web server setup with Debian 7 (Wheezy)

Setup bash and update the system

cp /etc/skel/.bashrc /root/.bashrc
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

Configure hostname correctly

Make sure to have the following two lines (with the same format) at the top of your /etc/hosts file

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx web1.myserver.com web1

Note: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the public IP address assigned to your server.
Install all needed packages

apt-get install php5 mysql-server mysql-client apache2 iptables phpmyadmin varnish shorewall vsftpd php5-cli php5-curl php5-dev php5-gd php5-idn php5-imagick php5-imap php5-memcache php5-ming php5-pspell php5-recode php5-snmp php5-sqlite php5-tidy php5-xcache php5-xmlrpc php-apc php-pear php-xml-rpc postfix apg ca-certificates heirloom-mailx

MySQL/PhpMyAdmin:

mysql root password: xxx
repeat mysql root password: xxx
web server to reconfigure automatically: apache2
configure database for phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common? Yes
Password of the database’s administrative user: xxx
Password for phpmyadmin: xxx
Password confirmation: xxx

Postfix:

Select Internet Site
System mail name: (insert here the FQDN, for example web1.myserver.com)

Setup FTP

Stop VSFTP server:

/etc/init.d/vsftpd stop

Create backup configuration:

mv /etc/vsftpd.conf /etc/vsftpd.conf.backup

Add new configuration:

listen=YES
listen_port=21
anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
guest_enable=YES
guest_username=nobody
user_sub_token=$USER
local_root=/var/www/vhosts/$USER
virtual_use_local_privs=YES
user_config_dir=/etc/vsftpd/users
pam_service_name=vsftpd_local_and_virtual
chroot_local_user=YES
chroot_list_enable=YES
chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd/chroot_list
ftpd_banner=Welcome to my ftp server
write_enable=YES
download_enable=YES
dirlist_enable=YES
local_umask=022
dirmessage_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
xferlog_file=/var/log/xferlog
connect_from_port_20=YES
connect_timeout=60
data_connection_timeout=300
idle_session_timeout=300
local_max_rate=0
max_clients=0
max_per_ip=3

Create an empty chroot_list file:

touch /etc/vsftpd/chroot_list

Start VSFTP server:

/etc/init.d/vsftpd start

Setup Apache

Stop Apache web server:

/etc/init.d/apache2 stop

Backup Apache configuration:

cp /etc/apache2/apache2.conf /etc/apache2/apache2.conf.backup

Edit the following lines in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

From Timeout 300 to Timeout 45
From KeepAliveTimeout 5 to KeepAliveTimeout 15
Change the mpm_prefork_module section like the following:

StartServers 5
MinSpareServers 5
MaxSpareServers 10
ServerLimit 400
MaxClients 400
MaxRequestsPerChild 10000

Edit /etc/apache2/ports.conf and change the port 80 with 8080 since we are going to use Varnish:

NameVirtualHost *:8080
Listen 8080

Change the port (from 80 to 8080) also in the default virtual host /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default Now restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Setup Varnish

Stop Varnish daemon:

/etc/init.d/varnish stop

Open /etc/varnish/default.vcl and make sure the backend section is like this:

backend default {
.host = “127.0.0.1”;
.port = “8080”;
.connect_timeout = 600s;
.first_byte_timeout = 600s;
.between_bytes_timeout = 600s;
}

Now edit /etc/default/varnish and set the DAEMON_OPTS variable like this:

DAEMON_OPTS=”-a :80 \
-T localhost:6082 \
-f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \
-p thread_pools=4 \
-p thread_pool_max=1500 \
-p listen_depth=2048 \
-p lru_interval=1800 \
-h classic,169313 \
-p max_restarts=6 \
-p connect_timeout=600 \
-p send_timeout=2000 \
-s malloc,2G”

Restart Varnish:

