Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of intro_to_MFPL_hosting

Timestamp:

Dec 16, 2012, 8:47:52 PM (13 years ago)

Author:

Patrick G

Comment:

created the page

intro_to_MFPL_hosting

@@ +1 @@
+This page explains some things about the MFPL servers and how to use MFPL hosting tools to create and manage websites.
+
+This first draft is being written by Patrick Gibbs (and anyone who wants to) in December, 2012.
+
+First, appreciation for the MFPL support team! These fantastic humans do much of the nitty-gritty work of keeping this hosting infrastructure running. Learn more about the support team and see who's on it (though the list is a bit outdated) at [wiki:support-team Support Team].
+
+So that you get an idea of why I find certain things seem worth mentioning about MFPL hosting -- my experience (says Patrick) includes the following:
+* setting up a Drupal + CiviCRM + Ubercart instance on cheap ($5/month) shared hosting.
+* administering a Moodle installation via the web interface.
+* doing basic command line work in GNU/Linux on my laptop.
+* writing a shell script once, and refining it.
+* playing with XAMPP when I used a Mac.
+I had very little experience with SSH, and had never used IRC. I joined May First / People Link in August 2012.
+
+
+== Understanding May First servers ==
+
+=== Start with the Members' Control Panel: ===
+On previous hosting, I used cPanel. Here, there's custom software called `red` that runs a custom control panel. Look around and see what's possible. Things to notice:
+* On each page there's a line on the right side that says something like " Your primary host is: `marx.mayfirst.org (216.66.23.57)`". Knowing this enables connecting to the server via `ssh` (more on that later).
+
+Each website is a "hosting order": I currently have two hosting orders: one for my personal website, and one for an organization whose website I manage. Hosting orders are made automatically (I think, although maybe the 
+
+=== Connecting via ssh or ftp: ===
+There are other pages that explain this in more detail ''(to do: find them and link to them)''. I do this:
+{{{
+$ ssh patrickgibbs@marx.mayfirst.org
+}}}
+Wondering which server your site lives on? Look in the Members' Control Panel (see section above).
+
+I use Filezilla for FTP, and the connection details are the same as for ssh.
+
+=== Welcome to your new `/home`: ===
+Once logged in via ssh or ftp, you can look around and probably see something like this:
+{{{
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:~$ pwd
+/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org/users/patrickgibbs
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:~$ ls -Alh
+total 88K
+-rw------- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 3.6K Dec  7 17:29 .bash_history
+-rw-r--r-- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs  220 Apr 10  2010 .bash_logout
+-rw-r--r-- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 3.2K Jan 30  2012 .bashrc
+drwxr-xr-x 2 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 4.0K Nov 29 01:00 .drush
+drwxr-xr-x 3 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 4.0K Dec  5 23:57 .emacs.d
+-rw------- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 7.2K Dec 14 18:37 .histfile
+drwxr-xr-x 2 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 4.0K Jan 30  2012 .monkeysphere
+lrwxrwxrwx 1 patrickgibbs root           54 Aug 27 12:15 patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org -> /home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org
+-rw-r--r-- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs  675 Apr 10  2010 .profile
+drwxr-xr-x 2 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 4.0K Jan 30  2012 .ssh
+drwxr-xr-x 3 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 4.0K Sep 10 20:56 .subversion
+-rw-r--r-- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs  34K Dec  2 22:14 .zcompdump
+-rw-r--r-- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs  393 Dec  2 22:14 .zshrc
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:~$ 
+}}}
+You might not have`.drush`, `.emacs.d`, or `.zshrc` until you use emacs, drush, or zsh.
+
+Things to notice:
+* .monkeysphere has something to do with SSH fingerprints and encryption keys, I think. I haven't investigated yet. ''(to do: link to page about ssh connecting and fingerprints)''
+* the website directory `patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org` is a symlink (symbolic link) that points up a few directories, and right now I'm already inside it, in my home folder, `~`.
+Let's look inside that website directory:
+{{{
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:~$ pwd
+/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org/users/patrickgibbs
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:~$ cd ../..
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ ls -Alh
+total 32K
+drwxr-x---  2 root         patrickgibbs 4.0K Nov  7 04:35 backups
+drwxr-xr-x  2 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 4.0K Aug 27 12:15 bin
+drwxrwxr-x  2 root         patrickgibbs 4.0K Aug 27 12:15 cgi-bin
+drwxrwxr-x  4 root         patrickgibbs 4.0K Dec 14 16:30 include
+drwxr-x---  2 root         patrickgibbs 4.0K Dec 16 06:26 logs
