The Perfect Setup - Debian Sarge (3.1)  

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The Perfect Setup - Debian Sarge (3.1)

Version 1.9
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
Last edited 12/01/2006

This is a detailed description about the steps to be taken to setup a Debian based server (Debian Sarge alias Debian 3.1) that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters (web server (SSL-capable), mail server (with SMTP-AUTH and TLS!), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/POP3s/IMAP/IMAPs, Quota, Firewall, etc.).

I will use the following software:

  • Web Server: Apache 2.0.x
  • Mail Server: Postfix (easier to configure than sendmail; has a shorter history of security holes than sendmail)
  • DNS Server: BIND9
  • FTP Server: proftpd
  • POP3/POP3s/IMAP/IMAPs: in this example you can choose between the traditional UNIX mailbox format (we then use ipopd/uw-imapd) or the Maildir format (in this case we will use Courier-POP3/Courier-IMAP).
  • Webalizer for web site statistics

In the end you should have a system that works reliably and is ready for the free webhosting control panel ISPConfig (i.e., ISPConfig runs on it out of the box).

I want to say first that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

 

Requirements

To install such a system you will need the following:

1 The Base System

Insert your Sarge Netinstall CD into your system and boot from it (enter linux26 at the boot prompt to install a 2.6 kernel). The installation starts, and first you have to choose your language:

Select your country:

Choose a keyboard layout:

The hardware detection starts:

Enter the hostname. In this example, my system is called server1.example.com, so I enter server1:

Enter your domain name. In this example, this is example.com:

Now you have to partition your hard disk. I will create one big partition (with the mount point /) and a little swap partition:

Now the base system is being installed:

I install the GRUB boot loader to the master boot record:

Afterwards remove the Sarge Netinstall CD from your system and reboot it:

Configure your time zone:

Enter a password for root:

Create a second user admin:

Choose your installation method. Since I want to do an installtion over the network I select http or ftp.

Select a mirror for your installation:

Enter a proxy for the installtion (if necessary). Normally you can leave this field empty.

Under Debian software selection I only choose Mail server. I will install all other services manually later on.

The network installation starts:

Continue installing libc-client without Maildir support. If you want to use Maildir you can install Courier-POP3/Courier-IMAP (explained later on):

Do not configure Exim as we will replace it with Postfix later on:

Congratulations! Your base system is finished now:

 

 

2 Installing And Configuring The Rest Of The System

Configure The Network

Because the Debian Sarge installer has configured our system to get its network settings via DHCP, we have to change that now because a server should have a static IP address. Edit /etc/network/interfaces and adjust it to your needs (in this example setup I will use the IP address 192.168.0.100):

# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)

# The loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The first network card - this entry was created during the Debian installation
# (network, broadcast and gateway are optional)
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1

If you want to add the IP address 192.168.0.101 to the interface eth0 you should change the file to look like this:

# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)

# The loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The first network card - this entry was created during the Debian installation
# (network, broadcast and gateway are optional)
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1

auto eth0:0
iface eth0:0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.101
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1

Then restart your network:

/etc/init.d/networking restart

Edit /etc/resolv.conf and add some nameservers:

search server
nameserver 145.253.2.75
nameserver 193.174.32.18
nameserver 194.25.0.60

Edit /etc/hosts and add your new IP addresses:

127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost       server1
192.168.0.100   server1.example.com     server1
192.168.0.101   virtual-ip1.example.com     virtual-ip1


# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

 

Setting The Hostname

echo server1.example.com > /etc/hostname
/bin/hostname -F /etc/hostname

 

Install/Remove Some Software

Now let's install some software we need later on and remove some packages that we do not need:

apt-get install wget bzip2 rdate fetchmail libdb3++-dev unzip zip ncftp xlispstat libarchive-zip-perl zlib1g-dev libpopt-dev nmap openssl lynx fileutils g++
apt-get remove lpr nfs-common portmap pidentd pcmcia-cs pppoe pppoeconf ppp pppconfig

update-rc.d -f exim remove
update-inetd --remove daytime
update-inetd --remove telnet
update-inetd --remove time
update-inetd --remove finger
update-inetd --remove talk
update-inetd --remove ntalk
update-inetd --remove ftp
update-inetd --remove discard
<- Yes

/etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd reload


Quota

apt-get install quota quotatool
<- No

Edit /etc/fstab to look like this (I added ,usrquota,grpquota to the partition with the mount point /):

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda1       /               ext3    defaults,errors=remount-ro,usrquota,grpquota 0       1
/dev/sda5       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hdc        /media/cdrom0   iso9660 ro,user,noauto  0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0

Then run:

touch /quota.user /quota.group
chmod 600 /quota.*
mount -o remount /
quotacheck -avugm
quotaon -avug


DNS-Server

apt-get install bind9

For security reasons we want to run BIND chrooted so we have to do the following steps:

