Debian 8 Jessie Dedicated Web Server Setup Step by Step

Debian 8.0 Jessie was initially released on April 26th, 2015. Jessie is powered by Linux kernel 3.16. Jessie ships with a new default init system, systemd. The sysvinit init system is still available in Jessie. The UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) support introduced in Wheezy has also been greatly improved in Jessie. More information here.

In this post I describe a dedicated server setup, using Debian Jessie. It is a Hetzner EX40 dedicated server with IP 144.76.225.175. My blog, my company website and some other web projects will be hosted in this server.

I use DnsMadeEasy for all my DNS needs. I use No IP for email forwarding to Gmail. So I will not setup bind name server or a full blown mail server. Default Debian MTA (exim4) is enough for the server to send emails.

I selected a minimal Debian amd64 server (basic Debian system and SSH). Thanks to Hetzner staff, the server was up and running in less than 10 minutes. As usual, they sent me the IP and root password. Below I describe the whole procedure after this point.

Connect using SSH

This is the first and should be the last time you are remotely connected with the server as root:

ssh 144.76.225.175 -l root

Change root password

Use:

passwd

Perform a full system update

Using apt-get:

apt-get update && apt-get -V upgrade

Update files database

Install the packages (if not installed):

apt-get install locate mlocate

then

updatedb

Create common user

Here I create a common user with username pontikis.

You can use adduser srcipt

adduser pontikis
Adding user `pontikis' ...
Adding new group `pontikis' (1001) ...
Adding new user `pontikis' (1001) with group `pontikis' ...
Creating home directory `/home/pontikis' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for pontikis
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
        Full Name []: Christos Pontikis
        Room Number []:
        Work Phone []:
        Home Phone []:
        Other []:
Is the information correct? [Y/n] y

or the original linux commands

groupadd pontikis
useradd -m -g pontikis -s /bin/bash pontikis
passwd pontikis

Harden SSH

Edit SSH configuration:

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Make the following changes

...
PermitRootLogin no
...
X11Forwarding no
...
AllowUsers pontikis ...
...

Restart SSH

systemctl restart ssh.service

SSH key based authentication

First, generate a new SSH key

cd ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email_here"

To connect from workstation to server machine, add your public key to server.

ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 144.76.225.175

Color Bash Prompt

To add color to bash prompt, you can follow this guide, where a global solution is provided (recommended).

As an alternative:

To add color to common user prompt:

cd /home/pontikis
nano .bashrc

uncomment #force_color_prompt=yes

...
force_color_prompt=yes
...

To add red color to root prompt:

cd /root
nano .bashrc

Set PS1 as follows:

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}[33[01;31m]u@h[33[00m]:[33[01;34m]w[33[00m]$ '

Also, find # You may uncomment the following lines if you want `ls’ to be colorized: and uncomment the following lines

To see the changes you have to logoff and login again, or go to home and give

. .bashrc

Set default text editor

nano in my case:

update-alternatives --config editor

result:

There are 4 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).

  Selection    Path                Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /bin/nano            40        auto mode
  1            /bin/nano            40        manual mode
  2            /usr/bin/mcedit      25        manual mode
  3            /usr/bin/vim.basic   30        manual mode
  4            /usr/bin/vim.tiny    10        manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:

Customize `nano` text editor

To dislpay line numbers, uncomment # set const

nano /etc/nanorc

# set const
set const

Install ntp (Network Time Protocol)

Using apt-get

apt-get install ntp

Change hostname

Using systemd

Systemd ships a growing number of useful, unified command-line interfaces for system settings and control (timedatectl, bootctl, hostnamectl, loginctl, machinectl, kernel-install, localectl). In Debian, they use the existing configuration files without breaking compatibility. Using systemd is easy to change hostname

hostnamectl set-hostname your.hostname.here

The old way (not recommended)

Add the hostname to /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts so local address(es) resolves with the new system name and reboot.

Set server timezone

Using dpkg

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

From http://wiki.debian.org/TimeZoneChanges

Restarting Daemons and Long-Running Programs After the zoneinfo files are updated, you may need to restart daemons and other long-running programs to get them to use the new zone information. Examples of such programs include apache, bind, cron, fetchmail -d, inetd, mailman, sendmail, and sysklogd. A common symptom of this problem is seeing incorrect timestamps mixed in with the correct timestamps in your log files (e.g. /var/log/syslog). Even interactive programs like “mutt” may continue to use the old timezone information until they are restarted.

