Table of Contents

Apache2 Configuration

The configuration is built from a DigitalOcean Droplet, preconfigured with LAMP and WordPress:

Core configuration

Note: If no site is “enabled” then a default entry seems to run hosting files under: /var/www/html

Site configuration file location(s): 

# All configuration files
/etc/apache2/sites-available/
 
# Enabled sites
/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

Enable/disable configurations: 

# Disable
sudo a2dissite datablog.roman-halliday.com.conf
 
# Enable
sudo a2ensite datablog.roman-halliday.com.conf

File Ownership

Make sure all files are owned correctly: 

# Site content owned by www-data so webserver can modify files
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
 
# Configuration owned by root for security
chown -R root:root /etc/apache2

Refresh Configuration

Use one of: 

systemctl reload apache2
service apache2 reload

SSL - Let's Encrypt

SSL Encryption (the use of https over http) is a bit standard now, fortunately it's become a lot easier with the addition of Lets Encrypt.

If you configure the http (non secure) websites under /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/, then the certbot script will leverage Lets Encrypt to create certificates, configure them and create extra configuration files for the SSL (appending -le-ssl to the file name) and add a redirect to the original .conf file. 

certbot --apache

Apache2 Migration

################################################################################
# Backup
################################################################################
 
cd /mnt/volume_lon1_01/
 
sudo cp -r /etc/apache2 .
sudo cp -r /var/www .
sudo cp -r /etc/letsencrypt .
################################################################################
# Fix hostname
################################################################################
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname roman-halliday
 
################################################################################
# Install LAMP Stack
################################################################################
sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-php php-mysql php-pgsql
 
################################################################################
# MySQL - See : https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-lamp-stack-on-ubuntu
################################################################################
sudo apt-get install mysqld
################################################################################
# MySQL : Manage security setup script
 
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY '<password>';
 
#> I wasn’t able to login to mysql with sudo mysql after running ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';
#> I fixed this by logging it with mysql -p, then running ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH auth_socket;. I did this after running the mysql_secure_installation script.
 
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH auth_socket;
 
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
 
SELECT * FROM mysql.user \G
SELECT Host, User, plugin, password_last_changed FROM mysql.user \G
 
sudo systemctl restart mysql
 
# Uninstall (if you borked it)
sudo apt remove --purge mysql\* -y
sudo find / -name mysql
 
 
################################################################################
# WordPress requirements:
sudo apt-get install php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-xmlrpc php-soap php-intl php-zip
 
################################################################################
# Firewall
################################################################################
sudo ufw allow Apache Full
 
 
################################################################################
# Backup (original configurations/files)
################################################################################
sudo apt-get install bzip2
mkdir -p ~/backups
sudo tar -cjf ~/backups/etc_apache2-backup-`date +%F`.tar.bz /etc/apache2
sudo tar -cjf ~/backups/etc_letsencrypt-backup-`date +%F`.tar.bz /etc/letsencrypt
sudo tar -cjf ~/backups/var_www-backup-`date +%F`.tar.bz /var/www
 
################################################################################
# Restore Files (from backup)
################################################################################
 
cd /mnt/volume_lon1_01/
 
sudo cp -r apache2 /etc/apache2
sudo cp -r www /var/www
sudo cp -r letsencrypt /etc/letsencrypt
 
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
 
################################################################################
# Restore Configs - letsencrypt
# Also see: 
#   *  https://webhostingmonkey.com/move-letsencrypt/
#   *  https://ivanderevianko.com/2019/03/migrate-letsencrypt-certificates-certbot-to-new-server
################################################################################
 
# View dir
cd /etc/letsencrypt/
# Migrate backup
cp -r /mnt/volume_lon1_01/letsencrypt/* .
 
################################################################################
# Find apache2 log directories
################################################################################
# List all
find /etc/apache2/sites-available/ -name "*.conf" -exec grep -E "ErrorLog|CustomLog" {} \; | cut -d '}' -f 2 | sort | uniq
find /etc/apache2/sites-available/ -name "*.conf" -exec grep -e "APACHE_LOG_DIR" {} \; | cut -d '$' -f 2
find /etc/apache2/sites-available/ -name "*.conf" -exec grep -e "APACHE_LOG_DIR" {} \; | cut -d '$' -f 2 | sort | uniq
 
# Get path names
find /etc/apache2/sites-available/ -name "*.conf" -exec grep -E "ErrorLog|CustomLog" {} \; | cut -d '}' -f 2 | sort | uniq | grep -Po '/\K[^/]*' | sort | uniq | sed '/.log/d'
 
################################################################################
# Create missing
################################################################################
sudo mkdir -p /var/log/apache2/<dir from above>
 
sudo chown -R root:adm /var/log/apache2/*
 
sudo ls -lh /var/log/apache2/
################################################################################
# Make DNS Changes
################################################################################
# Enable sistes
################################################################################
# Get site names (without SSL version)
find /etc/apache2/sites-available/ -name "*.conf" -maxdepth 1 -exec basename {} \;| grep -v 'le-ssl' | sort
 
# Enable
sudo a2ensite david-halliday.co.uk.conf
 
# Disable
sudo a2dissite david-halliday.co.uk.conf
 
# Restart Apache
sudo systemctl reload apache2
 
################################################################################
# Refresh certificates (letsencrypt)
################################################################################
sudo certbot --apache

Troubleshooting

PHP testing page

Hosting can be tested with the file:

index.php
<?php
// For backup, rename this for easy reference: php_info.php
phpinfo();
?>

Managing Page redirects/apache changes

So many problems with cache in browsers. Good to test with a browser which can have all data cleared, and do work in private browsing.

Using wget to test the apache configuration, see some extra samples and docs over at Computer Hope - Linux wget command. 

# Run a command to get the default page, and view the http redirects as returned by the server
wget --verbose datablog.roman-halliday.com
 
# Reload apache configuration
sudo service apache2 reload

Bug: extra index

I had an extra index.html file from before. The old server prioritised php pages over php. This one the other way around. It took time to realise the reason I was not getting one of the wiki pages working was because of the extra index.html'' file. 

<head>
        <title>Romanian - Roman-Halliday.com</title>
</head>
<body>
        <h1>Romanian</h1>
        <p>wiki will be here</p>
</body>