debian 6 vserver - a new installation due to centOS update problem - my steps

My centOS vserver broke down after a "yum update" and even the centOS community forum could not give an answer within 24h.
In my books that is poor for the almighty and stable centOS.

Bare in mind that I am just a normal user of linux, no professional and definitely no expert when it comes to server, but I can read, try and share my findings:

debian 6 installation steps via ssh

secure your server:

1. adduser foobar for security purposes 
2. change /etc/sshd/sshd_conf to PermitRootLogin no
3. now you can login as foobar and change to root via su -
4. visudo for sudo command permissions
5. and put this at the bottom: foobar   ALL=(ALL) ALL

change hostname

1. change hostname in /etc/hostname and in /etc/hosts
2. reboot

login via rsa key rather than password

1. locally do ssh-keygen
2. ssh-copy-id -i foobar@hostname...
3. ssh now works without passwords but with keys (for easy deployment)

install ruby and rails via rvm

1. login as root
2. always good to have: sudo apt-get install build-essential
3. multiuser: \curl -L https://get.rvm.io | sudo bash -s stable --ruby --rails
4. adduser foobar rvm
5. I did a source /usr/local/rvm/scripts/rvm with all users
6. and a logout/login and test with rvm -v revealed a working installatio

apache phusion passenger

1. su -
2. gem install passenger
3. passenger-install-apache2-module
4. the gem told me to do:
5. apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev
6. apt-get install apache2-threaded-dev
7. and now another passenger-install-apache2-module worked
8. put the first Load.... line into /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.load
9. the second two lines in /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.conf
10. run a2enmod passenger
11. /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

set up a virtual host and test passenger

1. create a rails app in /var/www with e.g. rails new mysite
2. create a site as conf file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite
3. put virtual host data in it /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite
   
4. a2ensite mysite
5. /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
6. point your browser to it and look if passenger runs (errors asite, just passenger)

nodeJS (my passenger error with mysite test app)

1. try sudo apt-get install node otherwise:
2. sudo apt-get install python g++ make checkinstall
3. wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz
4. tar -xzvf node-latest.tar.gz  && cd node-v*
5. ./configure
6. checkinstall #(remove the "v" in front of the version number in the dialog)
7. sudo dpkg -i node_*
8. change user and try node -v
9. in my case also mysite test app worked then
 

git

1. apt-get install git

get postgresql

1. go to postgresql wiki page for apt

 create new databases with utf8 enconding

1. su -
2. su postgres
3. do these steps (source):
   

   UPDATE pg_database SET datistemplate=FALSE WHERE datname='template1';
   
   DROP DATABASE template1;
   
   CREATE DATABASE template1 WITH owner=postgres template=template0 encoding='UTF8';
   
   UPDATE pg_database SET datistemplate=TRUE WHERE datname='template1'; 

4. create a new user with create database access: createuser -dP gitnedab
5. give that user a database: createdb -O newusername databasename

For now I will stop this installation tutorial with the advise to do a restart of your server and see if all your settings and services work after that.

My last trial with centOS ended after a reboot did not work, but happend days later because I never bothered checking - never again!

Have fun!!!

Nico

PS: apt-get install phppgadmin
getting 403 error? got to /etc/apache2/conf.d/phppgadmin
and change to allow from all