Web Server

This describes a simple set up of Apache, with MySQL and PHP5.

Thanks to the Debian/Ubuntu developers installation should be as easy as:

apt-get install apache2 php5 mysql-server php5-mysql openssl

(create a MySQL password when prompted)

If the server is running with low memory in a virtual environment (for example a 256MB Slice) it's a good idea to restrict MySQL and Apache memory usage.

Edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf

skip-external-locking
skip-locking

key_buffer              = 16K
max_allowed_packet      = 1M
thread_stack            = 64K
thread_cache_size       = 4

skip-innodb

Edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Timeout 45

MaxKeepAliveRequests 200

KeepAliveTimeout 3

<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
    StartServers          5
    MinSpareServers       5
    MaxSpareServers      10
    MaxClients           30
    MaxRequestsPerChild   2000
</IfModule>

For any sensitive information including login prompts, awstats, munin, et cetera.

Turn on the mod_ssl module in apache:

a2enmod ssl

Now generate a secure certificate request (requires a password each time apache is restarted) and self sign the request. If you don't care about security of the key file, issue the first command without the -des3 flag.

Answer the prompts as necessary. Most can be left blank but be sure to specify common name, which should be the full hostname of the server.

openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024
openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 3650 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
cp server.crt /etc/ssl/certs
cp server.key /etc/ssl/private

Add this to your /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default file:

SSLEngine on
SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/server.key