Linux Server Configuration 💻

Description of Project

Start a new Ubuntu Linux server instance on Amazon Lightsail and prepare it to host web applications, including installation updates, providing security against multiple attack vectors, and installing Web and Database servers. The reference installation will be the Item Catalog Project, where you can log in with your Gmail account allowing you to create, read, update and delete files within the app.

Instructions for SSH access to the instance

1. Download Private Key below

2. Move the private key file into the folder ~/.ssh (where ~ is your environment's home directory). So if you downloaded the file to the Downloads folder, just execute the following command in your terminal. mv ~/Downloads/udacity_key.rsa ~/.ssh/

3. Open your terminal and type in chmod 600 ~/.ssh/udacity_key.rsa

4. In your terminal, type in ssh -i ~/.ssh/udacity_key.rsa [email protected]

5. Development Environment Information

   Public IP Address

   107.22.135.163

   🔐 Private Key (is not provided here).

Create a New user named grader

1. sudo adduser grader
2. vim /etc/sudoers
3. touch /etc/sudoers.d/grader
4. vim /etc/sudoers.d/grader, type in grader ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
5. :wq save and quit.

Set ssh login using keys

1. Generate keys on local machine usingssh-keygen ; then save the private key in ~/.ssh on local machine

2. Deploy public key on developement enviroment

   On you virtual machine:

   $ su - grader
   $ mkdir .ssh
   $ touch .ssh/authorized_keys
   $ vim .ssh/authorized_keys
   

   Copy the Public Key generated on your local machine to this file and save

   $ chmod 700 .ssh
   $ chmod 644 .ssh/authorized_keys
   

3. Reload SSH using service ssh restart

4. Now you can use ssh to login with the new user you created

   ssh -i [privateKeyFilename] [email protected]

Update all currently installed packages

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Change the SSH Port from 22 to 2200

1. Use sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config and then change Port 22 to Port 2200 , in terminal use command :wq for save & quit.
2. Reload SSH using sudo service ssh restart

Configure the Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW)

Configure the Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) to only allow incoming connections for SSH (port 2200), HTTP (port 80), and NTP (port 123)

sudo ufw allow 2200/tcp
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 123/udp
sudo ufw enable

Configure the Local Timezone to UTC

1. Configure the time zone sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
2. It is already set to UTC.

Install and Configure PostgreSQL

1. Install PostgreSQL sudo apt-get install postgresql

2. Check if no remote connections are allowed sudo vim /etc/postgresql/9.3/main/pg_hba.conf

3. Login as user "postgres" sudo su - postgres

4. Get into postgreSQL shell psql

5. Create a new database named catalog and create a new user named catalog in postgreSQL shell

   postgres=# CREATE DATABASE catalog;
   postgres=# CREATE USER catalog;
   

6. Set a password for user catalog

   postgres=# ALTER ROLE catalog WITH PASSWORD 'password';
   

7. Give user "catalog" permission to "catalog" application database

   postgres=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE catalog TO catalog;
   

8. Quit postgreSQL postgres=# \q

9. Exit from user "postgres"

   exit
   

Install git, clone and setup your Catalog App project.

1. Install Git using sudo apt-get install git
2. Use cd /var/www to move to the /var/www directory
3. Create the application directory sudo mkdir FlaskApp
4. Move inside this directory using cd FlaskApp
5. Clone the Catalog App to the virtual machine git clone https://github.com/beatriznonato/itemCatalog
6. Rename the project's name sudo mv ./itemCatalog ./FlaskApp
7. Move to the inner FlaskApp directory using cd FlaskApp
8. Rename project.py to __init__.py using sudo mv project.py __init__.py
9. Edit project.py, db_setup.py and create_db_items.py and change engine = create_engine('sqlite:///catalog.db') to engine = create_engine('postgresql://catalog:password@localhost/catalog')
10. Install pip sudo apt-get install python-pip
11. Use pip to install dependencies sudo pip install -r requirements.txt
12. Install psycopg2 sudo apt-get -qqy install postgresql python-psycopg2
13. Create database schema sudo python database_setup.py

Configure and Enable a New Virtual Host

1. Create FlaskApp.conf to edit: sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/FlaskApp.conf

2. Add the following lines of code to the file to configure the virtual host.

   <VirtualHost *:80>
   	ServerName 107.22.135.163
   	ServerAdmin [email protected]
   	WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/FlaskApp/flaskapp.wsgi
   	<Directory /var/www/FlaskApp/FlaskApp/>
   		Order allow,deny
   		Allow from all
   	</Directory>
   	Alias /static /var/www/FlaskApp/FlaskApp/static
   	<Directory /var/www/FlaskApp/FlaskApp/static/>
   		Order allow,deny
   		Allow from all
   	</Directory>
   	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
   	LogLevel warn
   	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
   </VirtualHost>
   

3. Enable the virtual host with the following command: sudo a2ensite FlaskApp

Create the .wsgi File

1. Create the .wsgi File under /var/www/FlaskApp:

   cd /var/www/FlaskApp
   sudo vim flaskapp.wsgi 
   

2. Add the following lines of code to the flaskapp.wsgi file:

   #!/usr/bin/python
   import sys
   import logging
   logging.basicConfig(stream=sys.stderr)
   sys.path.insert(0,"/var/www/FlaskApp/")
   
   from FlaskApp import app as application
   application.secret_key = 'Add your secret key'
   

Restart Apache

Restart Apache sudo service apache2 restart

References:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-deploy-a-flask-application-on-an-ubuntu-vps

License

MIT © Beatriz Nonato 👩‍💻