/etc/init.d/varnish restart

Setup MySQL

MySQL is already configured. You only need to log slow queries (that is often usefult during slow load page investigation). Todo it, open /etc/mysql/my.cnf and decomment the following two lines:

log_slow_queries = /var/log/mysql/mysql-slow.log
long_query_time = 2

Configure Shorewall firewall rules

Copy the default configuration for one interface:

cp /usr/share/doc/shorewall/examples/one-interface/interfaces /etc/shorewall/interfaces
cp /usr/share/doc/shorewall/examples/one-interface/policy /etc/shorewall/policy
cp /usr/share/doc/shorewall/examples/one-interface/rules /etc/shorewall/rules
cp /usr/share/doc/shorewall/examples/one-interface/zones /etc/shorewall/zones

Now open /etc/shorewall/policy file and change the line:

net all DROP info

removing info directive given it fills the system logs:

net all DROP

Now open /etc/shorewall/rules and add the following rules at the bottom of the file:

HTTP/ACCEPT net $FW
SSH/ACCEPT net $FW
FTP/ACCEPT net $FW

# real apache since varnish listens on port 80
#ACCEPT net $FW tcp 8080

NOTE: in case you want to allow ICMP (Ping) traffic from a specific remote hosts you need to add a rule similar to the following where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the remote IP address, before the Ping(DROP) rule:

Ping(ACCEPT) net:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx $FW

Now edit /etc/default/shorewall and change startup=0 to startup=1 You are now ready to start the firewall:

/etc/init.d/shorewall start

Setup Postfix

Stop postfix server:

/etc/init.d/postfix stop

Edit /etc/mailname and set your server domain name, for example:

server1.mycompany.com

Then, in order to monitor mail traffic coming from PHP you need to edit /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini. Go to [mail function] section and set the following two options:

sendmail_path = /usr/local/bin/sendmail-wrapper
auto_prepend_file = /usr/local/bin/env.php

Now create the two files above:

sendmail-wrapper:

#!/bin/sh
logger -p mail.info sendmail-wrapper.sh: site=${HTTP_HOST}, client=${REMOTE_ADDR}, script=${SCRIPT_NAME}, pwd=${PWD}, uid=${UID}, user=$(whoami)
/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i $*

env.php:

Now make they both have executable flag:

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/sendmail-wrapper
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/env.php

Add also /usr/local/bin/ to the open_basedir php list in /etc/apache2/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf

php_admin_value open_basedir /usr/share/phpmyadmin/:/etc/phpmyadmin/:/var/lib/phpmyadmin/:/usr/local/bin/

Restart Postfix:

/etc/init.d/postfix start

Prepare environment

Create all needed directories and files

mkdir /root/cron_scripts
mkdir -p /var/www/vhosts
mkdir -p /etc/vsftpd/users
touch /etc/vsftpd/passwd

Now download all tools to manage the server locally:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/ADD_ALIAS.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/ADD_DOMAIN.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/ADD_ALIAS.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/ADD_FTP_VIRTUAL_USER.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/ALIAS_LIST.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/DEL_ALIAS.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/DEL_DOMAIN.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/DEL_FTP_VIRTUAL_USER.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/DOMAIN_LIST.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/MYSQL_CREATE.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/UPDATE_ALL_FTP_PASSWORD.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/UPDATE_FTP_PASSWORD.sh
chmod 770 *.sh

Download also the tools that will be used with cron:

cd /root/cron_scripts
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/cron_scripts/backup_mysql.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matteomattei/servermaintenance/master/LAMP/cron_scripts/mysql_optimize.sh
chmod 770 *.sh

Edit /root/ADD_DOMAIN.sh and change ADMIN_EMAIL variable with your email address.
Edit /root/MYSQL_CREATE.sh and change the variable MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD with your MySQL root password.
Edit /root/cron_scripts/backup_mysql.sh and change the variable DB_PASSWORD with your MySQL root password and MAIL_NOTIFICATION with your email address.
Edit /root/cron_scripts/mysql_optimize.sh and change the variable MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD with your MySQL root password.

Configure CRON

Edit /etc/crontab and add the following lines at the bottom:

# mysql optimize tables
3 4 * * 7 root /root/mysql_optimize.sh

# mysql backup
32 4 * * * root /root/backup_mysql.sh