For example, restart cron

systemctl restart cron.service

An easier way is to restart your system

reboot

REMARK: Server date and time settings are very important for services like Amazon S3 backup, OpenVPN, NFS etc, where “client” and “server” machines must have the same settings.

Install webmin

You have to know the original Linux commands to perform all administrative tasks from command line. However, a control panel makes things easier sometimes. Webmin is a free and Open Source control panel basically for Linux. Webmin is a very powerful tool, but I use it mainly for the following tasks:

users management
iptables firewall
scheduled cron jobs

So, create a file like

nano /etc/apt/sources.d/webmin.lst

and add the following lines

deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib
deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib

Add apt key:

cd /root
wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
apt-key add jcameron-key.asc

Finally

apt-get update
apt-get install webmin

It is also important to create a Webmin user (pontikis in my case), to avoid login to Webmin as root.

Harden kernel using /etc/sysctl.conf

It was a pleasant surprise to see that Hetzner default installation was included all important changes to /etc/sysctl.d/99-hetzner.conf:

### Hetzner Online GmbH installimage
# sysctl config
#net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter=1
net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts=1
# ipv6 settings (no autoconfiguration)
net.ipv6.conf.default.autoconf=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_dad=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_ra=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_ra_defrtr=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_ra_rtr_pref=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_ra_pinfo=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_source_route=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.accept_redirects=0
net.ipv6.conf.default.forwarding=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.autoconf=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_dad=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra_defrtr=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra_rtr_pref=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra_pinfo=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_source_route=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_redirects=0
net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=0

You may add

net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1

Disable IPv6 (optional)

net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.eth0.disable_ipv6 = 1

About sysctl.conf

Just in case, default Debian /etc/sysctl.conf is a text file with all extra settings commented. See here.

If you want to make changes, you have two options:

First method (recommended): create a file /etc/sysctl.d/local.conf and reboot
Alternative method: make direct changes to /etc/sysctl.conf and activate them with sysctl -p (without reboot.)

Install exim4 MTA

Using apt-get:

apt-get install exim4

Configure exim

dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config

Change default option “local delivery only” to “internet site”

Set system mail name: (your hostname here)

Accept the default settings in the remaining steps.

Exim4 errors after disabling IPv6

If exim4 local interfaces contain IPv6 settings and you disable IPv6 in your server, exim will throw this error

exim paniclog /var/log/exim4/paniclog on YOUR_SERVER has non-zero size, mail system might be broken. The last 10 lines are quoted below.

2015-09-11 17:33:13 socket bind() to port 25 for address ::1 failed: Cannot assign requested address: daemon abandoned

To fix this error

nano /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf

replace

dc_local_interfaces='127.0.0.1 ; ::1'

with

dc_local_interfaces='127.0.0.1'

then

rm /var/log/exim4/paniclog
systemctl reboot

Forward root mail

It is important as various software and services send mail to inform root for results or errors (cron for example).

nano /etc/aliases

...
root:pontikis@gmail.com

Then, rebuild aliases:

newaliases

iptables firewall

Using webmin (the easy way)

Select the last option Block all except ports used for virtual hosting, on interface eth0 and press setup

Then add or remove rules. In my case I removed DNS. FTP, POP3, IMAP rules (see the image)

MySQL community database server

Using apt-get:

apt-get install mysql-server

After installation, run:

mysql_secure_installation

mysql_secure_installation sets a root password (if not exists), removes anonymous users, disables non-local root access, removes the test database and access rules related to it and finally reloads privileges.

REMARK: restart MySQL using systemctl restart mysql.service

Install Apache web server

Important changes with Apache 2.4

Debian Jessie ships with Apache 2.4 There are some important changes with this version, which could break your current configuration. For example

Since Apache 2.4, each virtual host file should have the .conf extension
Either all Options must start with + or -, or no Option may
Directives Order allow,deny and allow from all are deprecated. Use Require all granted instead.

See all changes in details here.

