Installing the Webserver, Webhosting and VIMP on Debian and Ubuntu

This article explains how to install the complete server software (Apache, MySQL, php5, php-cli, sendmail etc.) for VIMP and how to configure the webhosting.

First we install some basic packages. Existing packages will be updated or ignored:

apt-get update
apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-gd php5-mysql mysql-server mysql-client php5-cli php5-mcrypt php5-xsl php5-curl php5-gmp php5-json libjpeg62 libjpeg62-dev ruby joe

We choose sendmail as MTA (Mail Transport Agent). Of course you can use another MTA like Postfix or Exim, too. In any case assure that the MTA is configured correctly, so that php can send mails.

apt-get update
apt-get install sendmail-bin sendmail

Apache Konfiguration:

There are just a view modifications necessary in the Apache configuration.
Open the according file with an editor, e.g. joe:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        ServerName mydomain.tld
        ServerAlias www.mydomain.tld myalternativedomain.tld www.myalternativedomain.tld
        DocumentRoot /var/www/web  #IMPORTANT
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/web/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

        # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
        # alert, emerg.
        LogLevel warn

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

PHP configuration

There 2 php.ini files that we have to consider. One for the Apache php module, another for the php-cli (cli=command line interface).

Let's start with the php.ini for the Apache module:

joe /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Modify the following lines:

upload_max_filesize = 1024M   ; the maximum upload size
post_max_size = 1024M
register_globals Off
register_argc_argv On
safe_mode Off
memory_limit = 512M

Save and restart Apache.

apache2ctl restart

Then do the same for the php-cli php.ini. Apache doesn't have to be restarted in this case.

joe /etc/php5/cli/php.ini

Next enable the rewrite module for Apache:

a2enmod rewrite
apache2ctl restart

Create database and database user

# mysql -p
# [mysql-root enter password]

The mysql client starts with the mysql> prompt

mysql> create database DATABASENAME default character set utf8 collate utf8_unicode_ci;
mysql> grant all privileges on DATABASENAME.* to 'DATABASEUSER'@'localhost' identified by 'PASSWORD';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> exit;

Uploading and Installing the VIMP package

Upload and installation of the VIMP installer is described here.

Basic usage

Now the installation is finished. Enter the URL of your portal in your web browser.

During installation three users with the corresponding user roles are created:

• "admin" (Password: "admin") as administrator
• "moderator" (Password: "moderator") as moderator
• "user" (Password: "user") as standard user

Change all passwords as soon as possible after installation. If you don't need a certain user you can delete him in the administration backend.