Newbie needs help setting up - Debian / Apache / Sendmail

Suggestion: Post your questions / details of your problems here on the forums. That way: * All users get an opportunity to help - maybe someone who isn't really working on your problem notices one tiny, crucial thing that the others missed,

• No one user has to feel like they are making any kind of support committment,

• The resulting discussion becomes a searchable body of knowledge / experience for other Linoders.
  I can help with Linode stuff in general and Apache. There are others here who know much more that I do about Debian and sendmail.

Okay, is "General Discussion" the most relevant place to post it under then?

Here goes…

I have successfully installed Debian after reading many preferences here on this board about its small size and flexibility and power.

I want to use Apache, Sendmail and Procmail.

My first goal is very basic - I just want to get Apache running with one domain and one index.html page that I can see on the Web and Sendmail such that I can receive and send email at that domain.

Later on I want to work with Procmail and add some virtual sites/additional domains.

I have installed Apache, but when I run the update command it says that the latest version is installed: 1.3x and I know that 2.0 is the latest version. So I guess my first question is: Should I stick with 1.3x or is 2.0 stable enough to use, and if so, how do I install Apache 2.0?

My next question would be what steps do I take to add a domain? I have secured a domain and have looked at ZoneEdit and opened an account there.

My domain is hosted at godaddy.com. Is it necessary for me to use ZoneEdit or not?

What is my next step?

thanks

@boettiger:

I have installed Apache, but when I run the update command it says that the latest version is installed: 1.3x and I know that 2.0 is the latest version. So I guess my first question is: Should I stick with 1.3x or is 2.0 stable enough to use, and if so, how do I install Apache 2.0?
I have been using Apache 2 for six month without problems. However, some modules have not been ported and there were supposed to still be some problems with certain versions of PHP but I didn't find them. Apache 1.3 is in the Debian stable distribution (which is what the Linode disro wizard deploys). Apache 2 is in the testing distribution.

Look in section 3.8 of Debian APT HowTo for guidance on running a mixed system (i.e. a 'stable' system with some 'testing' packages in it).

@boettiger:

My domain is hosted at godaddy.com. Is it necessary for me to use ZoneEdit or not?
@fellow Linoder tetranz:

(here) At the risk of sounding like a stuck record from other threads, GoDaddy now provides dns service for free with all domains. You do not need ZoneEdit or any other dns service if you are at GoDaddy and need basic dns service.

Its not immediately obvious how to get to it on GoDaddy. Set the name servers to 'Parked at GoDaddy'. 'Total DNS Control' will appear on the menu. You can add 'A', 'MX' and CNAME records and 'A's to subdomains. That is probably enough for most people.

Out of time. I'll get to Apache configuration in my next post.

Okay I've done that.

Domain I'm using as primary is 'spongefish.com'

PARK15.SECURESERVER.NET

PARK16.SECURESERVER.NET

What should be listed in MX, Subdomain and DNS Zone File?

In installing PHP4 I get a dependency error. Where would I find the following package?

–

dpkg: error processing php4 (--configure):

subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 3

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of php4-mysql:

php4-mysql depends on zendapi-20010901; however:

Package zendapi-20010901 is not installed.

Package php4 which provides zendapi-20010901 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing php4-mysql (--configure):

dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

Errors were encountered while processing:

php4

php4-mysql

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Aparently I cannot restart apache…

(none):/home/boettiger# apachectl restart

/usr/sbin/apachectl restart: httpd not running, trying to start

[Wed Sep 8 19:23:47 2004] [warn] module configlogmodule is already loaded, skipping

[Wed Sep 8 19:23:47 2004] [warn] module mime_module is already loaded, skipping/usr/sbin/apachectl restart: httpd could not be started

(none):/home/boettiger#

@boettiger:

What should be listed in MX, Subdomain and DNS Zone File? I don't have an account at GoDaddy so I can only answer in general terms.

MX specifies where the mail for a domain is to be delivered. The MX record mydomain.com IN MX 0 mail.mydomain.com specifies that mail for the mydomain domain should be delivered to the host mail.mydomain.com. You probably just have to specify the host for your domain and the preference value (0 in the example) in GoDaddy. If you have a backup mail server you can specify its address and give it a higher preference. Mail is delivered to the first available host, trying the one with lowest preference value first and moving on to the second lowest if the first machine is unavailable. If you have a host with the same name as your domain (i.e. the actual A record points to mydomain.com) then you don't need an MX record - all mail will be delivered to that host.

Subdomain is used if you have host addresses like myhostname.department.mydomain.com. department.mydomain.com is a subdomain of mydomain.com. You probably don't need this yet.

DNS zone file contains the A (address) or CNAME (canonical name) records that point to your hosts. myhost.mydomain.com IN A 123.123.123.123 otherhost.mydomain.com IN CNAME myhost.mydomain.com specifies the address for myhost.mydomain.com and says that otherhost.mydomain.com is an alternative name for the same machine. You can get by with just A records for each hostname to begin with.

@boettiger:

Aparently I cannot restart apache… The warning messages that you got are symptomatic of a slightly screwed up Apache config (modules being loaded twice from two different config files) but are not the reason it won't start. You need to check the Apache logs to find the fatal error. My guess is that your hosts file is incorrectly set up. If your error log says````
unable to find IPv4 address of "hostname"

then you need to edit /etc/hosts to have at least theses two entries:````
127.0.0.1          localhost
123.123.123.123    myhost.mydomain.com    myhost

(with your Linode's IP and names substituded appropriately).

I would seriously look at this thread http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic. … ian+apache">http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=876&highlight=debian+apache

As newbie myself, it has helped a lot.

Coming from the windows world, setting up linux servers seems harder. The documentation is more cryptic.