[sf-lug] Apache & UBU configurations

[Micah Lee]

On 03/18/2011 04:01 PM, Eric W. Rasmussen wrote:
> 1st.  What size do you think my SWAP should be and at what priority? 
> Note that I am also vm'ing OSX and WIN7 with 2Gb RAM each and sometimes
> simultaneously.  I don't hibernate so I was thinking that 2Gb with a
> [vm.swappiness=10] would be fine.  Thoughts?

I have 8GB of ram in my Linux box too and I set myself up with an 8GB
swap partition. I read once long ago that it's good to give yourself
1.5x as much swap space as you have RAM so I was just being on the safe
side, but I honestly don't think I've ever used more than 1GB for swap.

> 2nd. What size should my /root partition be?  It looks like I am at
> 4.5Gb of 15Gb as I speak.  Maybe the following question might bring some
> clarity to my goals.

Depends on how you're partitioning, but I generally go the lazy/paranoid
route and have never had a problem with it:

Hard drive
- 1GB /boot
- Everything else encrypted LVM
  - 8GB (or however big) swap
  - Everything else /

It seems like separating out /var, /tmp, etc. helps with you from
fragmenting your partitions too much if you're doing something like
running a server that's constantly writing logs. I've never had a
problem with putting everything (besides /boot and swap) in the same
root partition.

> 3rd. I need to run a LAMP server for local web development.  Under Win
> this was easy using WAMP2.  But under Linux I am seeing that working
> with the /var/www/ directory is kind of a pain.  I have read that I
> might want to install a separate partition for /var. If so, what is a
> good size for multiple sites (I was thinking 10Gb). If I could have a
> /home/user/www directory so that read/write permissions aren't a problem
> and it is easily accessible, that would be even better.  Thoughts?

sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-server mysql-client php5 php5-cli
php5-mysql php5-gd

The default webroot is /var/www in Ubuntu but real power is in using
vhosts and modifying your host file. Let's say you're playing with
wordpress. Open up /etc/hosts and add a line that looks like:

127.0.0.1 wordpress.local

Then create a new file called /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/wordpress.local
and put this in it:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webworm.local
  DocumentRoot /home/eric/projects/wordpress
  ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Now make a the right folders:

mkdir ~/projects
mkdir ~/projects/wordpress

And restart apache:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now open up your browser and go to http://wordpress.local/ and you'll be
looking at a website served from /home/eric/projects/wordpress/docs.

Similarly, you can apt-get install phpmyadmin (which puts it in
/usr/share/phpmyadmin), add 127.0.0.1 phpmyadmin.local to /etc/hosts,
and create /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/phpmyadmin.local that has this in it:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName phpmyadmin.local
  DocumentRoot /usr/share/phpmyadmin
  ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Restart apache, and now you can go to http://phpmyadmin.local/ to use
phpMyAdmin.

> 4th.  I hate trackpads on laptops and this is why I run with my external
> mouse.  Under Win, I could set the trackpad off whenever an external was
> plugged in.  Not so under Linux. I put this command [xinput set-int-prop
> "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad" "Device Enabled" 8 0] in my startup
> applications but it isn't activating.  I am getting tired of manually
> running the command every time I boot.  Thoughts?

No idea. :)

Also, I'm quite curious. How do you go about running OSX in a VM? I
tried awhile back and had nothing but failures (I found an OSX vmware
image once, but networking didn't work). Is it at all stable and easy to
set up?

Micah