Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Setting Up a Server
It isn't that I haven't done it before, but I found setting this server up was a little more challenging...
I took my old P4 3.0 ghz machine and installed Ubuntu Server.
This was the easy part.
Congratulations! Its done!
Then I installed Postfix and Dovecot. These are the mail programs to handle the email. They seemed to install easy enough, but there are some missing details...
#1 - you need to install dovecot-imapd
#2 - you need signed keys to make TLS and other security features available
#3 - I had to use 3 different sources for the config files to get all the correct items in place
#4 - Procmail also needs a setting to get your mail to the right directories, you need to create a .procmailrc file in your home directory that contains the path from /var/lib/mail to /home/[user]/Maildir
I installed Squid and Dansguardian. These are a proxy and a filter program to control internet access. Always a good idea when you have kids.
#1 - Follow the how-to tutorials on these
#2 - I still need to edit the iptables to handle a 'dual-home" setup
#4 - for now, I have the firefox lockpref settings on the machines that need it
#5 - I tried setting the auth settings on Squid, but they aren't working
I installed Apache2 - a web server.
#1 - be sure you don't forget a "/" in the config files...I did, took a while to debug, but everything is working fine
I also installed Fail2ban and Mediawiki -
#1 - fail2ban is easy
#2 - Mediawiki, however, has a trick. Once you have it installed, you need to make a sym-link to the Mediawiki directory in your www directory
#3 - after you follow the directions from there (web interface setup of Mediawiki) you have to move the config file to the mediawiki dir **and** you need to change its permissions to www-data not root. That knowledge isn't easy to find.
I still have a few things left to do...
#1 - the IPTables thing (postponed)
#2 - testing the security on the server (done)
#3 - getting Squid and Dansguardian running and tested (done now)
#4 - install and configure Squirrel Mail (sort of done...not quite working yet)
#5 - get https and other secure options enabled and working (done)
Oh, and I set my wife's machine up again, with a mirror RAID, wireless and all without any trouble this time...using Ubuntu...not Fedora...
I took my old P4 3.0 ghz machine and installed Ubuntu Server.
This was the easy part.
Congratulations! Its done!
Then I installed Postfix and Dovecot. These are the mail programs to handle the email. They seemed to install easy enough, but there are some missing details...
#1 - you need to install dovecot-imapd
#2 - you need signed keys to make TLS and other security features available
#3 - I had to use 3 different sources for the config files to get all the correct items in place
#4 - Procmail also needs a setting to get your mail to the right directories, you need to create a .procmailrc file in your home directory that contains the path from /var/lib/mail to /home/[user]/Maildir
I installed Squid and Dansguardian. These are a proxy and a filter program to control internet access. Always a good idea when you have kids.
#1 - Follow the how-to tutorials on these
#2 - I still need to edit the iptables to handle a 'dual-home" setup
#4 - for now, I have the firefox lockpref settings on the machines that need it
#5 - I tried setting the auth settings on Squid, but they aren't working
I installed Apache2 - a web server.
#1 - be sure you don't forget a "/" in the config files...I did, took a while to debug, but everything is working fine
I also installed Fail2ban and Mediawiki -
#1 - fail2ban is easy
#2 - Mediawiki, however, has a trick. Once you have it installed, you need to make a sym-link to the Mediawiki directory in your www directory
#3 - after you follow the directions from there (web interface setup of Mediawiki) you have to move the config file to the mediawiki dir **and** you need to change its permissions to www-data not root. That knowledge isn't easy to find.
I still have a few things left to do...
#1 - the IPTables thing (postponed)
#2 - testing the security on the server (done)
#3 - getting Squid and Dansguardian running and tested (done now)
#4 - install and configure Squirrel Mail (sort of done...not quite working yet)
#5 - get https and other secure options enabled and working (done)
Oh, and I set my wife's machine up again, with a mirror RAID, wireless and all without any trouble this time...using Ubuntu...not Fedora...
