Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

FergatROn · 2011-06-06 01:07:57

Hi All,

I'm an Arch-noob. I'm more familiar with Fedora. I'm trying to understand and test the LAMP stack without affecting my current installation of Fedora. So; I installed VirtualBox and looked for a "lightweight" distro to run. I chose Arch. I'm not so certain that I made the right choice though. The installation is VERY barebones, which is good, but I'm spending more time trying to figure out pacman and why sshd can't be found unless I use "which" (as root) is frustrating. It's been three days since I installed Arch and I haven't gotten to my main purpose yet.

So; I thought I'd ask you folks what my course of action should be. Should I continue to use Arch or find another distro to help me learn LAMP? Thanks.

sand_man · 2011-06-06 01:18:16

I think you can answer your own question.
sshd is one of the easiest services to set up. Check the wiki. If you still can't work it out, ask specific questions here for help. If you find it's too much trouble then setting up a LAMP stack might be too difficult for you in which case Arch may not be a good solution.
I recommend sticking with it though because you will be happier with Arch in the long run and you will learn a lot more about how your operating system works.

FergatROn · 2011-06-06 01:36:05

Ha-ha, I figured I'd get a "stick with it, you'll see the benefit in the long run" statement. But that's almost guaranteed with any distro. I agree that SSH is the easiest service to setup. But for some odd reason, even though "pacman -Qs ssh" shows me that "openssh" is installed... I can't seem to get it going. I'll post a more detailed support topic and see where my error is. Thanks for a quick response though.

sand_man · 2011-06-06 01:38:53

Install ssh.

# pacman -S openssh

Configure ssh.

# vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Start ssh.

/etc/rc.d/sshd start

Which step went wrong for you?

FergatROn · 2011-06-06 01:47:58

ah the "configure" part and the "start" part. I didn't do any configuration to sshd. I noticed that you used the full path to rc.d. I noticed that when I typed in "rc.d" it couldn't find it. The same thing happened when I typed in another command, but when I did a "locate <command>" or "which <command>" it displayed the full path. It looks like there aren't any symbolic links, I'll have to either create them or simply use the full path? I'm assuming this is part of the learning curve that Arch introduces, getting to know your system, by knowing where the commands actually live. Interesting...

I do appreciate your detailed help.

fukawi2 · 2011-06-06 03:21:40

FergatROn wrote:

I noticed that you used the full path to rc.d. I noticed that when I typed in "rc.d" it couldn't find it. The same thing happened when I typed in another command, but when I did a "locate <command>" or "which <command>" it displayed the full path.

/etc/rc.d/ holds the start-up scripts. These are different to the actual executable binaries (eg , /usr/sbin/sshd). The scripts in /etc/rc.d/ are the equivalent of /etc/init.d/ on Fedora. Fedora does not include /etc/init.d/ in your default PATH either, so this should not be that different for you, except you don't have the same "service" and "chkconfig" commands*. The difference is in the init system Arch uses compares to Fedora (BSD vs sysv respectively)

* There is a new script called "rc.d" which will provide similar functionality to service and chkconfig

Last edited by fukawi2 (2011-06-06 03:23:29)

sand_man · 2011-06-06 07:11:55

I don't think you have to configure sshd. It should work fine out of the box on port 22. You might need to add sshd to /etc/hosts.allow though.

tomk · 2011-06-06 07:36:54

Possibly too late with this question, but why didn't you install Fedora in Virtualbox? That would have accommodated your needs without spending three days(!) getting used to a distro that you are clearly not comfortable with.

Median · 2011-06-06 08:41:08

tomk wrote:

Possibly too late with this question, but why didn't you install Fedora in Virtualbox? That would have accommodated your needs without spending three days(!) getting used to a distro that you are clearly not comfortable with.

It's always good to try something different. Don't you agree?
And the only thing that held him back was this particular problem really.

fukawi2 · 2011-06-06 11:48:59

Median wrote:

It's always good to try something different. Don't you agree?

Yes, but production isn't the place to be experimenting...

Of course, the OP hasn't stated how critical this server is... A personal website, or a corporate business site hosting an online store...

PreparationH67 · 2011-06-06 15:52:49

Is it not starting or is it throwing a connection refused message when you try and connect? You should not need to do anything to the default config to just get it running. You do need to add "sshd : ALL" (or a more restrictive hosts list) to the hosts.allow file in etc to make it work if you are getting connection refused messages. Otherwise you should be running it using rc.d either

rc.d start sshd

or

/etc/rc.d/sshd start

should work. Bash should be able to auto-complete the path to the startup script, or at least it always has for me. Also if you used the install disk and haven't done a system update then the "rc.d" command might not be present.

pacman -Syu

for a system update.

Last edited by PreparationH67 (2011-06-06 20:49:02)

Arch Linux

#1 2011-06-06 01:07:57

Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#2 2011-06-06 01:18:16

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#3 2011-06-06 01:36:05

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#4 2011-06-06 01:38:53

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#5 2011-06-06 01:47:58

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#6 2011-06-06 03:21:40

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#7 2011-06-06 07:11:55

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#8 2011-06-06 07:36:54

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#9 2011-06-06 08:41:08

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#10 2011-06-06 11:48:59

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

#11 2011-06-06 15:52:49

Re: Should I Build a Web Server using Arch?

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