You will first want to install vsftpd via yum

1

yum install vsftpd

After it’s installed, you’ll want to make some configuration changes

First, you will need to stop vsftpd

1

service vsftpd stop

Then edit the configuration file via nano

1

/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

You will want to configure the following settings:

1
2
3

anonymous_enable=NO 
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES

Now you will need a username and login – so lets create it

1

useradd -d /var/www/dir -s /usr/sbin/nologin ftpusername

Setup the password for the username you just created

1

passwd ftpusername

Remember, this user will be assigned access to directory so be sure to adjust this setting to your liking

1
2

chown -R ftpusername /path/to/dir
chmod 775 /path/to/dir

Now you will want to create a userlist file via nano and then add the username

1

nano /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.user

And then add the username to the file

1

ftpusername

Save and exit

Configure the configuration file

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

# the list of users to give access
userlist_file=/etc/vsftpd.user
 
# this list is on
userlist_enable=YES
 
# It is not a list of users to deny ftp access
userlist_deny=NO

Then make sure the following file looks like this:

1

nano /etc/shells

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

/bin/ksh
/usr/bin/rc
/usr/bin/tcsh
/bin/tcsh
/usr/bin/esh
/bin/dash
/bin/bash
/bin/rbash
/usr/sbin/nologin

Finally, you’re ready to fire things up and give it a shot

1

service vsftpd start

Copy and past the following code and save it as a .sh file. Then simply chmod 755 filename.sh and execute the file using sh filename.sh

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45

yum remove -y pptpd ppp
iptables --flush POSTROUTING --table nat
iptables --flush FORWARD
rm -rf /etc/pptpd.conf
rm -rf /etc/ppp
 
wget http://www.diahosting.com/dload/dkms-2.0.17.5-1.noarch.rpm
wget http://www.diahosting.com/dload/kernel_ppp_mppe-1.0.2-3dkms.noarch.rpm
wget http://www.diahosting.com/dload/pptpd-1.3.4-1.rhel5.1.i386.rpm
wget http://www.diahosting.com/dload/ppp-2.4.4-9.0.rhel5.i386.rpm
 
yum -y install make libpcap iptables gcc-c++ logrotate tar cpio perl pam tcp_wrappers
rpm -ivh dkms-2.0.17.5-1.noarch.rpm
rpm -ivh kernel_ppp_mppe-1.0.2-3dkms.noarch.rpm
rpm -qa kernel_ppp_mppe
rpm -Uvh ppp-2.4.4-9.0.rhel5.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh pptpd-1.3.4-1.rhel5.1.i386.rpm
 
mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0 
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward 
echo "mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0" >> /etc/rc.local
echo "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward" >> /etc/rc.local
echo "localip 172.16.36.1" >> /etc/pptpd.conf
echo "remoteip 172.16.36.2-254" >> /etc/pptpd.conf
echo "ms-dns 8.8.8.8" >> /etc/ppp/options.pptpd
echo "ms-dns 8.8.4.4" >> /etc/ppp/options.pptpd
 
pass=`openssl rand 6 -base64`
if [ "$1" != "" ]
then pass=$1
fi
 
echo "vpn pptpd ${pass} *" >> /etc/ppp/chap-secrets
 
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 172.16.36.0/24 -j SNAT --to-source `ifconfig  | grep 'inet addr:'| grep -v '127.0.0.1' | cut -d: -f2 | awk 'NR==1 { print $1}'`
iptables -A FORWARD -p tcp --syn -s 172.16.36.0/24 -j TCPMSS --set-mss 1356
service iptables save
 
chkconfig iptables on
chkconfig pptpd on
 
service iptables start
service pptpd start
 
echo "VPN service is installed, your VPN username is vpn, VPN password is ${pass}"

After the installation is complete, the script will display a randomly generated username and password. You can easily change this by editing the file /etc/ppp/chap-secrets and restarting PPTD:

1

/etc/init.d/pptpd restart

Login into SSH and edit the sshd_config file which is located in /etc/ssh/.

