Dev'n Aegir & Drupal in a vmware LAMP appliance?
I have been feeling the pain of using wamp for my testing server (im on vista). Mainly I cant get drush to work and cygwin really sucks! I have recently gotten into vmware and have been testing out different LAMP virtual appliances. Im guessing this will be the best setup for a test environ but I've yet to find just the right lamp rig.
Do any of you use vmware for a test environment? If so can you recommend or offer up a good development appliance which is good for testing lots of drupal sites and using aegir to ease things? I hate using my online server as I tend to beat the hell out of my testing setup! lol
Cheers! ^_^
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using vmware and debian minimal install cd
I use the free (as in beer) vmware server on my Linux desktop to test drupal and aegir. I tend to use a minimal debian stable installation to start of with. The handbook has some pages to use Ubuntu-server which should apply to debian too. The minimal lamp installation works fine with 128 MB of RAM and takes up about 500 MB of diskspace.
I was thinking about publishing a vmware machine with a bare-bone drupal install as a sort of "Drupal SDK" but I am lacking the time right now. I will try to make fork my next vmware image before I put any data into it.
I am freaking out ... I am
I am freaking out ... I am sooo loving vmware server, was using the player before..
Im going to send them a love letter and when its time buy their extended version. ^_^
I didnt see your post and started my setup already. I went with ubuntu server 8.10 Takes up a bit more room than that minimal rig!
Still I suppose it doesnt hurt I have a ton of hd space. I will try out a build with yours too .. that could be carried around in a flashdrive its so small
I had some issues getting set (read learning curve) with hostname ips and such but I got dhcp working in the end and installed Webmin .... which im loving! I had originally tried out some jumpstart packages but I really wanted full clean control of the build. Man I am becoming addicted to this stuff .. is that possible? lol
Anyway I cant wait to get aegir & drush going and finally awaken to a pleasant dev environment. WAMP gave me white knuckles most of the time ... and like I said above cgwyn ... #!%$^^%@!! With as many projects we have coming on I couldn't take sub-optimal dev'n anymore!! lol
This is a useful link
thoughtpolice.co.uk/vmware/
pre-installed vmware server instances.
just add what you need
I use the ubuntu one, but the main dev platform is os x.
Mac OS X & CentOS 5
Mac OS X rocks as a development platform. Using the client version @ home. For world-facing applications, i have a Drupal install running on Mac OS X Server, and another under 64-bit CentOS 5 (using Yum to install packages).
Thanks for the link ... they
Thanks for the link ... they have a good selection & the torrents are fast!
Ive always liked ubuntu OS and have installed it on a ton of computers, now the server addition is rockin me too!
Im going to get Aegir going tonight! Im loving this as a dev rig, its blazing fast, ssh sftp mail everything!!!... drush setup in oh like 5 damned seconds! ... I had tried a million times on my local WAMP for the last year with no luck! Im FREE!!! Seriously there should be a toxic drupal scull warning somewhere to never use wamp! lol
AHA!
Since I had troubles with aegir it and with dns in my vmware server guest os .. it caused me to reconsider Vmware server ... man am I glad I did cause I am buying vmware workstation now! I am going to run ubuntu server 8.10 as my main os and just virtualize windows only when I need it ... mainly for my fav adobe software & games. I am so excited I can barely contain myself! ^_^ it has been a long road... I have been using multi-boot setups for a while and well that just sux the bearded clam!
Side grade
Just so you know, Adobe offers side-grades on their software, should you want to move away from Windoze. Side-grades generally cost about the same as an upgrade, but is the complete package for the new OS.
Got this baby mostly working
Got this baby mostly working on a custom baked virtual ubuntu 8.10 serve,r with customized webmin w/googleGears & other goodies. This thing is so freakin awesome! Its exceedingly faster than wamp, basically linux is a better os to start with especially without all the gui stuff, plus I can mimic my live servers setup .. damn this is too sweet. ... still keeping vista as my main os & server virtualized in vmware workstation, I guess im additced to vista lol. I suppose I could just use the free vmware player or server but I think workstation is sweet & worth it.
Now I have to look into using eclipse ide, I guess its kinda silly ive never used it, from what im reading its going to be much better than notepad++, lol! I think thats the last big remaining hole in my devin environment
Some remaining issues
I'm having some trouble with LAN domain access to my server ... im able to access it through http://myservername & http://myServersStatcIp over the lan but not any of the Aegir servernames ... looking @ the VirtualHost file for one the the sites i added, i dunno it seems too sparse. I have added a static ip to my main server from within my dhcp server on my physical router [moterola] with my server name. It's gotten me this far! I setup a full LAMP server, installed webmin & google gears and installed Aegir completely with no current errors. Still it seems like the names on my server are not resolving in my lan environment, and consequently not available. I have not enabled DHCP on my server cause my router had it built in, this may be my problem I dunno. Still climbing the curve when it comes to networking LANs with fake domains ... ive only ever dealt with real internet sites.
