Configuring a Centos VPS for Drupal

Introduction

Target of this writeup is keeping track how to set up a VPS. It's for absolute beginners, so experts please comment.
Base OS: Centos 5
Target setup:

• Apache 2.2, with mod_ssl and mod_ruid
• PHP 5.2, with APC and Uploadprogress
• Mysql 5
• Proftp
• Webmin

Tools used:
Putty, SSH client

Install Utter Ramblings Yum repository

CentOS 5 comes standard with PHP 5.1, some other repositories come standard with 5.3, which will either limit functionality or provide errors. So I will use the Utter Ramblings Yum Repository.
Login to your server as root with Putty, speedup Yum a little and update your server:

yum install yum-fastestmirror
yum update

Now for installing that repository:
I personally like to use the simplest of editors: vi. Open or create a file as above, start editing with "i", stop editing with help button "F1", save the file with "ZZ" and exit with ":q!".

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/utterramblings.repo

and paste (right mouse button in Putty) the following in it after clicking "i":

[utterramblings]
name=Jason's Utter Ramblings Repo
baseurl=http://www.jasonlitka.com/media/EL$releasever/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://www.jasonlitka.com/media/RPM-GPG-KEY-jlitka

Read more: http://www.jasonlitka.com/yum-repository/#ixzz0iK46UmBx

Press "F1" and "ZZ" to save and exit. Run update again:

yum update

Install Apache and PHP

Installing Apache, with development tools, mod_ssl and mod_php:

yum install httpd httpd-devel mod_ssl mod_php

You could be running into problems here when packages cannot be found. Some setups of Centos protect against certain updates to make sure the system keeps on working. If so, check:

vi /etc/yum.conf

and look for a line that start with "exclude". If it's there, comment it out with "#" after pressing "i". Press "F1" and save with "ZZ". Repeat the yum command before. Point your browser to your domain or ip-address and see something working there.
Make a info.php file to check if PHP is working and it's configuration.

vi /var/www/html/info.php

and copy, paste (use i) and save the following in it.

<?php
phpinfo();?>

Point your browser to www.yourdomain.com/info.php or 123.123.123.123/info.php. You should now see the text above appearing in your browser. Since we just installed PHP, Apache is not booted with PHP. So we just have to restart it:

service httpd restart

And we reload the browser to see the PHPinfo page. As you should be able to see, PHP needs some more goodies to be really useful.

Dressing up PHP

Installing APC (a cache, which should work?) and uploadprogress (to get rid of those annoying status report errors).

yum install php-pear php-devel

Install a C++ compiler:

yum install gcc gcc-c++ autoconf automake

Then:

pecl install apc uploadprogress

Include in php

echo "extension=apc.so" > /etc/php.d/apc.ini

Which will make a small file in /etc/php.d/ containing "extension=apc.so", and so telling PHP that it should be included. Drupal will warn you that the standard APC memory of 30mb is not enough. To up it a little, edit:

vi /etc/php.d/apc.ini

and add:

apc.shm_size=48

Same for upload progress:

echo "extension=uploadprogress.so" > /etc/php.d/uploadprogress.ini

And restart apache

service httpd restart

Check info.php and find both APC and uploadprogress installed now. Now for some graphics. Let's install GD2

yum install gd php-gd

and Imagemagick

yum install ImageMagick ImageMagick-perl ImageMagick-devel

Then:

pecl install imagick

Add the ini file

echo "extension=imagick.so" > /etc/php.d/imagick.ini

Install the php mbstring module Drupal needs and php-xml for Drupal 7 (dom).

yum install php-mbstring php-xml

Restart Apache to see the changes:

service httpd restart

And see in info.php (Thanks!)

