Server Setup

Server-Setup.md

• Create VirtualBox VM for Ubuntu using the Ubuntu Mini.iso 16.04

• Go through the basic installation process for Ubuntu

• Restart into the installed OS

• Login into the created user odu_user

• Install Vim sudo apt install vim

• Edit /etc/network/interfaces

  • Comment out iface enp0s3 inet dhcp
  • Add

  address         10.0.2.15
  netmask         255.255.255.0
  gateway         10.0.2.2
  broadcast       10.0.2.255
  dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
  pre-up iptables-restore < /etc/iptables/rules.v4 
  

• Now configure iptables to allow ssh, loopback and http connections

  • Add the initialization rule sudo iptables -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT.

  • Add a loopback accept rule sudo iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT

  • Add a SSH accept rule on port 22 sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT

  • Add a HTTP accept rule on port 80 sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

  • Set all unfiltered packets to drop sudo iptables -P INPUT DROP

  • Save the iptables rules to /etc/iptables/rules.v4 which is loaded by the network interface config

• Install openssh server, sudo apt install openssh-server

• Move to the host machine and access the VM via ssh ssh odu_staff@localhost -p 2222

  • 2222 is the VirtualBox port I used for the host -> guest connection, it was being really weird

• Create the grad, ugrad and staff groups

  sudo groupadd ugrad  
  sudo groupadd staff
  

• Edit /etc/sudoers Add line %staff ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL to give all members of the staff group sudo privileges

• Remove original user odu_staff from sudo group so the staff group actually matters

  • sudo gpasswd -d odu_staff sudo

• Add two more users odu_ugrad and odu_grad to their respective groups

  • sudo useradd -m odu_ugrad -g ugrad
  • sudo useradd -m lodu_grad -g grad

• Add three directories sudo mkdir /grad, sudo mkdir /ugrad, and sudo mkdir /everyone

• Set permissions for each directory

  sudo chown root:grad /grad
  #1770 sets the sticky bit while giving read and write permissions to the owner and assigned group 
  sudo chmod 1770 /grad
  #ugrad
  sudo chown root:ugrad /ugrad
  sudo chmod 1770 /ugrad
  #everyone
  #1777 also sets the sticky bit and allow anyone to read and write
  sudo chmod 1777 /everyone
  

• Setup LAMP

  • Install the Apache Server sudo apt install apache2

  • Install the MySQL server sudo apt install mysql-server

  • Add ServerName odu.edu to end of file to suppress warning message

  • Restart apache sudo systemctl restart apache2

  • Add 8080 -> 80 port into the VM to allow accessing the webpage

  • Initialize the MySql Server mysql_secure_installation, go through the prompt

  • Install PHP sudo apt-get install php libapache2-mod-php php-mcrypt php-mysql

  • Remove /var/www/html/index.html so the php index is the one used by default

  • Create /var/www/html/index.php for the php code

  • Open http://odu.primetoxinz.com:8080 in a browser to view the default webpage