/etc/init.d/bind9 stop

Edit the file /etc/default/bind9 so that the daemon will run as the unprivileged user 'bind', chrooted to /var/lib/named. Modify the line: OPTS="-u bind" so that it reads OPTS="-u bind -t /var/lib/named":

OPTIONS="-u bind -t /var/lib/named"

Create the necessary directories under /var/lib:

mkdir -p /var/lib/named/etc
mkdir /var/lib/named/dev
mkdir -p /var/lib/named/var/cache/bind
mkdir -p /var/lib/named/var/run/bind/run

Then move the config directory from /etc to /var/lib/named/etc:

mv /etc/bind /var/lib/named/etc

Create a symlink to the new config directory from the old location (to avoid problems when bind is upgraded in the future):

ln -s /var/lib/named/etc/bind /etc/bind

Make null and random devices, and fix permissions of the directories:

mknod /var/lib/named/dev/null c 1 3
mknod /var/lib/named/dev/random c 1 8
chmod 666 /var/lib/named/dev/null /var/lib/named/dev/random
chown -R bind:bind /var/lib/named/var/*
chown -R bind:bind /var/lib/named/etc/bind

We need to modify the startup script /etc/init.d/sysklogd of sysklogd so that we can still get important messages logged to the system logs. Modify the line: SYSLOGD="" so that it reads: SYSLOGD="-a /var/lib/named/dev/log":

#! /bin/sh
# /etc/init.d/sysklogd: start the system log daemon.

PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin

pidfile=/var/run/syslogd.pid
binpath=/sbin/syslogd

test -x $binpath || exit 0

# Options for start/restart the daemons
#   For remote UDP logging use SYSLOGD="-r"
#
SYSLOGD="-a /var/lib/named/dev/log"

create_xconsole()
{
    if [ ! -e /dev/xconsole ]; then
        mknod -m 640 /dev/xconsole p
    else
        chmod 0640 /dev/xconsole
    fi
    chown root:adm /dev/xconsole
}

running()
{
    # No pidfile, probably no daemon present
    #
    if [ ! -f $pidfile ]
    then
        return 1
    fi

    pid=`cat $pidfile`

    # No pid, probably no daemon present
    #
    if [ -z "$pid" ]
    then
        return 1
    fi

    if [ ! -d /proc/$pid ]
    then
        return 1
    fi

    cmd=`cat /proc/$pid/cmdline | tr "\000" "\n"|head -n 1`

    # No syslogd?
    #
    if [ "$cmd" != "$binpath" ]
    then
        return 1
    fi

    return 0
}

case "$1" in
  start)
    echo -n "Starting system log daemon: syslogd"
    create_xconsole
    start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec $binpath -- $SYSLOGD
    echo "."
    ;;
  stop)
    echo -n "Stopping system log daemon: syslogd"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --exec $binpath --pidfile $pidfile
    echo "."
    ;;
  reload|force-reload)
    echo -n "Reloading system log daemon: syslogd"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --signal 1 --exec $binpath --pidfile $pidfile
    echo "."
    ;;
  restart)
    echo -n "Restarting system log daemon: syslogd"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --exec $binpath --pidfile $pidfile
    sleep 1
    start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec $binpath -- $SYSLOGD
    echo "."
    ;;
  reload-or-restart)
    if running
    then
        echo -n "Reloading system log daemon: syslogd"
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --signal 1 --exec $binpath --pidfile $pidfile
    else
        echo -n "Restarting system log daemon: syslogd"
        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec $binpath -- $SYSLOGD
    fi
    echo "."
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/sysklogd {start|stop|reload|restart|force-reload|reload-or-restart}"
    exit 1
esac

exit 0

Restart the logging daemon:

/etc/init.d/sysklogd restart

Start up BIND, and check /var/log/syslog for any errors:

/etc/init.d/bind9 start

 

MySQL

apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient12-dev

mysqladmin -u root password yourrootsqlpassword

When you run netstat -tap you should now see a line like this:

tcp        0      0 localhost.localdo:mysql *:*                     LISTEN     2449/mysqld

which means that MySQL is accessible on 127.0.0.1 on port 3306. You can go to the next section (Postfix). If you do not see this line, edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf and comment out skip-networking:

# skip-networking

If you want MySQL to listen on all available IP addresses, edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf and comment out bind-address = 127.0.0.1:

#bind-address            = 127.0.0.1

If you had to edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf you have to restart MySQL:

/etc/init.d/mysql restart

If MySQL is listening on all interfaces, you must now also set a MySQL password for server1.example.com because otherwise anybody could access your database:

mysqladmin -h server1.example.com -u root password yourrootsqlpassword


Postfix/POP3/IMAP

In order to install Postfix with SMTP-AUTH and TLS as well as a POP3 server that also does POP3s (port 995) and an IMAP server that is also capable of IMAPs (port 993) do the following steps:

apt-get install postfix postfix-tls libsasl2 sasl2-bin libsasl2-modules ipopd-ssl uw-imapd-ssl (1 line!)