I also noticed when looking @ [existing virtual hosts] in Apache there are 3 identical virtual servers listed for each aegir added site. These dont seem to have any address associated with them just (aegirAddedsSite.dev on address *.) There is a Document root set but it appears to be wrong as well. (Document Root /var/aegir/drupal-6.10) I dont see anywhere in the Hosting UI to set these parameters. Shouldn't it be( /var/aegir/drupal-6.10/sites/aegirAddedsSite.dev) no?
Just want to note that I have not installed any of the "Experimental System Features"
Just Doc Root
I'm only going to dive in and help on the Doc Root piece :P
Remember that all domains for a multisite setup in Drupal ALL need to be pointed at the Document Root of the entire Drupal install -- e.g. /var/aegir/drupal-6.10.
It's Drupal itself that, when it detects aegirAddedSite.dev as the incoming host request, looks up the possible internal paths, and serves up /sites/aegirAddedSite.dev.
Hope that helps.
Apache virtual hosts
I’m going to preface my comments with this disclaimer: I have not yet setup an Aegir system, so i mostly haven’t a clue what you are talking about ;-) … however based on my general knowledge of Apache virtual hosts configuration, i can say that the asterisk is a wildcard used for domain based virtual hosts. In the old days, explicit IP addresses were required as all domains were IP based.
In the early days of domain based virtual hosts, explicit IPs were still required in the configuration file, but as Apache progressed, it became possible to omit the IP address altogether and just use the asterisk wildcard in place of an explicit IP. This is far more convenient than using explicit IP addresses, and less likely to break the configuration file when IPs change. The only downside to using the wildcard is it is not compatible with really ancient browsers (i.e. those which only understand HTTP/1.0).
Typically, one would only need a single server entry per domain, however multiple entries might be used if subdomains are involved.
Hope at least some of this is helpful.
@Boris Mann Thanks for that
@Boris Mann
Thanks for that tip, im still experimenting with the multi-site thing, still haven't gotten it to fully work yet so my sites still have separate modules dir's. For some reason I haven't been able to get a multi-site going, and I even read [multi-sites for dummies] lol. That's why I think Aegir is going to rock soo much; its going to streamline a lot of things so there easy to manage.
@Rainy Day
That makes sense though to look @ the three entries they appear to be identical and I dont think there are sub-domains, as I only added one site. Still I think its more likely I need to keep studying! The more I know the better IMO, of course im going to be hiring a few folks soon too! I cant wait for that! Thanks for the explanation, I was considering doing ip based to see if it worked better for me .. but I think ur right, it makes more sense to use the wildcard for a lot of reasons.
I still think most of my problems stem from not using real domain names, that has thrown me for more of a loop than I had anticipated. Though I dont need real domains for a test devin server; so im just going to leave things for now since everythings working well, just using one default host. I was able to setup and update a ton of sites uber quick with Drush 2.0 just a few short commands and Bam! Once Drush MM module manager is ported to Drush 2.0 I'll be able to enable modules & dependencies from the command line too!
Im going to give aegir a go again next week when I get some time, I know they are re-factoring some of the drush elements this week!
Just wanted to add that I wound up installing the gnome desktop to my virtual server .. I was afraid it would slow things down but to the contrary its fast as a mofo! & more importantly makes managing the server easier. Webmin is nice but its not a desktop environment that's for sure! Virtualization has really come a long way, when I can run Vista and fully loaded Ubuntu side by side and still play crysis maxed out @ the same time on the same machine! I can only imagine what my new hypervisor system going to be able to handle!
Config & Domains
Without seeing your config file, i really can’t say much more. If there’s nothing confidential in it, why not post the three entries you think are redundant? If there is something confidential, just <snip> it out. [Important note: Be sure to select Filtered HTML -- No Markdown as your Input format, and shroud it in <code> tags.]
If you’re having problems accessing your server, try pinging it. If you can’t ping it, check your firewall rules and logs.
As for using fake, er “private” domain names, should be nothing wrong with that. I do that all the time in development. You should even be able to use illegal top order domain names (i.e. they don’t have to be .com .org .net, etc.) Dogbreath.bark and Quasimodo are perfectly valid domain names… well, sort of! ;-) If you drop either into your /etc/hosts file, your computer should be happy to use it. If you tell Apache they’re your domains, it’ll trust you. If the IP address in /etc/hosts points to your Apache server, it’ll show up. None of that should cause you any problems. If anything, using a real DNS server with real DNS names is more problematic (in part due to the latencies involved, and the possibilities of DNS caching.) So using a private name is a good way to debug your system, IMO. And that’s more secure than using a publicly accessible domain name, because nobody can access the system until you’re ready to open it up.