Installing Webmin

Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any modern web browser, you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and much more. Webmin removes the need to manually edit Unix configuration files like /etc/passwd, and lets you manage a system from the console or remotely.
Making the Webmin repository:

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/webmin.repo

and paste there:

[Webmin]
name=Webmin Distribution Neutral
baseurl=http://download.webmin.com/download/yum
enabled=1
gpgkey=http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc

Then just do

yum install webmin

Now point your web browser to www.mydomain.com:10000 and login as root. (More info)
You could now surf to Others, PHP Configuration, Resource Limits and change the Maximum memory allocation to 128M. Safe and check your info.php and see the memory_limit has changed to 128M.

Installing ProFTPD

ProFTP is probably the easiest FTP server on Centos, which is not shipped with Centos, so we will install another repository first.

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/dag.repo

And add

[dag]
name=DAG RPM Repository
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el$releasever/en/$basearch/dag
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
gpgkey=http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt

Update the system and install Proftpd

yum update
yum install proftpd

Done! (More info) Make Proftpd start at startup and start now:

chkconfig --levels 235 proftpd on
service proftpd start

Open Webmin again (www.yoursite.com:10000) and go to System - Users and Groups - Create a new user.
Username = "username"
Home directory = Automatic
Shell = bin/bash
Password = "password"
Primary group = New group with same name as user
Create home directory? = Yes
Copy template files to home directory? = Yes
Create user in other modules? = Yes
Startup your ftp program and connect to your web server using the username and password above. Make a new directory public_html and another one in there public_html/drupal6 and upload all Drupal files to that directory. (More info)

Compile mod_ruid

Mod_ruid makes Apache change username and group to the files it uses at the moment. So if it's working in the home directory of drupaluser, it will behave like it is drupaluser, opening and writing files like it is you and limiting itself to drupalusers home directory. Another option would be SuPHP, but that's considered slow.
Development of mod_ruid seemed to have stopped a few years ago. Luckily somebody picked it up and continued the effort on Sourceforge with a list of new releases. Check for the latest release, for now mod_ruid2-0.9.tar.bz2.
Install dependencies:

yum install libcap libcap-devel

Download to /tmp and unpack

cd /tmp/
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-ruid/files/mod_ruid2/mod_ruid2-0.9.tar.bz2

tar -xvwf mod_ruid2-0.9.tar.bz2

Compile mod_ruid2 and restart Apache

cd /tmp/mod_ruid2-0.9/
apxs -a -i -l cap -c mod_ruid2.c
service httpd restart

Careful! If you update Apache to a newer version, you might have to do the step above again.
(Thanks!)

Installing Mysql

Install MySQL and dependencies as follows:

yum install mysql-server mysql php-mysql php-pdo

Boot on startup and boot now

chkconfig --levels 235 mysqld on
service mysqld start

Make your configuration safe.

/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

You will be asked some questions, answer them like this

Enter current password for root (enter for none): "enter"
Set root password? [Y/n] "y"
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Login to Webmin and make a database for your Drupal installation
Click on MySQL Database Server under servers. If it is not there, you might need to do a "Refresh Modules" on the left below.
Tell Webmin the root user (root) and your new password.
Create a new database for your Drupal website.
-> Create a new database.
Name: anything you like
Character set: utf8
Collation order: default
Initial table: none
Now make a new user
-> User Permissions
-> Create new user.
Username: drupal
Password: anything you like
Hosts: localhost
Permissions:
Select table data
Insert table data
Update table data
Delete table data
Create tables
Drop tables
Manage indexes
Alter tables
Create temp tables
Lock tables
Restart Mysql and Apache

service mysqld restart
service httpd restart

(More info)

Finalize

Make a new virtual host for your domain.
In Webmin: Servers > Apache Webserver > Create virtual host
Handle connections to address = Specific address = your domain name
Document Root = path to your installation of Drupal
Copy directives from = Nowhere
Safe and "Apply Changes" in the upper right.
Open your new virtual server
Edit Directives and add
AllowOverride All
just above ""
Safe and "Apply Changes" in the upper right.
And your server should be working.