Check your configuration using

apachectl configtest

Basic installation

apt-get install apache2 apache2-mpm-prefork

Apache modules

mod_deflate is already enabled (see more details at Speed up your website with gzip compression)

Enable the modules you need. In my case

a2enmod rewrite

Create your own virtual hosts. This is just an example (with gzip compression):

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/www.pontikis.net.conf

&lt;VirtualHost 144.76.225.175:80>
        ServerName  www.pontikis.net
        ServerAdmin christos@pontikis.net

        DocumentRoot /var/www/html/pontikis.net

        &lt;Directory /var/www/html/pontikis.net>
                        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
                        AllowOverride All
                        Require all granted
        &lt;/Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/pontikis.net_error.log

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

        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/pontikis.net_access.log combined

        ErrorDocument 404 /404/

        SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
        SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI .(?:gif|jpe?g|ico|png)$  no-gzip dont-vary
        SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI .(?:exe|t?gz|zip|bz2|sit|rar)$ no-gzip dont-vary
        SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI .pdf$ no-gzip dont-vary

        BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
        BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4.0[678] no-gzip
        BrowserMatch bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
&lt;/VirtualHost>

Redirect URL withour www to main site:

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/pontikis.net.conf

&lt;VirtualHost 144.76.225.175:80>
        ServerName pontikis.net
        Redirect / http://www.pontikis.net/
&lt;/VirtualHost>

Enable site

a2ensite www.pontikis.net.conf
a2ensite pontikis.net.conf

Restart Apache

systemctl restart apache2.service

php

Basic installation

Using apt-get:

apt-get install php5

Error log

Enable php error log. Log file must be writable from Apache. So:

mkdir /var/log/php
chown www-data /var/log/php

Edit php.ini

nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

uncomment ;error_log:

error_log = /var/log/php/php_errors.log

Remember to rotate /var/log/php/php_errors.log:

nano /etc/logrotate.d/php

add the following:

/var/log/php/php_errors.log {
        weekly
        missingok
        rotate 4
        notifempty
        create
}

Php extensions

Install MySQL Native Driver (mysqlnd)

apt-get install php5-mysqlnd

REMARK: If, for any reason, you don’t want mysqlnd, try apt-get install php5-mysql instead.

Othyer php extensions you may need. In my case

apt-get install php5-gd
apt-get install php5-curl

Config mbstring

Create a file

nano /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/98_mbstring-settings.ini

with contents

[mbstring]
mbstring.language = English
mbstring.encoding_translation = On
mbstring.detect_order = UTF-8,ASCII,JIS,SJIS,EUC-JP
mbstring.substitute_character = none
mbstring.func_overload = 0

Harden php

Create a file

nano /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/99_security.ini

with contents

allow_url_include = Off
allow_url_fopen = Off
session.use_only_cookies = 1
session.cookie_httponly = 1
expose_php = Off
display_errors = Off
register_globals = Off
disable_functions = shell_exec, escapeshellarg, escapeshellcmd, passthru, proc_close, proc_get_status, proc_nice, proc_open,proc_terminate

(settings may vary according to your needs).

Restart Apache

systemctl restart apache2.service

Check installed extensions

php -m

Install memcached (optional)

Using apt-get:

apt-get install memcached php5-memcached
systemctl restart apache2.service

Install phpMemcachedAdmin (optional):

mkdir /var/www/html/path/to/phpMemcachedAdmin
cd /var/www/html/path/to/phpMemcachedAdmin
wget http://phpmemcacheadmin.googlecode.com/files/phpMemcachedAdmin-1.2.2-r262.tar.gz
tar -xvzf phpMemcachedAdmin-1.2.2-r262.tar.gz
chmod +r *
chmod 0777 Config/Memcache.php

Please note that /path/to is a pseudo path. Use your own path.

You may want to restrict access to this directory using .htaccess Here is how:

cd /var/www/html/path/to/phpMemcachedAdmin
nano .htaccess

add

AuthType Basic
AuthName "pontikis.net Admin area"
AuthUserFile /etc/htsecure/pontikis.net/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

Add users

mkdir -p /etc/htsecure/pontikis.net
htpasswd -c /etc/htsecure/pontikis.net/.htpasswd pontikis

Restart Apache

systemctl restart apache2.service

Install database manager (optional)

phpMyAdmin and adminer are popular. I prefer adminer:

You may use apt-get install adminer, but I prefer to download the latest package

mkdir /var/www/html/path/to/adminer
cd /var/www/html/path/to/adminer
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/adminer/adminer-4.2.2-mysql-en.php

Please note that /path/to is a pseudo path. Use your own path.