I usually put something like the PHP code below as the default index.php file on servers i’m bringing up; helps me in knowing if the domains are resolving correctly. All it does is echo back the domain name (or IP address) used to access the page; whatever you plugged in as the URI in your browser. It’ll capitalize the first letter of the domain (as i thought that looked prettier); domain names are case insensitive, so preserving case is unimportant. [Note: Other elements in the URI are not necessarily case insensitive, however. As a matter of fact, in most cases, the file path is almost always case sensitive.]
Important safety tip: Make sure you don’t have an index.html file taking precedence over the index.php file.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Mirror mirror</title>
<style type="text/css">
BODY { /* defaults */
background-color: #ffc;
color: black;
}
.titleText { /* Title text */
font-family: "Papyrus", "Optima", "Lucida Grande", verdana, "avant garde", arial, sans-serif;
font-size: 36pt;
text-align: center;
color: olive;
}
</style>
</head>
<BODY>
<p class="titleText"><?php echo ucfirst ($_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]); ?></p>
</body>
</html>
I can go to http://edev from
I can go to http://edev from any computer on the LAN and it works fine; So does http://192.168.15.6 which is the ip I associated (with my router) to the mac address of the servers LAN connection in that I also entered edev as the server name .. thus edev is accessible over LAN. I can get my domains to resolve fine while inside ubuntu/server but the problem is viewing with them from other computers on the network.
Im sure i've just conflated something i've yet to fully understand! Dohh! ....hate it when that happens!
Sorry I dont have those aegir files anymore, im going to wait until they refactor drush 2.0 and aegir to try again on another fresh v-server.
I like that index snippet, works JLYSIW. I usually dont put any index in there so it displays all the subdirectories which can be clicked on to view those sites. Kinda handy as long as all sites are all sub/dirs of that document root.
At any rate... this week I'm moving my production server from a shared to a dedicated server! Yay! So im obsessing over that whole move. Should be easier than my LAN virtual server, has been so far. I never would have imagined the LAN environment being such a challenge, then again ive always had cpanel or h-sphere gizmos to make adding sites to the web quite simple n quick. Guess ive never had to do much real network setup until now. Im still adjusting to webmin and full system access. I have to admit I'm lovin all of this but it has been quite a learning experience. At least I get to hire some tech staff this year! Tha'ts going to make a world of difference.
Thanks for your thoughtful help, its quite nice to hear ... my co-workers/family/friends look @ me cross eyed when I discuss too techie stuff with them. ....most people like tech stuff but cringe at the thought of understanding how it works. lol... I guess that's why religion is so effectual.
Cheers!
^_^
it's probably your nameresolveing
Hi,
I seems to me the other computers in your Lan cannot resolve the edev host. Depending how many hosts in your LAN you would like to have access to this vmware machine you could do two things:
- Add the servers ip and hostname to your hosts file: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts on windows or /etc/hosts on most other *Nix based systems. (easy if it's just a few systems)
- Setup an internal dns server and let all your internal hosts use that to resolve your internal hostnames. Much more work and pretty complex if you haven't done this before but probably more efficient if you have lots of clients to configure.
Background: Vmware doesn't handle name resolving for you. You mention you associated the mac address for your vmware instance in your router. That would make dhcp work and take care of the static ip you will need for this. Some (but not all) routers include a small dns service that would help you out here but then all clients in your Lan will need to use you router as a dns server. Adjusting your local hosts file should work in any case.
Good luck!
DNS
Glad you liked my index file. You can name the file something other than index.php (e.g. mirror.php); that way you’ll still get your indexes, and can select the file too.
It seems to me you have two statements in your first paragraph which are contradictory: “I can go to http://edev from any computer on the LAN and it works fine” and “I can get my domains to resolve fine while inside ubuntu/server but the problem is viewing with them from other computers on the network.”
Assuming the latter is the one which is correct, then likely the problem is as SqyD suggested. In the real InterNet, our computers all go out and query a DNS server to lookup domain names and get an IP address for it. When you drop a domain name into your local computer’s /etc/hosts file, you’re doing a cheat, as it were, and telling that computer, and that computer only, how to resolve the domains contained therein. Essentially, /etc/hosts file is a mini DNS server for your computer (and your computer only). If it finds an entry there, it doesn’t bother going out to the DNS server. To get other computers on your LAN to play along with the fictional domain you’ve created, you need to tell them about it. And the ways to do that are exactly as SqyD described. Hopefully that helps to clarify what is (probably) going on with your LAN.