1

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Scroll down until you see the following line:

1

#Port 22

Delete the # symbol and change the 22 to a different port to your liking. It should look like this:

1

Port 5757

Save the file (CTRL-X), Y, and then enter. Finally, you just need to restart SSH

1

service sshd reload

Afterwards, it’s important to make sure you open up a new window and attempt to login to your virtual machine using the new port. If you messed things up, you can always login to SolusVM and update your configuration via console.

1

dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync

Example output:

1
2
3
4
5

[root@server~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 4.89845 seconds, 219 MB/s
[root@server~]#

Or you can try hdparm – if it’s not installed, you will need to install it via yum:

1

yum install hdparm

1

hdparm -t /dev/sda1

Example output:

1
2
3

[root@server~]# hdparm -t /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1: Timing buffered disk reads:  1158 MB in  3.01 seconds = 385.34 MB/sec
[root@server~]#

There is an ongoing thread posted on WebHostingTalk which will allow you to compare your score.

Installing Apache

You will want to utilize the yum repository for easy installation:

1

yum install httpd httpd-devel

Wait for the installation to complete then start up Apache:

1

/etc/init.d/httpd start

The location of the Apache configuration file should be located here: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
If not you can run the following command and SSH which should output the location:

1

whereis httpd.conf

Be sure to add the Apache daemon into start-up so it runs automatically after a reboot:

1

chkconfig httpd on

Installing MySQL (latest version)

Utilize the yum repository again for quick and easy installation:

1

yum install mysql mysql-server mysql-devel

Then run the MySQL daemon:

1

/etc/init.d/mysqld start

Add the MySQL daemon into start-up so it runs automatically after a reboot:

1

chkconfig mysqld on

If you want to make sure MySQL is running, run the following command:

1

ps aux | grep mysql

This step is of unnecessary but it’s just in case you run into any issues.

For security purposes, you will want to change the MySQL root password through the MySQL console:

1

mysql

The console should open, then run the following:

1
2
3

mysql> USE mysql;
mysql&gt; UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('<em>password</em>') WHERE user='root';
mysql&gt; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Note: be sure to change the (‘password’) to your liking.

To login into MySQL as root run:

1

mysql -u root -p

Once you are logged in you can create a database. I am going to use “blog” as the database name and add the user “john” with full privileges:

1
2
3
4

mysql > create database blog
mysql > GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON blog.* TO 'guest'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'john' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> USE mysql;
mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('password') WHERE user='john';

And that’s it for MySQL!

Installing PHP

Install PHP through yum with some required modules. These can be changed to meet your requirements but should be sufficient for most setups:

1

yum install php php-mysql php-common php-gd php-mbstring php-mcrypt php-devel php-xml

By restarting Apache, PHP should fire up:

1

/etc/init.d/httpd restart

Your “public_html” folder or “www” folder is located in the /var/www/html/ directory. To test and see if PHP is working, you will want to create a PHP file with the following code:

1

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

I normally call this file, phpinfo.php. You can then access the file through your IP address (eg. http://IPADDRESS/phpinfo.php)

You will want to install phpMyAdmin for easier MySQL DB management. To install simply run:

1

yum install phpmyadmin

Then access phpMyAdmin through the following URL: http://ip-address/phpmyadmin

Installing Webmin (Latest Version)

First download the RPM:

1

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin-1.580-1.noarch.rpm

Then run the following command:

1

rpm -U webmin-1.580-1.noarch.rpm

(latest RPM can be found here: http://www.webmin.com/rpm.html)

The rest of the install will be done automatically to the directory /usr/libexec/webmin, the administration username set to root and the password to your current root password. You should now be able to login to Webmin at the URL http://localhost:10000/. Or if accessing it remotely, replace localhost with your system’s IP address.