Installing Apache2

Let's install our first web server.

First, switch to Bridged mode in VirtualBox network settings and refresh MAC address in VirtualBox.

Update system first

Make sure your machine is up to date before installing Apache2.

Login as root, or switch to the root user, and update the machine:

sudo su
dnf update

Install httpd

Now, that the machine is updated, install Apache2. On distributions that use a package management system, such as dnf on Fedora and apt on Ubuntu, we can use those systems to install the relevant software and dependencies. However, different distributions use different names for the packages. Fedora refers to the Apache2 package as httpd while Ubuntu refers to it as Apache2. We can use dnf to search for the appropriate package name:

dnf search apache | grep "httpd"

Apache2 is not the only web server available. nginx is another popular web server, and you should explore or learn about other options on your own. For now, let's get some basic info on the httpd package:

dnf info httpd

Based on the output, and at the time of this writing, it looks like the httpd package refers to the Apache HTTP Server, version 2.4.51. I want to highlight this because it's important to know what version of things are that we're installing, for a couple of reasons at least:

  1. First, although Apache2 has its own dependencies, other packages will also depend on it. For example, say we wanted to install Drupal or WordPress, we would first have to install a web server, like Apache2, and it might be the case that Drupal or WordPress require a certain minimum version of Apache2.

  2. Second, some Linux operating systems focus on stability and thus do not update to the most recent version of a package instead opting for the most stable version of the software. The latest stable release of Apache2 is 2.4.51. But it's not always likely that Fedora or some other distribution will use that or some newer version until the next distribution upgrade, for example, from Fedora 33 to Fedora 34. For now, this is fine, and we can proceed with the install:

dnf -y install httpd

Basic checks

One of the things that makes Apache2, and some other web servers, powerful is the library of modules that extend Apache's functionality. We'll come back to modules soon. For now, we're going to make sure the server is up and running, configure some basic things, and then create a basic web site.

To start, let's get some info about Apache2 and make sure it is enabled and running:

systemctl list-unit-files httpd.service
systemctl enable httpd.service
systemctl list-unit-files httpd.service
systemctl status httpd.service
systemctl start httpd.service
systemctl status httpd.service

Creating a web page

Now that we have it up and running, let's look at the default web page. We can use our loopback IP address (aka, localhost) and the w3m text web browser to view the default page:

dnf install -y w3m
w3m http://127.0.0.1
w3m http://localhost/

The w3m text-mode browser shows the Fedora Test Page. That's a sign that the default install was successful.

Let's now create our first web page. To do so, we need to know what directory that httpd is using to serve websites. This directory is called the DocumentRoot directory. If we read through that Fedora Test Page document, it'll tell us that the default directory is /var/www/html/. Let's go there and create a webpage with our text editor of choice:

cd /var/www/html/
nano index.html

Create a simple HTML page, something like this. Of course, modify the content to suit your own interests:

<html>
<head>
<title>My first web page using Apache2</title>
</head>
<body>

<h1>Welcome</h1>

<p>Welcome to my web site. I have ever created using Apache2 and Fedora
Linux.</p>

<p>Thanks!<br/>
Dr. Burns</p>

</body>
</html>

After you're done, save and close the document. Let's visit our website again with w3m to see if it works:

w3m http://127.0.0.1

Let's open the firewall so that outside systems can access this page:

firewall-cmd --list-all
firewall-cmd --get-active-zones
firewall-cmd --zone=FedoraServer --add-service=http
firewall-cmd --zone=FedoraServer --add-service=https
firewall-cmd --runtime-to-permanent

Changing the hostname

The hostname of a system is the label it uses to identify itself to others (humans) on a (sub)network. If the hostname is on the web (or the internet), it may also be part of its of the fully qualified domain name (FQDN), which we studied during the DNS and networking weeks. For example, on a server identified as enterprise.example.net, then enterprise, is the hostname, example.net is the domain name, and enterprise.example.net is the fully qualified domain name. If two computers are on the same subnet, then they can be reachable via the hostname only, but the domain name is part of the DNS system and is required for two computers on the broader internet to reach each other.

We're going to check and set the system hostname on our Fedora (virtual) machines using the hostname and hostnamectl commands:

Check the default hostname:

# hostname
localhost.localdomain

To change the default hostname from localhost, use the hostnamectl command to update the system's hostname per the file. My new hostname will be enterprise. You can name your hostname whatever you want, but be sure it's a single word with no punctuation.

hostnamectl set-hostname enterprise
hostname
cat /etc/hostname

We can access our site by hostname rather than by IP:

w3m http://enterprise

Optional

After you've completed the above steps, do the following:

  1. On your host machine, find your OS's version of /etc/hosts.

  2. Map your guest IP address (your Fedora IP) to your new hostname:

    192.168.4.31 enterprise

Then, in your Firefox, Chrome, or whatever browser, visit your new website and replace enterprise with the hostname that you chose for your guest OS:

http://enterprise

Apache2 User Directories

We can enable Apache2 so that users on our systems can run websites from their home directories; that is, sites located at:

  • $HOME/public_html

Enable userdir

Edit the userdir.conf file.

cd /etc/httpd/conf.d/
nano userdir.conf

Make the following changes:

  • UserDir disabled to UserDir enabled
  • Uncomment line UserDir public_html

After saving and exiting, restart httpd.service:

systemctl restart httpd.service

Tasks

  1. Exit out of root account
  2. Go to your regular user's home directory
  3. Make a directory titled public_html if it doesn't already exist
  4. Set public_html directory permissions to 755:
    • chmod 755 public_html
  5. Change the user's directory permissions to 701:
    • chmod 701 /home/your_user

SELinux needs to be configured to allow web access to our home directories. Specifically, we need to set some SELinux switches. Using sudo or logging in as root. Make sure you replace sean with your username:

setsebool -P httpd_enable_homedirs true
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /home/sean/public_html

Exit out of root if you need to.

Test

Now test to see if your public_html site is operational by simply visiting the site. For me, I use the following command:

cd ~/public_html/
echo "<p>Hello world</p>" >> index.html
w3m http://127.0.0.1/~sean