Web server

[tk]

Hi guys,

I'm interested in using linux to run a webserver and surf web/email/etc. I have Fedora that I downloaded a while ago, but couldn't get the nvidia drivers to install so I had to go back to windows xp. Microsoft issues about 10 critical security patches a week, so it's obviously not the best choice.

Can somebody here provide me with a link, or explain (I'm not good _at all_ with linux) how I should set up and run a secure webserver (preferably with perl), but still be able to do desktop things.

Any help is appreciated

[ZiaTioN]

You should try Fedora again and ask Void (or others but he will probably give you the best help) to assist in the video drivers. If you absolutely cannot do it for some strange reason I would suggest trying RedHat 9. I think I like RH 9 better than FC1 anyway.

Apache is by far the best web server there is so you would be doing yourself a great dis-service by not using it. Of course the support for Perl is outstanding in Apache also. It supports mod_perl, embedded perl, and cgi scripts written in perl. All of this will be installed on your Linux distro of choice by default if you choose "Server Install". You will have apache waiting to be configured and fired up and ready to support any Perl you can throw at it. I am sorry I cannot be more specific as of now but if you do give it another go and run into a problem then post back with specifics.

[tk]

Alright, I'll try out Fedora again. However, I lost my cds, and when I downloaded the iso files with bittorrent, my virus scanner reported:

C:\Documents and Settings\TK\My Documents\fedora\yarrow-binary-i386-iso\yarrow-i386-disc3.iso->FEDORA\RPMS\MAILMAN_.RPM;1->(RPM)->(GZip)->
./var/mailman/tests/msgs/nimda.txt->(part0000:)->(IFRAME0000) - HTML/IFrame_Exploit* -> Infected

... I assume this is just a test for one of the mail programs, should I be concerned?

[Void Main]

It's probably not related to a virus at all. Chances are there is just a sequence of bytes in the RPM that just happens to match the sequence of bytes that the virus scanner is looking for. In other words a "false positive". If this was a Windows file and not an RPM I would be concerned but I've seen this before (CYGWIN used to set off the virus scanners pretty regularly when downloading/installing).

[tk]

Alright, Fedora is instaled with all updates. I would like to edit my site without logging into root though, how would I let the user that I use edit the main directory /var/www/html/? I would give write access but as I said, am no good with linux... would this be a security risk?

[Void Main]

I always "su" to root from a shell and edit the httpd.conf file with "vi" (actually vim). You can use any editor you wish though but I feel it would benefit you to become familiar with vi/vim. Of course Red Hat comes with a GUI for configuring the web server (redhat-config-httpd) if you wanted to use that. It should prompt you to enter root's password when you execute it as a normal user. Both these ways are pretty secure. I also never log on to a system directly as root (I can't remember the last time I did it on any *IX OS). Of course you can change the group on the config file (that your ID belongs to) and give the group write access. You still need to get root authority to restart/reload the web server (I also "su" to do this). I personally wouldn't change the group unless you absolutely needed to give someone else access to change the config file but not give them root level access. Of course there are several other ways you can do it but this should be just fine for you.