (PHP-FPM & FastCGI) With ISPConfig 3 (Ubuntu 12.10) (works for Ubuntu 16.04 as well).
10.1 Install HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)
In this step we will install HHVM with apt. HHVM is a fast PHP engine developed by Facebook.
apt-get -y install software-properties-common
apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 0x5a16e7281be7a449
add-apt-repository "deb http://dl.hhvm.com/ubuntu xenial main"
apt-get update
apt-get -y install hhvm
9. Install Let's Encrypt
ISPConfig 3.1 has builtin support for the free SSL Certificate Authority Let's encrypt. The Let's Encrypt function allows you to create free SSL Certificates for your website in ISPConfig.
Now we will add support for Let's encrypt by installing the certbot client.
apt install software-properties-common
add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
apt update
apt -y remove letsencrypt
apt -y install python-certbot-apache
10. Install Mailman
ISPConfig allows you to manage (create/modify/delete) Mailman mailing lists. If you want to make use of this feature, install Mailman as follows:
apt-get install mailman
Select at least one language, e.g.:
Languages to support: <-- en (English)
Missing site list <-- Ok
Before we can start Mailman, a first mailing list called mailman must be created:
newlist mailman
root@server1:~# newlist mailman
Enter the email of the person running the list: <-- admin email address, e.g. [email protected]
Initial mailman password: <-- admin password for the mailman list
To finish creating your mailing list, you must edit your /etc/aliases (or
equivalent) file by adding the following lines, and possibly running the
`newaliases' program:
## mailman mailing list
mailman: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post mailman"
mailman-admin: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman admin mailman"
mailman-bounces: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman bounces mailman"
mailman-confirm: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman confirm mailman"
mailman-join: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman join mailman"
mailman-leave: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman leave mailman"
mailman-owner: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman owner mailman"
mailman-request: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman request mailman"
mailman-subscribe: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe mailman"
mailman-unsubscribe: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe mailman"
Hit enter to notify mailman owner... <-- ENTER
root@server1:~#
Open /etc/aliases afterwards...
nano /etc/aliases
... and add the following lines:
[...]
## mailman mailing list
mailman: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post mailman"
mailman-admin: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman admin mailman"
mailman-bounces: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman bounces mailman"
mailman-confirm: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman confirm mailman"
mailman-join: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman join mailman"
mailman-leave: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman leave mailman"
mailman-owner: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman owner mailman"
mailman-request: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman request mailman"
mailman-subscribe: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe mailman"
mailman-unsubscribe: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe mailman"
Run
newaliases
afterwards and restart Postfix:
service postfix restart
Finally we must enable the Mailman Apache configuration:
ln -s /etc/mailman/apache.conf /etc/apache2/conf-available/mailman.conf
This defines the alias /cgi-bin/mailman/ for all Apache vhosts, which means you can access the Mailman admin interface for a list at http://<vhost>/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/<listname>, and the web page for users of a mailing list can be found at http://<vhost>/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/<listname>.
Under http://<vhost>/pipermail you can find the mailing list archives.
Restart Apache afterwards:
service apache2 restart
Then start the Mailman daemon:
service mailman start
11. Install PureFTPd and Quota
PureFTPd and quota can be installed with the following command:
apt-get install pure-ftpd-common pure-ftpd-mysql quota quotatool
Edit the file /etc/default/pure-ftpd-common...
nano /etc/default/pure-ftpd-common
... and make sure that the start mode is set to standalone and set VIRTUALCHROOT=true:
[...] STANDALONE_OR_INETD=standalone [...] VIRTUALCHROOT=true [...]
Now we configure PureFTPd to allow FTP and TLS sessions. FTP is a very insecure protocol because all passwords and all data are transferred in clear text. By using TLS, the whole communication can be encrypted, thus making FTP much more secure.
If you want to allow FTP and TLS sessions, run
echo 1 > /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/TLS
In order to use TLS, we must create an SSL certificate. I create it in /etc/ssl/private/, therefore I create that directory first:
mkdir -p /etc/ssl/private/
Afterwards, we can generate the SSL certificate as follows:
openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 7300 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/ssl/private/pure-ftpd.pem -out /etc/ssl/private/pure-ftpd.pem
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]: <-- Enter your Country Name (e.g., "DE").
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:<-- Enter your State or Province Name.
Locality Name (eg, city) []:<-- Enter your City.
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:<-- Enter your Organization Name (e.g., the name of your company).
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:<-- Enter your Organizational Unit Name (e.g. "IT Department").
Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:<-- Enter the Fully Qualified Domain Name of the system (e.g. "server1.example.com").
