Setting Up an Ubuntu 20.04 Web Server

Step 1 — Log in as root

ssh root@your_server_ip

Step 2 — Create a new user

Because of the heightened privileges of the root account, you are discouraged from using it on a regular basis. Let’s set up a new user account with reduced privileges for day-to-day use.

adduser userdude

You will be asked a few questions, starting with the account password.

Step 3 — Grant administrative privileges to the new user

usermod -aG sudo userdude

Step 4 — Set up a basic firewall

Ubuntu 20.04 servers can use the UFW firewall to make sure only connections to certain services are allowed. We can set up a basic firewall very easily using this application.

UFW is installed by default on Ubuntu. If it has been uninstalled for some reason, you can install it with sudo apt install ufw.

We need to make sure that the firewall allows SSH connections so that we can log back in next time. We can allow these connections by typing:

ufw allow OpenSSH

Afterwards, we can enable the firewall by typing:

ufw enable

Because A2 Hosting uses an alternative port for SSH, you’ll may need to input something like the following:

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 7822 -j ACCEPT

To test that everything worked, log out and log back in using the new user you set up.

Step 5 — Install Apache and update the firewall

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install apache2

Adjust your firewall settings to allow HTTP traffic

sudo ufw allow "Apache Full"

Test everything by going to http://your_server_ip in a browser. You should see something like this:

Step 6 — Managing the Apache process

Now that you have your web server up and running, let’s go over some basic management commands using systemctl.

To stop your web server, type:

sudo systemctl stop apache2

To start the web server when it is stopped, type:

sudo systemctl start apache2

To stop and then start the service again, type:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

If you are simply making configuration changes, Apache can often reload without dropping connections. To do this, use this command:

sudo systemctl reload apache2

By default, Apache is configured to start automatically when the server boots. If this is not what you want, disable this behavior by typing:

sudo systemctl disable apache2

To re-enable the service to start up at boot, type:

sudo systemctl enable apache2

Apache should now start automatically when the server boots again.

Step 7 — Install MySQL

sudo apt install mysql-server

When the installation is finished, it’s recommended that you run a security script that comes pre-installed with MySQL. This script will remove some insecure default settings and lock down access to your database system. Start the interactive script by running:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Create MySQL user and database

As you have connected to the MySQL server on command line. Your database server is ready to use for your applications to store data.

sudo mysql

CREATE DATABASE mydb;
CREATE USER 'myuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED by 'Pa$$w0rd';
GRANT ALL on mydb.* to 'myuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Set up remote access

We need to make sure we can connect from the outside.

sudo vim /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf

Find the line that has the following:

bind-address            = 127.0.0.1 

Replace 127.0.0.1 with your server’s IP address.

Using the database we just created, let’s setup a remote user:

CREATE USER 'remote_myuser'@'%' IDENTIFIED by 'Pa$$w0rd';
GRANT ALL on mydb.* to 'remote_myuser'@'%';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Next, open up connections to the sql port:

sudo ufw allow from your_ip_address to any port 3306 

If you want to open up all IP addresses (don’t do this if you’re keeping any sensitive data)

sudo ufw allow 3306

Step 8 — Install PHP

PHP is used by 78% of websites and is required for applications like Laravel and WordPress.

sudo apt install php php-common libapache2-mod-php php-xml php-gd php-opcache php-mbstring php-tokenizer php-json php-bcmath php-zip unzip php-mysql php-curl php-xml php-xmlrpc php-soap php-intl

Test that everything is in place:

php -v

PHP 7.4.3 (cli) (built: Oct  6 2020 15:47:56) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.4.0, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
     with Zend OPcache v7.4.3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies 

Step 9 — Create a Virtual Host for your Website

When using the Apache web server, you can create virtual hosts to encapsulate configuration details and host more than one domain from a single server. 

Create a simple webpage

Create dedicated folders for your new website.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/website.com

Next, assign ownership of the directory with the $USER environment variable, which will reference your current system user:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/website.com

Create a landing page:

vim /var/www/website.com/index.html

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Website.com</title>
    <meta name="description" content="Website.com Homepage">
    <meta name="author" content="Your Name">
  </head>
  <body>
    This is the index page of website.com, welcome! 
  </body>
</html>

Add the new website to virtual hosts

sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/websites.com.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerName website.com
     ServerAlias www.website.com
     ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
     DocumentRoot /var/www/website.com
     ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
     CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

You can now use a2ensite to enable the new virtual host:

sudo a2ensite website.com

You might want to disable the default website that comes installed with Apache. This is required if you’re not using a custom domain name, because in this case Apache’s default configuration would overwrite your virtual host. To disable Apache’s default website, type:

sudo a2dissite 000-default

To make sure your configuration file doesn’t contain syntax errors, run:

sudo apache2ctl configtest

Finally, reload Apache so these changes take effect:

sudo systemctl reload apache2

You should now be able to navigate to website.com and see your beautiful landing page.