Arch Linux

qinohe

Member

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2012-06-20

Posts: 1,498

archling-serv archiso x86_64 'live server'

Hello Archers,

TLDR;
Import the files, from my GitHub, build the ISO, and there you have a  Arch LAMP 'live environment' with some nice webapps.

LR;
I really like to give something back to the community, but I can't really code, so this is from me for you.

Since I have searched, but couldn't find an existing archiso server project, I started one myself.
I named the build archling-serv, it needs a name doesn't it;
This build arose from the need of a server quickly available, for testing and that kind of things,
or to learn how to deal with a different CMS, without having to worry about breaking the server,
because if you  break it, just restart it and within a minute a clean running server.

Also, it is not that difficult to create this build, if you know how to install a LAMP server and how to use archiso.,
That's all the ingredients you need to build your Arch server ISO with success.
I never installed an Arch server before, only Debian, and immediately started building this archiso build, so it's surely doable.

I know ArchLinux isn't specially build to be a server distro, but you'll be amazed how well this runs.
I personally  find Arch can be a very good choice for a server., it just depends on the needs.

You should know before you start to build, that this project is not secure by any means, please keep that in mind.
There are no passwords, and there is no firewall, though iptables is there, without rules.

No webapps are available on the build, they're all downloaded during the ISO creation from their official sites, but checksums are not checked (yet)
Thus this build has a relative small footprint, only around 830KiB, the result ISO will be around 360MiB.

This 'ISO' ( you have to create it first;), will have all services enabled, needed  for running         
a LAMP environment with the webapps available on this 'ISO'

It runs DHCP for now, you really need to adjust 'releng/../srv/http/index.html' to your needs.
You probably won't get the same address I did, or you're just lucky.  'it' contains the addresses reachable from the ISO.

At the moment this build runs a standard Arch-kernel, I have plans to change this to LTS,
that gives a slightly longer life to the ISO you created. Meaning, now it will be quickly outdated if you want to install a,
say packet from the AUR, which is compiled against the new kernel, but you still have the old one, well you get my point. Cower is installed on this build.

The ISO was tested with VirtualBox, which did an outstanding job, but it'll probably run 'bare' too.

Running the ISO;
Of course, you still have to do a 'first-run' for the webapps on this build, you do that trough your browser..
You don't need to run 'first-run' every time, change that by copying the installed webapp files from you're created build,
put that files in releng/../WWW space, and off you go

The easiest way to do this is; go to your server, create a 'tar.gz' file from you're webapp dir.
Say we have installed Feng Office trough the web interface, removed the install folder, and set dir/file rights to our needs.
You simply execute 'tar -czf /srv/http/fengoffice.tar.gz /srv/http/fengoffice' 
This puts the tar.gz file of your Feng Office web dir.in WWW space,  download it trough your browser
to your download folder, the address wil be something like http://192.168.1.10/fengoffice.tar.gz.
As root copy the files to your archiso build, put them in WWW space , build the ISO and it should work.
You may have to set rights on some of the dirs/files after that.

Before you run it;
You have to check the files yourself, or you could have a little faith in me, and dare build that ISO right away;)

What's on the build;
Server;
Arch basic releng x86_64, Apache, MariaDB and PHP.
Web applications;
Dokuwiki, CMS Made Simple, Feng Office, Jinzora-3.0 and phpMyAdmin

Interested? You can find the files on my GitHub page, check README for more info.

I would really appreciate it and be glad if you could provide me with some feedback.
This might give me ideas on how to improve or change things.
Maybe than this 'project' has a longer life than a 'one day fly'.

Thanks qinohe