Today i published the first article from the curriculum of Drupal Admin sysadmin training organized by our team.
What does it take to set up a web server from scratch and install Drupal to that server?
Let’s find it out.
The web server we will be using runs under Linux Debian / Ubuntu and has the standard set of Apache, MySql, Php on board, all with default configs. We will also consider basic set up of Drupal and some nuances about that environment.
The prerequisites: a server with Debian installed, root access via ssh.
The website’s address is drupaladmin-example.com
Note: you need to have the A entry matching the web server’s IP for your domain in the DNS registry before setting off. You can add the pair to the hosts file:
- c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in Windows;
- /etc/hosts in Linux / Mac OS X.
Preparing the server
We’ll need a console editor. I often use nano, so let’s install this one:
root@server:~# apt-get install nano
Let’s create a user that will work with the site and call that user “webmaster”.
root@server:~# adduser webmaster
Next, we invent a password for this user, provide answers to all questions asked and we are all set.
Now we connect to the server as webmaster and create a structure of directories in webmaster’s folder:
webmaster@server:~$ mkdir domains domains/tmp domains/drupaladmin-example.com domains/drupaladmin-example.com/logs domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html
~/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html is the directory where our website will reside.
~/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/logs is the place for web server log files.
~/domains/tmp is the Drupal’s temporary storage.
We need to have it open for all operations:
webmaster@server:~$ chmod 777 /home/webmaster/domains/tmp
Installing Apache, MySql, PHP
Now we connect to the server as root. Next, we update Debian index files:
root@server:~# apt-get update
Then we can install what we want:
root@server:~# apt-get install apache2 mysql-server php5 php5-mysql php5-gd
Important: do not forget to provide root password for MySQL.
Setting up Apache virtual host
If you need to learn more, check the docs published to Apache.org. There is a lot of info about virtual hosts there. At this stage, we stay connected as root.
First, we create /etc/apache2/sites-available/drupaladmin-example.com.conf:
root@server:~# nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/drupaladmin- example.com.conf
And this is what we paste into this file.
For Apache 2.2:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin info@drupaladmin-example.com
ServerName www.drupaladmin-example.com
ServerAlias drupaladmin-example.com
DocumentRoot /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html
<Directory /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html>
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride all
order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ErrorLog /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/logs/apache_errors.log
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
# LogLevel warn
CustomLog /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/logs/apache_access.log combined
php_admin_value upload_tmp_dir "/home/webmaster/domains/tmp"
php_admin_value session.save_path "/home/webmaster/domains/tmp"
AddType application/x-httpd- php .php .php3 .php4 .php5 .phtml
AddType application/x-httpd- php-source .phps
</VirtualHost>For Apache 2.4:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin info@drupaladmin-example.com
ServerName www.drupaladmin-example.com
ServerAlias drupaladmin-example.com
DocumentRoot /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html
<Directory /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html>
AllowOverride All
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/logs/apache_errors.log
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
# LogLevel warn
CustomLog /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/logs/apache_access.log combined
php_admin_value upload_tmp_dir "/home/webmaster/domains/tmp";
php_admin_value session.save_path "/home/webmaster/domains/tmp"
AddType application/x-httpd- php .php .php3 .php4 .php5 .phtml
AddType application/x-httpd- php-source .phps
</VirtualHost>Now, we tell the server it can use this virtual host:
root@server:~# a2ensite drupaladmin-example.com
And activate the Rewrite module to make links look beautiful:
root@server:~# a2enmod rewrite
Time to restart Apache:
root@server:~# /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
Creating the MySql DB
We connect to MySQL as root, using the password we have entered earlier.
root@server:~# mysql -uroot -p
Now we create the database. Let’s call it drupal_admin, its user will be webmaster, the password – dbpassword. Since this is just a tutorial, this password will do, but you have to use something much, much more complicated and unique when working on live websites.
CREATE DATABASE drupal_admin; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal_admin.* TO 'webmaster'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'dbpassword' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Type quit to exit the MySQL client.
Now the server is ready to accept Drupal.
How to install Drupal
From here on, we proceed as webmaster.
You can find a detailed Drupal 7 installation guide here: https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/install
And if you need to install Drupal 8 to the server, the detailed guide is here: https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/install
First off, we download the latest Drupal release from drupal.org.
Drupal 7
webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-7.54.tar.gz -O drupal.tar.gz
Drupal 8
webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ wget https://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-8.3.2.tar.gz -O drupal.tar.gz
Next, we unpack it and move all files to /home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html:
webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ tar xvfz drupal.tar.gz
When unpacking is complete, you get the directory named drupal-x.x with x.x standing for the version of Drupal you downloaded.
Now we move the files:
webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ mv drupal-x.x/* ./ webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ mv drupal-x.x/.* ./ webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ rm drupal.tar.gz webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ rmdir drupal-x.x webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ chmod -R 777 sites/default/files webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ cp sites/default/default.settings.php sites/default/settings.php webmaster@server:/home/webmaster/domains/drupaladmin-example.com/html$ chmod 777 sites/default/settings.php
Next, fire up the browser, browse to http://drupaladmin-example.com/install.php and launch the Drupal installation.
Name of the DB is drupal_admin, name of the user is webmaster, password is dbpassword.
The temporary files directory is /home/webmaster/domains/tmp
That’s it! We now have a server all set up and with Drupal on board.