<- pop3 and pop3s
<- No
<- Internet Site
<- NONE
<- server1.example.com
<- server1.example.com, localhost.example.com, localhost
<- No

postconf -e 'smtpd_sasl_local_domain ='
postconf -e 'smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes'
postconf -e 'smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous'
postconf -e 'broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes'
postconf -e 'smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated,permit_mynetworks,reject_unauth_destination'
postconf -e 'inet_interfaces = all'
echo 'pwcheck_method: saslauthd' >> /etc/postfix/sasl/smtpd.conf
echo 'mech_list: plain login' >> /etc/postfix/sasl/smtpd.conf

mkdir /etc/postfix/ssl
cd /etc/postfix/ssl/
openssl genrsa -des3 -rand /etc/hosts -out smtpd.key 1024
chmod 600 smtpd.key
openssl req -new -key smtpd.key -out smtpd.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 3650 -in smtpd.csr -signkey smtpd.key -out smtpd.crt
openssl rsa -in smtpd.key -out smtpd.key.unencrypted
mv -f smtpd.key.unencrypted smtpd.key
openssl req -new -x509 -extensions v3_ca -keyout cakey.pem -out cacert.pem -days 3650

postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_auth_only = no'
postconf -e 'smtp_use_tls = yes'
postconf -e 'smtpd_use_tls = yes'
postconf -e 'smtp_tls_note_starttls_offer = yes'
postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/postfix/ssl/smtpd.key'
postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/postfix/ssl/smtpd.crt'
postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/ssl/cacert.pem'
postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1'
postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_received_header = yes'
postconf -e 'smtpd_tls_session_cache_timeout = 3600s'
postconf -e 'tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom'

The file /etc/postfix/main.cf should now look like this:

# See /usr/share/postfix/main.cf.dist for a commented, more complete version

smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Debian/GNU)
biff = no

# appending .domain is the MUA's job.
append_dot_mydomain = no

# Uncomment the next line to generate "delayed mail" warnings
#delay_warning_time = 4h

myhostname = server1.example.com
alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases
alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases
myorigin = /etc/mailname
mydestination = server1.example.com, localhost.example.com, localhost
relayhost =
mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8
mailbox_command = procmail -a "$EXTENSION"
mailbox_size_limit = 0
recipient_delimiter = +
inet_interfaces = all
smtpd_sasl_local_domain =
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated,permit_mynetworks,reject_unauth_destination
smtpd_tls_auth_only = no
smtp_use_tls = yes
smtpd_use_tls = yes
smtp_tls_note_starttls_offer = yes
smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/postfix/ssl/smtpd.key
smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/postfix/ssl/smtpd.crt
smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/ssl/cacert.pem
smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1
smtpd_tls_received_header = yes
smtpd_tls_session_cache_timeout = 3600s
tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom

/etc/init.d/postfix restart

Authentication will be done by saslauthd. We have to change a few things to make it work properly. Because Postfix runs chrooted in /var/spool/postfix we have to do the following:

mkdir -p /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd

Now we have to edit /etc/default/saslauthd in order to activate saslauthd. Remove # in front of START=yes and add the line PARAMS="-m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r":

# This needs to be uncommented before saslauthd will be run automatically
START=yes

PARAMS="-m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r"

# You must specify the authentication mechanisms you wish to use.
# This defaults to "pam" for PAM support, but may also include
# "shadow" or "sasldb", like this:
# MECHANISMS="pam shadow"

MECHANISMS="pam"

We must also edit /etc/init.d/saslauthd and change the location of saslauthd's PID file. Change the value of PIDFILE to /var/spool/postfix/var/run/${NAME}/saslauthd.pid:

PIDFILE="/var/spool/postfix/var/run/${NAME}/saslauthd.pid"

Now start saslauthd:

/etc/init.d/saslauthd start

 

Next we create the file /etc/c-client.cf with the following contents:

I accept the risk
set disable-plaintext 0

and restart inetd:

/etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd restart

If we don't do this, then our POP3/IMAP logins will fail.

 

To see if SMTP-AUTH and TLS work properly now run the following command:

telnet localhost 25

After you have established the connection to your postfix mail server type

ehlo localhost

If you see the lines

250-STARTTLS

and

250-AUTH

everything is fine.

Type

quit

to return to the system's shell.