Email Address []:<-- Enter your Email Address.
Change the permissions of the SSL certificate:
chmod 600 /etc/ssl/private/pure-ftpd.pem
Then restart PureFTPd:
service pure-ftpd-mysql restart
Edit /etc/fstab. Mine looks like this (I added ,usrjquota=quota.user,grpjquota=quota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0 to the partition with the mount point /):
nano /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
/dev/mapper/server1--vg-root / ext4 errors=remount-ro,usrjquota=quota.user,grpjquota=quota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0 0 1
# /boot was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=39762f15-3a49-4982-add3-139d5040b48a /boot ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/mapper/server1--vg-swap_1 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
To enable quota, run these commands:
mount -o remount /
quotacheck -avugm
quotaon -avug
Which will show the following output:
root@server1:~# quotacheck -avugm
quotacheck: Scanning /dev/mapper/server1--vg-root [/] done
quotacheck: Cannot stat old user quota file //quota.user: No such file or directory. Usage will not be subtracted.
quotacheck: Cannot stat old group quota file //quota.group: No such file or directory. Usage will not be subtracted.
quotacheck: Cannot stat old user quota file //quota.user: No such file or directory. Usage will not be subtracted.
quotacheck: Cannot stat old group quota file //quota.group: No such file or directory. Usage will not be subtracted.
quotacheck: Checked 11642 directories and 81307 files
quotacheck: Old file not found.
quotacheck: Old file not found.
root@server1:~# quotaon -avug
/dev/mapper/server1--vg-root [/]: group quotas turned on
/dev/mapper/server1--vg-root [/]: user quotas turned on
12. Install BIND DNS Server
BIND can be installed as follows:
apt-get install bind9 dnsutils haveged
13. Install Vlogger, Webalizer, and AWstats
Vlogger, webalizer, and AWstats can be installed as follows:
apt-get install vlogger webalizer awstats geoip-database libclass-dbi-mysql-perl
Open /etc/cron.d/awstats afterwards...
nano /etc/cron.d/awstats
... and comment out everything in that file:
#MAILTO=root #*/10 * * * * www-data [ -x /usr/share/awstats/tools/update.sh ] && /usr/share/awstats/tools/update.sh # Generate static reports: #10 03 * * * www-data [ -x /usr/share/awstats/tools/buildstatic.sh ] && /usr/share/awstats/tools/buildstatic.sh
14. Install Jailkit
Jailkit is needed only if you want to chroot SSH users. It can be installed as follows (important: Jailkit must be installed before ISPConfig - it cannot be installed afterwards!):
apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake1.11 libtool flex bison debhelper binutils
cd /tmp
wget http://olivier.sessink.nl/jailkit/jailkit-2.19.tar.gz
tar xvfz jailkit-2.19.tar.gz
cd jailkit-2.19
./debian/rules binary
You can now install the Jailkit .deb package as follows:
cd ..
dpkg -i jailkit_2.19-1_*.deb
rm -rf jailkit-2.19*
15. Install fail2ban and UFW
This is optional but recommended, because the ISPConfig monitor tries to show the log:
apt-get install fail2ban
To make fail2ban monitor PureFTPd and Dovecot, create the file /etc/fail2ban/jail.local:
nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.local
[pureftpd]
enabled = true
port = ftp
filter = pureftpd
logpath = /var/log/syslog
maxretry = 3
[dovecot-pop3imap]
enabled = true
filter = dovecot-pop3imap
action = iptables-multiport[name=dovecot-pop3imap, port="pop3,pop3s,imap,imaps", protocol=tcp]
logpath = /var/log/mail.log
maxretry = 5
[postfix-sasl]
enabled = true
port = smtp
filter = postfix-sasl
logpath = /var/log/mail.log
maxretry = 3
Then create the following two filter files:
nano /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/pureftpd.conf
[Definition]
failregex = .*pure-ftpd: \(.*@<HOST>\) \[WARNING\] Authentication failed for user.*
ignoreregex =
nano /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/dovecot-pop3imap.conf
[Definition]
failregex = (?: pop3-login|imap-login): .*(?:Authentication failure|Aborted login \(auth failed|Aborted login \(tried to use disabled|Disconnected \(auth failed|Aborted login \(\d+ authentication attempts).*rip=(?P<host>\S*),.*
ignoreregex =
Add the missing ignoreregex line in the postfix-sasl file:
echo "ignoreregex =" >> /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/postfix-sasl.conf
Restart fail2ban afterwards:
service fail2ban restart
To install the UFW firewall, run this apt command:
apt-get install ufw