I can’t be certain, but it sounds like you have given your server a static DHCP lease based on the server’s MAC address, and that the router has allowed you to name (as some routers do) the machine “edev” for the purposes of displaying the machine in the router’s status pages. Now you might think this means the router should be telling the other computers connected to it that the machine “edev” has IP address 192.168.15.6, but it’s not. Not unless it’s running a mini DNS server (which some routers also allow, as SqyD says). Hopefully this helps to clarify what might be going on with your router.
You haven’t said what kind of router you have, but i recently bought a new LinkSYS router for home use. Its native firmware was rather underwhelming, but installing the Linux based dd-wrt firmware sure made a world of difference. Turned my rickety $40 router into a stable $600-class router (for free). And my router only supports the micro+ version of the firmware!
That firmware stuff is
That firmware stuff is pretty sweet I was just looking @ firmware replacements for routers yesterday; what a brilliant idea! Cause I think the router is the best place for the DNS @ least in my Home/Office environment. Right now I am using a Motorola VT2442 It does have DynDNS built in which I considered using, but I figure since this is a lowly LAN I could prolly just use a local dns server, unless I can find a firmware replacement for motorolla or get a new linsys.
I gave a whack at Bind9 a couple of days ago, your not kidding about setup being difficult! I have also used the hosts file method which works but I only have one ip on my server & multiple sites (and adding multiple nic's even though virtual seems a bit redundant) so im thinking I might need diff ports for each site or more appropriately just get bind9 fully functioning! or a better router!
As far as the conflictual comments .. They are true none the less ... I think the only reason I can access by http://edev over the LAN is that its set as a static LAN client in my router, you guessed right it is a dhcp address which I made static and pasted the mac address over from vmware, all from within the router. Then of course my servers main document root comes up in the browser. It could be better but @ least its working, and I can get back to the sites I am developing.
Once I fill up on some more apache2 and bind9 docs I think I may be able to get this perfect, I am grasping the concepts more and more. I know I could have just gone and downloaded a pre-made lamp appliance.. but I wanted to fully understand each step of creating the server environment from start and running into problems like these are great for learning! Good thing its virtual! lol So maybe in my real servers I don't screw everything up!
Thanks guys for your thoughts on the subject!
Cheers!
Joshua
More DNS
We’re alike in that i like to understand things at a lower level than what i’m working. My limited experience with all-in-one hosting solutions (i.e. host-in-a-box, lxadmin) is they suck. I prefer to roll-my-own. But that’s more work as it requires an understanding of each of the components and how they work.
DNS servers are the exception for me. At one time i considered running bind, but then i came to my senses! You see i got fed up with flaky shared hosting about 8 years ago and put up a web and eMail server off my DSL line (using a vintage 68040 Mac running OpenBSD). I had planned to run bind on my server, but then realized that i’d still need a backup DNS server somewhere, and that my domain registrar offered all this, with a nice web-base GUI, as part of my $7/year domain registration fee!
For a home based LAN, DNS servers are too much work, IMO, unless you *really* have a need (and a strong masochistic bent). The exception being if you have a nice little DNS server in your router with an easy to use web-based interface. YMMV.
If other computers on your LAN are resolving http://edev and you haven’t configured their /etc/hosts files, then the *only* way they could be resolving that is if your router has a DNS server running. DynDNS is not the same thing as a DNS server. It is a DNS service which allows you to run a server off a dynamic IP address. It is of no benefit to you on the LAN side. It merely allows *outside* users to find your router using a DNS lookup (as the DynDNS tracks the your router’s ever changing IP). Many routers support this feature. I have always had a static IP for my server, so i have never needed this kind of service.
Having only one IP for your server isn’t a limitation at all. In fact, in my opinion, multiple IP’s only complicate matters. All services can easily share a single IP (and NIC). I have used only a single IP for all my needs for years. Multiple domains can all resolve to the same IP address, and Apache’s virtual hosts can correctly resolve them all. (Unless, for some ungodly reason, you want/need to support the ancient http/1.0 protocol.)
Forget about using virtual NICs, etc. Your time would be better spent figuring out how to support IPv6. Look forward, not backward! :-)
I guess your right about the
I guess your right about the router... I just didnt assume thats what it was doing since the area of the admin is called LAN clients. Doesnt really mention DNS at all, basically its just lets me enter an IP, hostname & mac address. I knew there was a dhcp server in it .. and that I could set those ip's as static with a hostname. Guess I didnt put 2 & 2 together.