 

Courier-IMAP/Courier-POP3

If you want to use a POP3/IMAP daemon that has Maildir support (if you do not want to use the traditional Unix mailbox format) you can install Courier-IMAP/Courier-IMAP-SSL (for IMAPs on port 993) and Courier-POP3/Courier-POP3-SSL (for POP3s on port 995). Otherwise you can proceed with the Apache configuration.

apt-get install courier-imap courier-imap-ssl courier-pop courier-pop-ssl

<- No

ipopd and UW-IMAP will then be replaced.

Then configure Postfix to deliver emails to a user's Maildir*:

postconf -e 'home_mailbox = Maildir/'
postconf -e 'mailbox_command ='
/etc/init.d/postfix restart

*Please note: You do not have to do this if you intend to use ISPConfig on your system as ISPConfig does the necessary configuration using procmail recipes. But please go sure to enable Maildir under Management -> Settings -> EMail in the ISPConfig web interface.

 

Apache

Run

apt-get install apache2 apache2-doc
apt-get install libapache2-mod-php4 libapache2-mod-perl2 php4 php4-cli php4-common php4-curl php4-dev php4-domxml php4-gd php4-imap php4-ldap php4-mcal php4-mhash php4-mysql php4-odbc php4-pear php4-xslt curl libwww-perl imagemagick (1 line!)

Edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf. Change

DirectoryIndex index.html index.cgi index.pl index.php index.xhtml

to

DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.shtml index.cgi index.php index.php3 index.pl index.xhtml

Edit /etc/mime.types and comment out the following lines:

#application/x-httpd-php                                phtml pht php
#application/x-httpd-php-source                 phps
#application/x-httpd-php3                       php3
#application/x-httpd-php3-preprocessed          php3p
#application/x-httpd-php4                       php4

Edit /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/php4.conf and comment out the following lines:

<IfModule mod_php4.c>
#  AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .phtml .php3
#  AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
</IfModule>

Edit /etc/apache2/ports.conf and add Listen 443:

Listen 80
Listen 443

Now we have to enable some Apache modules (SSL, rewrite and suexec):

a2enmod ssl
a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod suexec
a2enmod include

Restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

 

Proftpd

apt-get install proftpd

<- standalone

For security reasons you can add the following lines to /etc/proftpd.conf (thanks to Reinaldo Carvalho; more information can be found here: http://proftpd.linux.co.uk/localsite/Userguide/linked/userguide.html):

DefaultRoot ~
IdentLookups off
ServerIdent on "FTP Server ready."

and restart Proftpd:

/etc/init.d/proftpd restart

 

Webalizer

apt-get install webalizer

<- /var/www/webalizer
<- Usage Statistics for
<- /var/log/apache/access.log.1

 

Synchronize the System Clock

It is a good idea to synchronize the system clock with an NTP (network time protocol) server over the internet. Simply run

apt-get install ntp ntpdate

and your system time will always be in sync.

 

Install some Perl Modules needed by SpamAssassin (comes with ISPConfig)

Installation using the Perl Shell

Login to your command line as root and run the following command to start the Perl shell:

perl -MCPAN -e shell

If you run the Perl shell for the first time you will be asked some questions. In most cases the default answers are ok.

Please note: If you run a firewall on your system you might have to turn it off while working on the Perl shell in order for the Perl shell to be able to fetch the needed modules without a big delay. You can switch it on afterwards.

The big advantage of the Perl shell compared to the two other methods described here is that it cares about dependencies when installing new modules. I.e., if it turns out that a prerequisite Perl module is missing when you install another module the Perl shell asks you if it should install the prerequisite module for you. You should answer that question with "Yes".

Run the following commands to install the modules needed by SpamAssassin:

install HTML::Parser
install DB_File
install Net::DNS (when prompted to enable tests, choose no)
q (to leave the Perl shell)

If a module is already installed on your system you will get a message similar to this one:

HTML::Parser is up to date.

Successful installation of a module looks like this:

/usr/bin/make install -- OK

 

Compile a Custom Kernel

If you need to compile a new kernel for some reason (e.g. because you want to use the latest bleeding-edge kernel or need a feature that the standard Debian kernel does not offer), you can find more information here: Debian-Kernel-Compile-Howto.


The End

The configuration of the server is now finished, and if you wish you can now install ISPConfig on it.

 

A Note On SuExec

If you want to run CGI scripts under suExec, you should specify /var/www as the home directory for websites created by ISPConfig as Debian's suExec is compiled with /var/www as Doc_Root. Run /usr/lib/apache2/suexec2 -V, and the output should look like this:

To select /var/www as the home directory for websites during the installation of ISPConfig do the following: When you are asked for the installation mode, select the expert mode.

Later during the installation you are asked if the default directory /home/www should be the directory where ISPConfig will create websites in. Answer n and enter /var/www as the home directory for websites.

 

Links

  NEW! Visit my Linux forums!

  This Howto is also available on HowtoForge! If you have also written tutorials, you can publish them there.

If you find this page useful you can acknowledge your gratitude by making a donation (through PayPal):

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