You may want to restrict access to this directory using .htaccess (see previous paragraph)

Install git (optional)

Using apt-get:

apt-get install git

Display basic configuration

git config --list

Set basic settings

git config --global user.name 'Your Name'
git config --global user.email you@example.com
git config --global core.editor "nano"

Configure Git to properly handle line endings:

git config --global core.autocrlf input

Install s3cmd for Amazon backup (optional)

Using apt-get:

apt-get install s3cmd

Configure s3cmd with your Amazon credentials

cd /root
s3cmd --configure

Various tools (optional)

Using apt-get:

apt-get install mc p7zip-full htop

Wipe is useful to secure delete files.

apt-get install wipe

Deploy Projects

I use git and Github to deploy my projects (either public or private). For example to deploy my blog in the new server:

chown -R pontikis:pontikis /var/www/html
cd /var/www/html
git clone git@github.com:pontikis/pontikis.net.git

Furthermore, to update this project in the future:

cd /var/www/html/pontikis.net
git fetch
git merge origin/master

User pontikis public rsa key must be added to github. Details here.

Backup software

There are many backup solutions available. I use (my own solution) bash-cloud-backup.

bash-cloud-backup is a set of bash scripts, which can be used to automate local and cloud backup in Linux/Unix machines. I use Amazon S3 as cloud backup solution.

Simple system monitoring tools

Get email notifications for updates

Install apticron to get email notifications for updates

apt-get install apticron

Check which services need restart after an update

apt-get install debian-goodies

then use

checkrestart

To check if reboot needed after a system update

Check if /var/run/reboot-required or /var/run/reboot-required.pkgs files existed

Example

cat /var/run/reboot-required
*** System restart required ***

cat /var/run/reboot-required.pkgs
linux-base

Load average monitor

If you are not familiar with load average in Linux/UNIX please read Understanding Linux CPU Load – when should you be worried?

As root, create a script like

mkdir -p /root/scripts/loadavg
cd /root/scripts/loadavg
touch loadavg.sh
chmod 700 loadavg.sh
nano loadavg.sh

with contents

#!/bin/bash
trigger=4.00
load=`/bin/cat /proc/loadavg | /usr/bin/awk '{print $1}'`
response=`echo | /usr/bin/awk -v T=$trigger -v L=$load 'BEGIN{if ( L > T){ print "greater"}}'`
if [[ $response = "greater" ]]
then
echo $load | /usr/bin/mail -s"High load on YOUR SERVER NAME - [ $load ]" YOUR_EMAIL_HERE
fi

(take care to set the right paths for cat, awk, mail commands).

How to set the correct value to trigger variable? Get the number of CPUs/cores:

grep -c ^processor /proc/cpuinfo

To be more safe, divide this number with 2. This is the value of trigger variable, you have to put in the above script (4 in my case).

Cron automation

Add a cron job (as root) to run the script every 3 minutes

crontab -e

The above command will use vim text editor. If you use nano (as me):

export VISUAL=nano; crontab -e

Then add the following

0,3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30,33,36,39,42,45,48,51,54,57 * * * * /root/scripts/loadavg/loadavg.sh  #Load Average monitor

or use Wembin to add the cron job (recommended).

There are many bash scriupts available. Just use Google. Some examples: example1 | example2

Uptime monitor (optional)

I use the Uptime robot service to monitor my servers. Uptime robot will notify me, when server is down.

Simple intrusion detection techniques (optional)

rkhunter

apt-get install rkhunter

Perform (again) a full system update

Using apt-get:

apt-get update && apt-get -V upgrade

Update files database (again)

Use:

updatedb

Christos Pontikis

Entrepreneur | Full-stack developer | Founder of MediSign Ltd. I have over 15 years of professional experience designing and developing web applications. I am also very experienced in managing (web) projects.

Connect using SSH

Change root password

Perform a full system update

Update files database

Create common user

Harden SSH

SSH key based authentication

Color Bash Prompt

As an alternative:

Set default text editor

Customize nano text editor

Install ntp (Network Time Protocol)

Change hostname

Using systemd

The old way (not recommended)

Set server timezone

Install webmin

Harden kernel using /etc/sysctl.conf

You may add

About sysctl.conf

Install exim4 MTA

Exim4 errors after disabling IPv6

Forward root mail

iptables firewall

Using webmin (the easy way)

MySQL community database server

Install Apache web server

Important changes with Apache 2.4

Basic installation

Apache modules

Restart Apache

php

Basic installation

Error log

Php extensions

Config mbstring

Harden php

Restart Apache

Check installed extensions

Install memcached (optional)

Install database manager (optional)

Install git (optional)

Install s3cmd for Amazon backup (optional)

Various tools (optional)

Deploy Projects

Backup software

Simple system monitoring tools

Get email notifications for updates

Check which services need restart after an update

To check if reboot needed after a system update

Load average monitor

Uptime monitor (optional)

Simple intrusion detection techniques (optional)

rkhunter

Perform (again) a full system update

Update files database (again)

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