Ive not used dyndns for the very reasons you mentioned .. no outside access needed. So I guess that narrows me down to Apache since my router seems to at least be getting me into the system over the LAN, Apache should be able to resolve things from there? Or do I still need to edit the hosts files on all lan clients? Thanks for the tip/off on bind too .. it was painful, no doubt its best left not revisited! I guess its on to Apache land for me, think Id rather learn about that than bind anyway!
Cheers!
Joshua
Apache
Well if you’re seeing web pages (from your server) when you plug http://edev/ into your broswer, and your local machine doesn’t know who “edev” is, then you know two things: 1) Somehow your local machine is resolving the DNS (which we are assuming is due to the router), and 2) Apache is responding to the request and serving *something* up. So your system is mostly working. Guess you must not be seeing what you expect to see, however, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation, right?
My advice is not to modify the main httpd.conf file (unless you need to add an Include statement). Make all your changes in you own file, like myHttpd.conf, or whatever name makes sense for what you’re doing. Many distro’s contain a statement something like this in their stock httpd.conf files:
Include /etc/apache2/other/*.conf
What that does is read any file with a .conf extension, residing inside the directory /etc/apache2/other/, into the httpd.conf at the point of the Include statement. If you drop a file named virtualhosts.conf into that directory, it would be read by Apache as part of its configuration file. It is far better to do things this way than to hack away at the main httpd.conf file; leave that file as pristine as possible.
You can use grep to find any Include statements in your httpd.conf file (some adjustments to the path may be necessary):
grep -i include /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
Your virtualhosts.conf might look something like this:
#
# My Apache Virtual Hosts configuration file
#
NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost *>
ServerName demo.com
ServerAlias www.demo.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/cms/Drupal
</VirtualHost>
#
# This Include is only necessary if we have .htaccess files turned off
# (which will improve Apache's performance)
#
<Directory "/var/www/cms/Drupal">
Include /var/www/cms/Drupal/.htaccess
</Directory>
Duplicate
Its working!!
I discovered that httpd.conf is an empty file now in Debian builds. I guess debian folks prefer your method as well... its all modularized. All the main defaults are now in apache2.conf. For custom bits there is a [sites-available] & a [sites-enabled] directories inside the appache2 dir. Which I can see [sites-enabled] dir has an include line for it in the apache2.conf file.
I did discover why my domain names were not working as I'd hoped (at least I think so), I needed to use the sites name instead of an * in
<VirtualHost mycheesysite.hive:80>Also I had to add my static ip to my ports.conf fileNameVirtualHost 192.168.15.6:80 along with the listen 80 lineWouldnt work without that and kept giving me overlap errors. I had the wildcard *:80 but apache no likey, once I started to add more VirtualHosts. I also had to add 192.168.15.6 mycheesysite.hive ...to my hosts file in all clients on the LAN and now everything is working! I am so happy, I could just scream ... its a bit early for that though!I am almost certain it was the ports.conf file ... thats the only thing I hadnt tried yet, that and my VirtualHosts files were missing some elements too I guess... so maybe it was a few things lol. I am so glad to have this learned. I was really over complicating things in my head and skipping over some rather important little pieces of the puzzle.
I also like your [.htaccess files turned off] method, it does speed things up a little.
Thank you a thousand times for your help and guidance!!
Apache configuration
The empty /etc/httpd.conf file is probably a placeholder for Apache 1.x. Surprising it didn’t contain some kind of comment, though. In CentOS 5 and MacOS X, the file is /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
Are you also using, or planning to use, SSL? I had forgotten this, but… The Name-based Virtual Host Support section of the Apache2 manual says:
You’ll probably also want to read the Apache manual section on Binding. The Apache documentation is very good, and well worth digging into.
Regarding .htaccess files, this section of the Apache manual is a good read. Also, there is one other .htaccess file which should be included, and it is in the Drupal files folder, wherever that is in your install. I omitted that from my example; the location of that directory will vary from one setup to the next.
Finally, one other thought/comment: I’m curious about your choice of Debian; why did you choose it? I’m hardly an expert in the various Linux distros, but i chose CentOS 5 over Debian because this Comparison of Linux distributions listed Debian as general purpose, whereas CentOS was designed for use as a server. I reasoned that a distro designed for servers would be relatively stable, secure and easy to configure for the services i wanted, and wouldn’t contain a lot of unnecessary services and UI fluff. Not sure it that line of reasoning is valid; i’m a bit of a newb when it comes to knowing the difference between distros. One thing i did learn was that 64-bit CentOS is the flavor to choose for a server. And i really like yum, it makes installing software very easy. The only downside to CentOS 5 that i have found is they aren’t up to PHP 5.2 in their repositories (however i found a third party repository that offers it). All in all, i have been very pleased with it.