+drwxr-xr-x  3 root         root         4.0K Aug 27 12:15 .red
+drwxr-xr-x  3 root         root         4.0K Aug 27 12:15 users
+drwxrwxr-x 14 root         patrickgibbs 4.0K Dec  7 17:15 web
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ 
+}}}
+==== backups ====
+I don't know what's in here. Probably backups... of what?
+{{{
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ ls -AlhR backups/
+backups/:
+total 508K
+-rw-r----- 1 root patrickgibbs 190K Dec 16 01:33 patrickgibb_civi.sql.gz
+-rw-r----- 1 root patrickgibbs  89K Dec 16 01:33 patrickgibb_drup.sql.gz
+-rw-r----- 1 root patrickgibbs 188K Dec 16 01:33 patrickgibb_wprs.sql.gz
+-rw-r----- 1 root patrickgibbs  24K Dec 16 01:33 patrickgi_drup1.sql.gz
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ 
+}}}
+MySQL database backups so far. How did they get here? What's the schedule for backups?
+==== bin ====
+Don't know when I would use this.
+{{{
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ ls -AlhR bin/
+bin/:
+total 4.0K
+-rwxr-xr-x 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 123 Aug 27 12:15 php-cgi
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ 
+}}}
+==== cgi-bin ====
+I know this has something to do with websites. I've seen `cgi-bin` in URLs at other websites. Beyond that, I don't know. It's empty.
+
+==== include ====
+This directory is accessible by the `www-data` user (the Apache web server user, although '''most stuff gets executed by your user, not by www-data or some other Apache user'''). This is the place to put things that you want accessible by that user -- so far, the only thing I've put there is a `.htpasswd` file for a Trac instance. Looks like `php.ini` lives here too, and I remember editing that file a few times during past projects on other servers.
+{{{
+127 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ ls -AlhR include/
+include/:
+total 8.0K
+drwxr-xr-x 2 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 4.0K Aug 27 12:15 php5
+drwxr-xr-x 2 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 4.0K Dec 14 16:30 trac
+
+include/php5:
+total 4.0K
+-rw-r--r-- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 110 Aug 27 12:15 php.ini
+
+include/trac:
+total 4.0K
+-rw-r--r-- 1 patrickgibbs patrickgibbs 46 Dec 14 18:19 trac.htpasswd
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ 
+}}}
+==== logs ====
+Useful logs and log backups here.
+{{{
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ ls -AlhR logs/
+logs/:
+total 196K
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm  299 Dec 16 15:30 error.log
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm  16K Dec 16 04:32 error.log.1
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm 1.6K Dec  8 22:27 error.log.2.gz
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm  319 Dec  1 22:13 error.log.3.gz
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm  374 Nov 24 17:48 error.log.4.gz
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm 3.7K Dec 16 15:30 web.log
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm 135K Dec 16 05:49 web.log.1
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm 6.4K Dec  9 04:27 web.log.2.gz
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm 3.7K Dec  2 05:29 web.log.3.gz
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root adm 4.5K Nov 25 05:54 web.log.4.gz
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ 
+}}}
+I recently learned this command to use while troubleshooting:
+{{{
+$ tail -f ~/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org/logs/error.log
+[Sun Dec 16 06:27:46 2012] [error] [client 98.248.101.207] File does not exist: /home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org/web/favicon.ico
+^C
+$ 
+}}}
+==== .red ====
+This has something to do with the Members' Control Panel. I haven't touched anything in here, and it looks like I don't have permissions to anyways.
+{{{
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ ls -AlhR .red/
+.red/:
+total 4.0K
+drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Dec 14 16:34 apache2
+
+.red/apache2:
+total 12K
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1K Dec 14 16:34 apache.conf
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2K Dec  7 12:58 apache.conf~
+-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.1K Dec 14 16:34 apache.conf.bak
+0 patrickgibbs@marx:/home/members/patrick0/sites/patrickgibbs.mayfirst.org$ 
+}}}
+==== users ====
+This is like `home` on my laptop -- it has a directory for each user, and when you login you arrive in that directory by default, for me `users/patrickgibbs` is the `~` directory. We already looked inside.
+==== web ====
+This is where websites live! On those $5/month cPanel hosts I've used, this directory was called '''`public_html` or `www`'''. This starts out empty.
+
+== future changes to this page ==
+* add links to the [wiki:participate] page and the "beginners instructions" page
+* add a section about how to ask questions, or link to an explanatory page if one exists.
+* add more detailed explanation of Members' Control Panel, with screen shots, and responses to questions like "Where is Fantastico?" (or does a page like that already exist?)