debian_installation.txt

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Setting up an Arkestra web server from scratch
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Basic Debian Linux setup
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Obtain Debian Linux
===================

Get a Debian network installer from http://www.debian.org (I used debian-6.0.5-amd64-netinst.iso).

Copy it onto a USB flash drive:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1                                 # unmount the volume
cat Desktop/debian-6.0.5-amd64-netinst.iso | dd of=/dev/disk1   # copy the disk image

Boot up the machine from the flash drive, and let Debian use its suggested defaults.

When it comes to ask what software to install, tell it to install only the basic system utilities.


Configure the system
====================

You'll need to login as root.

apt-get install openssh-server 

Now you can login as from another machine instead of from the console. So do that now.

As root:

apt-get install sudo    # now you can use sudo
adduser daniele sudo    # add your user account to the sudoers file

Login as daniele:

sudo locale-gen en_GB.UTF-8                     # set up locales
sudo /usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en_GB.UTF-8


sudo apt-get update                  # shouldn't really be necessary, as this is a new install
sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

# installing handy things for compiling and building
sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

Make your life easier: having /sbin on the path provides access to commands otherwise reserved for root, and makes it possible to run stop-start-daemon in the fcgi script below.

pico ~/.profile # edit the user's profile

# add:
PATH=$PATH:/new/path/one:/new/path/two
export PATH 


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Install the server software
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OpenSSH
=======

ssh-keygen # generate server keys

Paste your own public key(s) into .ssh/authorized_keys.

chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys

sudo pico /etc/ssh/sshd_config # edit the sshd_config

The following 3 lines

* Port 22
* PermitRootLogin yes
* PasswordAuthentication yes

Become

* Port 8888
* PermitRootLogin no
* PasswordAuthentication no


The firewall
============

sudo apt-get install ufw

sudo ufw allow 8000/tcp # web dev
sudo ufw allow 8001/tcp # web dev
sudo ufw allow 8002/tcp # web dev
sudo ufw allow 8003/tcp # web dev
sudo ufw allow 8004/tcp # web dev
sudo ufw allow 8005/tcp # web dev
sudo ufw allow 8082/tcp # munin
sudo ufw allow 8888/tcp # for ssh
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp # standard http 
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp # ssh
sudo ufw enable

# restart sshd
# make sure you do this as root, using sudo
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart


MySQL server
============

# install mysql server and python interface
sudo apt-get install mysql-server python-mysqldb

sudo pico /etc/mysql/my.cnf     # edit system-wide MySQL conf

add/change in the [mysqld] section:

skip-character-set-client-handshake
collation_server = utf8_unicode_ci
character_set_server = utf8

# restart the server
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart

# test the server
mysql -u root -p
create database bongo;          # create a database
show create database bongo;     # see what's been created

You need to see that it's using the correct character set:  

    CREATE DATABASE `bongo` /*!40100 DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci *

# drop the database
drop database bongo;


Nginx
=====

The version of Nginx from Debian stable is rather old. We'll install from backports.

sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list     # edit the sources list

Add:

# backports
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main

sudo apt-get -t squeeze-backports install nginx

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx start    # start nginx

And now check that the server is serving by visiting it in a web browser.

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Other software
**************

Version control
===============

sudo apt-get install git mercurial

Give the machine's public keys to GitHub and Bitbucket: 

less ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub  # get the key

If you don't have access to GitHub/Bitbucket accounts, then you'll have to make do with anonymous access later on.


Python
======

sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv python-dev # install virtualenv & development version of Python

sudo apt-get install python-ldap 


Video
=====

We install Handbrake and ffmpeg2theora:

sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list # edit the sources list (because handbrake isn't otherwise available)

Add:

#Handbrake
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org squeeze main # use this multmedia repository

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install handbrake-cli ffmpeg2theora



Miscellaneous libraries
=======================

sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libjpeg8-dev   # install some libraries


Django & Arkestra
=================

cd
virtualenv arkestra_test
cd arkestra_test
source bin/activate

pip install -e git+git@github.com:evildmp/Arkestra.git@pip#egg=Arkestra # install Arkestra & dependencies

Install the right versions of Semantic Editor, Django Widgetry and Django Filer:

pip install -r src/arkestra/REQUIREMENTS.txt # install the things that pip can't do automatically


Test the example site
=====================

cd src/arkestra/example

python manage.py syncdb # answer "no"

python manage.py reset contenttypes # answer "yes"

python manage.py loaddata example_database.json
python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000   

The admin username and password are both "arkestra"