I actually chose Ubuntu
I actually chose Ubuntu Server 8.10 64bit, which is based on Debian, mainly cause i am used to Ubuntu, plus it seems there is more online data and help for that OS than any other. I've also installed it quite a few times. We own a tech support firm and you wouldn't believe the amount of folks who join because they are having insane windows problems .. almost all of which stem from the fact that they are using a pirated XP. Which if you didn't know already comes with a certainty of of major issues BSOD's & virus hell. I think MS leaves them wide open for attack on purpose. So I tell them they can buy XP for a hundred bucks or have ubuntu for free. Then we walk them through an install over the phone, 8.10 is so damn stable its crazy it seems to work with almost all hardware, save for trouble sometimes with Nvidia videocards. We usually cant get folks to switch from vista, cause its so much better than xp people get addicted to it, including myself! lol
I have used centOS before ... it was the OS on a MediaTemple account I had for a past project. It was nice no doubt and being a high end server Im guessing they chose it cause it was quite good. Isnt CentOs the free branch of Fedora or someasmuch? I cant remember but I think I read that somewhere.
I see on that comparison chart that Ubuntu is not listed as general purpose, I suppose its cause they have a server version. I just decided since it was my home dev server I would install the gdm on my server platform as well. Which I must say helped me with networking .. there are some really nice networking tools built into ubuntu.
I read that /etc/apache2/httpd.conf is there for historical purposes so that any older programs which require it can add things there if they need. I must say I like them being separated. It makes it nice n easy to manage from the command line cause the files are clean and specific. & the appache2.conf file has a TON of comments in it to help newbs like myself!
I do have SSL setup so I can ssh ... it's working great even in combination with my named based servers. There is a section in the apache docs about using multiple types, name, ip and port based in concert. I can even access my ssh from my G1 google phone! Which is so cool .. I can sit out back and look @ the mountains and tinker with my server... very cool for a geek such as myself!
That Binding page is where I think I got my fix for the ports.conf file. They really do have great doc's! I am going to read up on that .htaccess stuff before I implement it in production, thanks for the tip-off and explanation on that, I never would have thought to try it or known about the performance boost, @ least until I stumbled upon it.
Oh that’s right!
You did say Ubuntu and not Debian. My mistake!
Thanks for the info about Ubuntu. Ubuntu wasn’t an option on my Xen VPS. You’re right, CentOS is a free version of Red Hat Fedora.
You made me laugh when you said i wouldn’t believe the pain Windoze users have. LOLROF!
You don’t need SSL to ssh. But maybe you mean https? I’ve been thinking it would be nice to use https for Drupal logins. Don’t like that passwords are sent in cleartext. Finally got around to configuring my eMail server to use TLS (SSL by any other name). Right now i’m just using a self-signed certificate.
Check out the Things Webmastering page for links to low-cost SSL Certification Authorities and other interesting stuff.
I’m interested in learning more about IPv6; i hear it encrypts some channels by default, but don’t know if this is true or not. My new VPS provider has assigned me an IPv6 address (as well as a traditional IPv4 address), so i am anxious to learn more.
ssh is awesome. I like the public key authentication and tunneling capabilities. I’ve figured out how to tunnel into my server and use the MySQL GUI tools from my Mac desktop. Also use ssh tunnels for screen sharing and remote Mac OS X Server Admin. Of course it’s great as a telnet and FTP replacement too. And rsync has built-in support for ssh as well.
aegir on CentOS/RHEL
Hi,
As I said earlier in this thread my personal favorite system is still Debian/Ubuntu but at the job we use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). CentOS is a free reimplementation of that (not of the already free Fedora). In the end it's all Linux to me. I don't agree that Debian would be less suitable as a server OS compared to CentOS/RHEL which has a complete gui included as well. This week I managed to get aegir 0.2 running on RHEL 5.3 using native rpm's. The only serious problem I ran into was the lack of json support in PHP 5.1.6 but I managed to work around that by backporting the json module according to the hint I found here. I will try to share my notes on the wiki sometime this week. It needs some anonymising and a go-ahead nod of my manager.
Desktop vs Server distros
You are correct that CentOS is, strictly speaking, based on RHEL. However RHEL is based on Fedora. So CentOS is the grandchild of Fedora, and not the child (as one might have read into what i said); sorry if i was a little loose with my language.
