Normally I prefer Ubuntu servers but I needed a CentOS Server ( info ) for some software, this guide is a quick guide that lists anything that is different to setting up an Ubuntu server.
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Buying a Domain
Buy a domain name from Namecheap here.
Creating a CentOS Server
If you get stuck check out my Ubuntu Digital Ocean guide here or my Ubuntu on AWS guide here.
Login to Digital Ocean (get 2-month free by using my referral link here).
Update 2018: For the best performing VM host (UpCloud) read my guide on the awesome UpCloud VM hosts (get $25 free credit by signing up here).
Create and deploy a CentOS 7.2 64 bit Server at Digital Ocean.
Reset your root password (so we can log-in via telnet and install node-js before we connect to C9.io).
Log-in to the server with ssh
Setting the timezone is different than Ubuntu.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | # Use this command to find your nearest Timezone timedatectl list-timezones | grep Sydney > Australia/Sydney # Set the timezine by running this command sudo timedatectl set-timezone Australia/Sydney date |
Setup NPT time sync daemon
1 2 3 | sudo yum install ntp sudo systemctl start ntpd sudo systemctl enable ntpd |
Setup a Swap file
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | sudo fallocate -l 4G /swapfile sudo chmod 600 /swapfile sudo mkswap /swapfile Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 4194300 KiB no label, UUID=xxxxxxx-xxxx-4axxxx63-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxx sudo swapon /swapfile sudo sh -c 'echo "/swapfile none swap sw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab' |
Update Packages
1 | yum update && yum upgrade |
Install Common Packages
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | yum install gcc gcc -version yum install wget yum install p7zip yum install java java -version |
Monitor Open Ports:
1 2 3 4 | yum install nmap # List open ports nmap 127.0.01 |
More info on ports and firewalls here.
Install the Links text based browser
1 2 3 | yum install links links www.google.com |
Install Apache
1 | yum install httpd |
Install the nano text editor
1 | yum install nano |
Configure Apache to listen on port 80: Edit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf and add LISTEN 80
1 | listen 80 |
Note the location of your http docs root folder (DocumentRoot: “/var/www/html“).
Firewall configuration (more info here)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 | # enable the firewall systemctl enable firewalld systemctl start firewalld #firewall status systemctl status firewalld #Configure the firewall firewall-cmd --add-service=http # Start at system boot sudo systemctl start firewalld # firewall status systemctl status firewalld |
Buy a domain from NameCheap then go to Digital Ocean droplet list and assign the domain name to the droplet (see the guide here).
Summary:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | A @ %YOUR_DROPLET_IPV4_ADDRESS% A www %YOUR_DROPLET_IPV4_ADDRESS% AAAA @ A @ %YOUR_DROPLET_IPV6_ADDRESS% CNAME * www.yournewdomainname.com NS ns1.digitalocean.com NS ns2.digitalocean.com. NS ns3.digitalocean.com. |
Goto Namecheap and point the domain to custom DNS ( ns1.digitalocean.com, ns3.digitalocean.com and ns3.digitalocean.com ), remove the placeholder domain just provisioned warning,
On your server (SSH) run the following command
1 | hostnamectl set-hostname --static www.yourdomainname.com |
Configure centos Apache to redirect www.yourdomain.com to yourdomain.com (guide here).
Wait or your domain to be available (can you access it via www.yourdomainname.com and yourdomainname.com).
I did add these lines to the following files (/etc/cloud/templates/hosts.redhat.tmpl ) as my www. was not loading (I am not sure if it helped).
1 2 3 4 5 | # ipv4 config area 127.0.0.1 www.mydomainname.com www # ipv6 config area ::1 www.mydomainname.com www |
Then restarted the network.
1 2 3 | service network restart sudo systemctl status network.service sudo systemctl restart httpd |
I then write an .htaccess redirect to sent all requests to www.mydomainname.com
1 2 | cd /var/www/html sudo nano .htaccess |
Configure Apache Root Folder
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 | # Redirect www to non-www # RewriteEngine On # RewriteBase / # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC] # RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L] # Redirect non-www to www RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] |
Now I can view my website 🙂
Time to create a default page.
1 | echo "Hello World" > /var/www/html/index.html |
Installing PHP
1 | yum install php |
1 | systemctl restart httpd |
Install MariaDB
1 2 3 4 | yum install mariadb-server mariadb systemctl start mariadb.service systemctl enable mariadb.service firewall-cmd --add-service=mysql |
Configure MariaDB
1 | /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation |
Install an FTP Server
1 | yum install vsftpd |
Todo: Add local user…
Install nodejs
1 2 3 | yum install -y gcc-c++ make curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | sudo -E bash - yum instal nodejs |
Connect the server to c9.io
Now the server is ready to connect to c9.io.
Security
As a precaution do check your website often in https://www.shodan.io and see if it has open software or is known to hackers.
Firewall was blocking connections after reboot
1 | firewall-cmd --add-service=http --zone=public --permanent |
Install SSL
todo…
Lock down the server (remove the root account etc)
Todo: Remove root logins, secure mariadb etc
todo..
Thanks to the following guides that helped me:
http://www.tecmint.com/things-to-do-after-minimal-rhel-centos-7-installation/2/
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/initial-server-setup-with-centos-7
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