Update everything
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

install vim full so you can edit files
apt-get install vim-full

update the “locate” db
sudo updatedb

Change the root password
sudo passwd

Set up Users
useradd zope (I like useradd because there’s no reason to have a home directory. If you want your user to have a home directory then use adduser or useradd -D zope to create ~/home/zope)
passwd zope
useradd -m -c "real name" -s /bin/bash auserwithsudoers The flags create a home directory with skel profile defaults and this account is linked to the defaults for bash shell, which is important if you like syntax coloring and tab completion.
passwd auserwithsudoers
sudo visudo
Find the line that says #User Privilege specification and add
auserwithsudoers ALL=(ALL) ALL
shift ZZ to save and exit

Now log out as root and login as your new admin user and test sudo
su auserwithsudoers
sudo bash

Disable root login
su root
sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Change “PermitRootLogin yes” to “PermitRootLogin no”

Reload the ssh config
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh reload

Ok! Now we’re ready to think about plone

1. Follow the plone install instructions here
2. install some products (see plone documentation on using buildout). Here’s what I did to install a Press Release product
   1. download the product. If there’s a choice of files, choose the one with the naming convention Products.package.tar.gz. This is a python egg.
   2. su zope
vi /usr/local/Plone/zeocluster/buildout.cfg
      add the following:

      [buildout]
      ...
      eggs =
      Products.PressRelease

      and save (ctrl + ZZ)

   3. sudo /usr/local/Plone/zeocluster/bin/buildout
   4. sudo /usr/local/Plone/zeocluster/bin/plonectl restart
   5. In each Plone site where you want to install the Product, go Site Setup>Add/Remove Products and install the Product.

Again, the environment is Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Setting up a new LAMP server

File Permissions

If you’re going to access your web directory from another computer, you’ll need to change the file permissions on the web directory so you can put files. For example, my development server is a Ubuntu virtual machine but I do some development in a Windows vm and some development on my mac. In both cases, I connect with my development server over an sftp client that’s integrated into my editor environment.

sudo chown yourusername /var/www
alternatively, you might create a new user like “web” or “www”. If you’ll occasionally make your server public, you might want to create a user that does not have sudo access for an extra layer of security.¹

install Apache 2

sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start
test apache by navigating in browser to localhost.
place an index.html page into /var/www to test that’s all set up.

I like to stop apache while installing other things, but you can always restart it so it doesn’t really matter
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop (or restart)

Install php 5

sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5
restart apache so it registers with php
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
test that it worked by placing a phpinfo file into /var/www
create the file
vi /var/www/phpinfo.php
then type
<?php phpinfo(); >

Navigate in browser to localhost/phpinfo.php to see that it’s working

install mysql server

sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql mysql-client

Before you start configuring files, you need to install the full version of vi. By default, ubuntu only comes with vim-tiny. You’ll know it’s vim-tiny when you try to edit a file with vi and the console reads out characters like ^B. So,
sudo apt-get install vim-full

Now, tell php about mysql
sudo vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

It doesn’t matter where you put it, but I like to put it under the line that says “Directory in which the loadable extensions (modules) reside”.
extension=mysql.so
restart apache again.
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Install phpmyadmin

This can be done the Ubuntu way or it can be done manually by installing phpmyadmin to /var/www like any other web application.

The Ubuntu way

the benefit to doing it this way is that phpmyadmin is installed as a managed package which means it will be updated by our lovely package manager, apt-get which saves us a little time. Since I use phpmyadmin on multiple virtual machines, this makes a cumulative difference.

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

tell apache where phpmyadmin actually lives (which is in /etc/phpmyadmin)
sudo vi /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
You can place the following directive anywhere, but I prefer to place it under the line:
# Include all the user configurations
add the line
Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf

If you didn’t want to edit your apache.conf, you could always use a symlink instead.

navigate to localhost/phpmyadmin to check that it’s working

Some cleanup/maintenance/utility stuff

If this is a fresh install, you probably need to run the locate database updater so you can use it.
sudo updatedb

Done with the LAMP setup! Next up … subversion and trac

Footnotes

1. for more on managing user accounts see this O’Reilly article or for an in-depth treatise that addresses best practices – check out my favorite reference book “Essential System Administration”.

1. install g++
   sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential xinetd
2. download plone unified installer or in your terminal type:
   wget https://launchpad.net/plone/3.0/3.0.4/+download/Plone-3.0.4-UnifiedInstaller.tar.gz --no-check-certificate
3. tar -xvzf Plone-3.0.4-Unifiedinstaller-Rev3.tar.gz
cd Plone-3.0.4-Unifiedinstaller
   If you need to change the install path for Plone, edit the PLONE_HOME variable in install.sh. I changed mine to /usr/local/Plone304
4. sudo ./install.sh zeo
5. cd /usr/local/Plone304/zeocluster
   and
   sudo vi adminPassword.txt
   to view admin password
6. start Plone (first time will take a few minutes):
   sudo /usr/local/Plone304/zeocluster/bin/startcluster.sh
7. navigate to localhost:8080 to check that zope is working
8. in localhost:8080/manage go to Root Folder, click on acl_users=>users=>admin and change admin password to something you’ll remember
9. from dropdown menu select Plone Site to create a new site
10. navigate to plone site: localhost:8080/ploneSiteName
11. navigate to zmi by: localhost:8080/ploneSiteName/manage