Yes, one can use a desktop distro for a server. The problem with this is desktop distros generally come with unnecessary extras, some of which can cause reliability or security problems, not to mention chewing up memory and CPU cycles. For example, init/xinit is commonly found on a desktop distro to startup daemons on the fly. This is a security risk. It is better to start from a tabula rosa and explicitly install, configure and start the services you want, rather than go in with a pre-configured setup and eliminate the ones you don’t; one is more likely to overlook something by the latter approach. While a properly configured firewall might block those services from starting, it is better to ensure they aren’t there in the first place; firewalls are not infallible; a firewall should be the last line of defense, not the only. The more services present on a server, the more avenues there are for attack. The best way to ensure you don’t run an FTP server, for example, is to make sure it’s not on your hard drive. And if somehow it were on your hard drive, that it couldn’t start by itself. I know there are those who would debate these points, but when it comes to security i take the conservative approach. I would rather have redundant levels of security than a thin layer of security based on precise configuration settings. It’s too easy to overlook something. YMMV.
I think your absolutely
I think your absolutely right.... also there are many packages and tweaks in the server versions that are way more appropriate. That's why I installed the server base first and later I installed the bare desktop bits .. I cant remember the command but it installed the GDM without all the fluff n extra applications; I needed it to get used to my rig. Still I usually leave the GDM down unless I need to get in there and look around, its quite handy. I do use Webmin a lot too since its mostly geared towards server management. I have noticed though over time I am becoming more and more addicted to the command line, its fast and direct; just takes some time to get used to.
Command line
For server admin of your average Unix box, the command line is the way to go†, IMO. Most of the server GUI stuff i’ve seen has been web based, and most of that is clunky at best. It gets the job done, but i prefer editing config files myself and working with a CLI interface. As you say, it’s fast and direct.
But then i am comfortable with the command line. I was using it long before GUI’s were available. YMMV.
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† The only exception is for remote admin of Mac OS X Server. Apple provides a suite of standalone GUI Server Admin applications which work pretty well, although i still use the command line for many tasks. But for user management and most daemon configuration (e.g. Apache, mail, calendar, etc.), the GUI tools are the best way to go.
vmbuilder
Try this method based on Ubuntu's vm-builder
Very cool! I was wondering
Very cool! I was wondering about the vm-builder bits .. when I installed my ubuntu server I noticed it in the options. Now I know thanks for the link!
Being that Microsoft purchased Xen in a round about way ... im thinking Xen's quality & openess will surely slide downward eventually. Good idea for Ubuntu to offer such a product! I guess they teamed up with vmware on this... very smart maneuver.
I didn't know Workstation 6 could run inside Ubuntu! Damn there are so many things tempting me to use Ubuntu as my main OS ... I just need to wait until I get my new computer cause trying to get my SLI nvidia rig to work in ubuntu nearly cost me my sanity!
KVM, Xen, VMware, ...
Actually they don't. Ubuntu's first intention in the virtualization arena is KVM, and definitely not VMware. KVM seems to be quite OK, but the main drawback is it needs hardware support for virtualization, i.e. Intel VT processors. VMware can run on simpler hardware, it's free, but not open source and belongs to EMC. XEN is at MS, and there is OpenVZ as well.
vm-builder supports KVM, VMware and Xen. I just used VMware, but with minor modification it should work with XEN or KVM as well.
Rather good summary on virtualization technologies are at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization
Sorry I just assumed they
Sorry I just assumed they worked together on it.
Still... what you say sounds even better, it can work with many, still im glad it does work with vmware.
Im kind of a fan of vmware, so far they have impressed me @ every turn.
Xen and M$
Could you elaborate on this please?
Microsoft purchased Citirx
Microsoft purchased Citirx or is going to from what I hear. Or at the very least they are involved with each other ... there is a lot of conflicting information out on the net. I suspect MS wants to be competitive to vmware since their virtualPC is dieing a slow death.
Whats next Microsoft underwear? I wish they would just do what they do well and stop trying to compete against everything under the sun. A prime example is IE8, yet another hunk of browser shite, I have already given up on anyone using IE6 (screw them!) and am perfectly happy letting those using IE7 to have substandard experience, I certainly wont be going out of my way to deal with IE8's lackluster CSS3 support. Mehhh!! If someone is using internet explorer they deserve to suffer a lame internet experience!
Hadn’t heard that
Thanks for the info!
LOL! M$ skivvies. They come pre-soiled (with a Zune)!
And that would be…? Seriously, the only things i can think of which they do well is stabbing their business partners in the back, and cutthroat monopoly building. And they seem to have lost their knack for the latter. I think M$ is a “dead elephant walking” (like the old Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov’s epic Foundation Series). Karma can be such a bitch!
I agree with you about IE. It’s the scourge of the Web, and has done more to impede growth and development than anything else. IE market-share is eroding, bit by bit. Like you, i could care less about the IE user experience. As the expression goes: Buy a Chevy, get a Chevy.
