Hi,

This is my first time for everything: this community, forum, Linode.com, VPS etc... I would like to say hi and I definitely need your help, a lot of help. I just bought a Linode 256 VPS plan for hand on learning purpose. I am a webapp developer who does not know much about the system aspect of a server. The closest I've ever come to the system was installing XAMPP on my Windows XP machine. That is IT.

The goal:
1. Configure my VPS
2. Install XAMPP on my VPS
3. Install my webapp.

First thing first. I got my Linode dashboard, it has many choices in there. Would you please guide me to the simplest way to achieve the goal. Make it works first then I will learn more to make it secured, efficient and all that good things. Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
ngungo

Hello ... anyone ...

I dug up and here what I did:

1. Deploy Debian 3.1 for whole disk space.
2. Use Putty log on to the server with usename: root
3. Download the XAMPP for Linux package use following these commands:

mkdir downloads
cd /downloads
wget http://www.apachefriends.org/download.php?xampp-linux-1.6.tar.gz
tar xvfz xampp-linux-1.6.tar.gz -C /opt

4. I secured the LAMPP. The installation went fine after few tries. I am pretty happy.
5. I did the ssh keys things but don't know how log in with different name other than root yet.
6. I set up FTP connection and upload my php webapp. It is there, it works but have errors. Don't know why. I've tried to switch between php4 and php5, so far no luck.

I appreciate for your comments here. Thanks in advance.

You need to frame your questions in such a way that would-be helpers can figure out what is wrong. What errors? What failed when you tried the PHP 4 -> 5 switch?

_________________
/ Peter

Hi pclissold,

I was kind of confused so what I did was redo it again from the beginning. Then sourceforge server was down so I had to wait.

Anyway I finished the redo but have the same result. Here: http://64.22.71.178/lab/lampp.php The exact same code was working at my local server which has XAMPP set up on a Windows XP, also working at another host: http://56degrees.com/lab/lampp.php

When I view the html source codes of both, they are produced the same. It seems here at Linode it does not pick up the css files.

thats not a linode thing... thats something u have set up wrong.

Linode isnt responsible for any of your setup.. its entirelly up to you, so i would hesitate a guess to say something else is fubar.. maybe the way it references the css page or something simular

for wat its worth, both pages display the same 4 me

_________________
ServerAdmin - www.our-lan.com
"Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy whilst looking for a really big stick"
"In my experiece, any attempt to make any system idiot proof will only challenge God to make a better idiot"

You should consider using Debian's package management system, so there is no need to download and build from source. your config files will also be at appropriate places.

Lin is right; everything that you need should be already packaged by Debian. This is hands-down the best way for you to approach installing software.

There are tons of guides out there; Google for something like debian webserver setup.

I show that perfectly. As I said on the first post that this is my first time and I want to learn. Is there any procedure written so I can read and achieve my goal?

I dont know why they are different with my browsers, IE and FF.

There are no Debian packages for XAMMP. You don't build from source - the whole shebang is pre-built.


It looks as if you have achieved your goal.


The pages are identical for me in Firefox 2 and IE 7.

_________________
/ Peter

Morning!

OK! I shut it down. Deployed the Debian 3.1 from Distro Wizard.
I found this: http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_debian_lamp_server and followed its instructions. The first one apt-get install update is OK. I got stuck at the second one, apt-get install apache2 php4 libapache2-mod-php4

Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main libkrb53 1.3.6-2
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main perl-modules 5.8.4-8
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main perl 5.8.4-8
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main libapr0 2.0.54-4
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main apache2-utils 2.0.54-4
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main lynx 2.8.5-2
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main apache-common 1.3.33-6
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main openssl 0.9.7e-3
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main apache2-common 2.0.54-4
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main apache2-mpm-prefork 2.0.54-4
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main apache2 2.0.54-4
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main php4-common 4:4.3.10-15
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main libapache-mod-php4 4:4.3.10-15
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main libapache2-mod-php4 4:4.3.10-15
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org stable/main php4 4:4.3.10-15
  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/k/krb5/libkrb53_1.3.6-2_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/perl/perl-modules_5.8.4-8_all.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/perl/perl_5.8.4-8_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apache2/libapr0_2.0.54-4_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apache2/apache2-utils_2.0.54-4_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/l/lynx/lynx_2.8.5-2_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apache/apache-common_1.3.33-6_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/openssl/openssl_0.9.7e-3_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apache2/apache2-common_2.0.54-4_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apache2/apache2-mpm-prefork_2.0.54-4_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/apache2/apache2_2.0.54-4_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/php4/php4-common_4.3.10-15_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/php4/libapache-mod-php4_4.3.10-15_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/php4/libapache2-mod-php4_4.3.10-15_i386.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/php4/php4_4.3.10-15_all.deb  404 Not Found [IP: 128.101.240.212 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
li15-178:~#

Question: Am I on the right direction? Just that the ftp site is down for the moment, and I should try it again in later time?
Any hint is appreciated!

Yes, you're definitely in the right direction!

I think the only problem is that the image's information about the repositories is out of date. The first step before installing a packages is usually to run:

apt-get update

which will fetch the latest information about available packages from the repositories.

It looks like what's happening here is that your machine is expecting to find particular versions of packages which have been updated (patched for security reasons).

Thanks for your kindness. I appreciate your help.

Please please please never ever install something like xampp ever again.

I'm unfamiliar with xampp, could you (briefly) explain why not? And like it in what way, since I don't know about it at all.

James

xammp is pre-packaged AMP for LAMP - intended for use in a development environment - a single gunzip and you're good to go.

From their website:

It's not suitable for putting on a machine that's connected to the Internet - one mistake with the firewall and you're hacked for sure - and you're probably a goner anyway - it's got PHP in it without much attention to security.

_________________
/ Peter