I still give them some props
I still give them some props for vista turning around & becoming far better than XP, which is good for me cause I still mostly like windows os (out of habit) but I hated xp insanely. Its only a matter of time until ubuntu steals their fire completely IMO ... maybe a few years ahead still, but how could ms possibly compete? ....its like a looming tsunami of code evolution, eventually MS will be unable to keep up with the new paradigm. Of course they know that and prolly have something up their sleeves. ...lol lets just hope for MS's sake they dont induce any more bad karma, they are dealing with a vastly different government now.... at least one would hope. Besides there must be some good people over @ ms who could run things in a more positive direction. no?
Edit: Formatting gone wild!! had to fix.
Vista
LOL! A lot of folks would disagree with you about Vista. So many, in fact, that M$ is trying to distance themselves from the name; will be calling the next version Windoze 7. Which is kinda ironic because the reason they decided not to call Vista “Windoze 6” was because M$ wanted to distance themselves from the Windoze brand. Guess M$ now views Windoze as the best of two tarnished brands.
As for the government, the EU seems to be giving M$ some grief. Certainly taking a harder stand on M$ than the Shrub administration ever did. M$ stock has flatlined for years, and now they’re laying off 5,000 employees. All is not well with them.
I imagine they have some good people working for them; problem is those people aren’t running the company. I don’t think they generally get very high up in the company, and those few who do are either forced out, or call it quits. Like Jim Allchin, the senior executive at Microsoft in charge of Vista development, who pre-announced his retirement around the time he scrapped the old code base and started the project over from the ground up. Allchin understood software engineering and knew the M$ approach of hacking at their spaghetti code was not going to work for Vista. To the extent that Vista is any good at all, you have Allchin to thank. Not sure if his retirement was forced by that gutsy decision, or by his maverick eMail to Gates & Ballmer in which he said: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.” Or maybe he just didn’t want to wait any longer to get his Mac? ;-)
LOL!! Thats so funny! He
LOL!! Thats so funny! He actually sent them that email! Now that takes some cahones! Im sure they are like a lot of large companies ... mostly just a lot of yes men who lack the spine to move things in new directions or challenge the status-quo. Smaller players like Mac always have the upperhand because they are leaner and can adapt quicker; still they don't yet have what it takes to truly unseat MSs' widespread usage.
I don't know about other people; but nearly 90% of the folks who signed up to our tech support firm for vista issues were using pirated copies! You can't expect it to work when you steal it; the remaining folks has issues cause they were trying to install it on an old box that had 2000 or xp. Old computers cannot handle vista.
As far as my personal opinion Vista spanks any previous MS os. I have used every single os they've made except server editions. I still virtualize XP here to play some of my old games, it feels so bland clunky and ancient, especially when compared to Vista. Too bad folks bought into the hype and kept XP, I had way more troubles with XP by leaps and bounds. Windows 7 is looking quite nice .. I cant wait to try out the multi-touch capabilities!
In the end no matter what problems MS has it is still theirs to loose as they vastly dominate the marketplace. I wouldn't count them out, MS is just as likely to do better work as Mac is to become more popular. But then again whilst MS & Mac duke it out for cock of the block, Linux is moving forward like a true & steady train.
Linux
It’s ironic that were it not for Apple, M$ would have gone out-of-business in the late 70’s.
Apple’s market cap is now at $93B, M$ is only $155B. Just a few years ago, M$ was 10x Apple. Won’t be too long before Apple overtakes them.
Linux is no threat to the Mac. It is, however, a big threat to M$ (and they are afraid of it).
True... linux is not a
True... linux is not a threat to Macs little slice of pie .. linux is a much larger broader beast, with shit tons more market share, which consequently Mac has zero chance of catching up to. With all the heat MS takes and as difficult it can be for some to move to linux, Mac should be doing much better than it is. In the end it seems Mac really doesn't care and is quite content with their niche.
That said IMO it is their rigidity that hurts Mac the most. This is one reason why I wont touch a Mac... I like to build my computers custom, and I dont want to pay 30% more for the same crap just cause their is a Mac logo on it. lol it makes me chuckle that as bad as MS can be, they are less rigid and more open than Mac. Almost seems antithetical to their brand but it is true; and it is one of the reasons MS & Linux spanks the hell out of Mac in market share. Mac doesnt even come remotely close MS total market share, and the couple of points they might have gained on them pales in comparison to linux gains.
If you could calculate all Linux based monitization in the world IMO you would find it beats Mac & MS put together, only that pie is spread around more and flows much deeper. Only there is no vested interest in "proving" it through slick marketing and other such bs. I have personally made money thanks to linux ... I cant say the same for ms or mac.