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Demo (login / password: admin / admin or demo / demo)
Quick install
Prerequisite
To install and configure properly your server, you should :
- have a Debian Squeeze server (Lenny is still supported)
- edit your sources.list.d as documented on this page?
- know the basic command to install packages (such as apt-get )
- own a domain name (the example below will use mdr.rezo.net )
Download Alternc
First you have to configure the AlternC Debian package repository as shown on this page?, so that your package manager can download AlternC
Quick answer
For the quick (and dirty) one, just do :
aptitude install mysql-server alternc
Access to the panel
The last step of AlternC install is the creation of the administrator account. whos
- login is admin
- and password is admin
So, you can connect to the administrator interface at http://mdr.rezo.net/ (just replace "mdr.rezo.net" by the {{{hostname}} of your webserver
Use admin/admin and go to "configuration" to change your password asap.
Advanced installation instructions
Clean your server
This step is useless if you have a stable brand new debian install. However, we recommand this step if you already tried to install web-server packages :
aptitude remove apache* mysql* postfix* alternc* bind9* courrier-* --purge
What packages do we want ?
Before going further we should know what we want to install :
- will we put the database server in the same server than the web server having AlternC ?
- will we put the mail server in the same server than the web server having AlternC ?
As of today, AlternC 1.0 can use postfix and mysql either locally or on a remote server, and AlternC 1.0 only supports Apache2 as web server.
This may look surprising to ask those questions when one want to install a complete hosting control panel software, but this is where is AlternC's power You can manage your system, but also adapt it to your needs and infrastructure.
Mysql ?
A single server
The simple case is when you only have one server, so you have to install mysql-server before alternc (or at the same time)
aptitude install mysql-server alternc
For more details, see this page Documentation/En/Administrator/Software/Mysql/Moreinformation?
Note, You should accept the default configuration unless you know what you are doing.
IMPORTANT : The mysql-server package as you for a password, put a strong and hard password here, unless you want anybody to be able to access your webserver, database server, and any other data in your machine, by using this password for the root account of mysql in phpmyadmin !
Server farms
If you know what you are doing and want to build an AlternC server farm :
Reminder, If you want to install your MySQL server in another server, this is possible, but you should know the Linux and Debian world to customize your setup accordingly ...
Apache 2 ?
Alternc is currently developped for Apache2. Therefore, it will be installed thanks to Debian dependency management.
Postfix
Some administrators want to customize their mail server : you can do this by installing postfix before AlternC. However, you will also be able to customize it later : AlternC install or upgrade script will only overwrite the requested postfix directives.
Easy postfix install
If you just want to manage your email service through AlternC, the postfix debian package installer will make the apropriate settings for you. Just choose "internet website" when you are asked for the main configuration for postfix.
Setting your domain name properly
AlternC is using your server domain name to configure all the services. As a consequence, you should ensure that your server has the proper hostname setup.
The server hostname will be your panel url. In the following example, we will use mdr.rezo.net to talk about your server, and therefore about the control panel url.
You must declare a subdomain for your server, such as mdr.rezo.net and not rezo.net. You are advised to call your server panel.yourdomain.com or desktop.yourdomain.com
To check your server's hostname, use the following command :
hostname --fqdn
if you obtain this, that's good (adapt it to your settings of course ;) )
mdr.rezo.net
If you don't have the right answer, it means that your server is not properly configured. You must change your /etc/hosts file with this command :
nano /etc/hosts
then add a line like this (replace 192.168.0.2 by the public IP address of your server):
192.168.0.2 mdr.rezo.net
Alternc Install
aptitude install alternc
The package manager should show you the list of packages he will install :
The following NEW packages will be installed: alternc apache bind9 ca-certificates courier-authdaemon courier-authlib courier-authlib-mysql courier-authlib-userdb courier-base courier-imap courier-imap-ssl courier-pop courier-pop-ssl courier-ssl gettext gettext-base libapache-mod-php5 libbind9-0 libdns22 libfam0 libisc11 libisccc0 libisccfg1 liblockfile1 libltdl3 liblwres9 libperl5.8 libsasl2-modules lockfile-progs perl-suid php5-cli php5-common php5-mysql phpmyadmin postfix postfix-mysql proftpd proftpd-mysql quota rsync sasl2-bin squirrelmail wwwconfig-common 0 upgraded, 44 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded. Need to get 19.4MB of archives. After unpacking 58.5MB of additional disk space will be used.
Confirm by typing "Y".
The Debain Package Manager will install AlternC and all his dependencies
When the dependencies get installed, you may have some questions to answer. For most questions, you should choose the default answer, unless you know what you are doing.
Note If you want to install AlternC's plugins such as mailman or awstats, you will have to install them after AlternC has been properly installed. Those packages need a proper AlternC install to be installed and configured.
Alternc Configuration
When installing AlternC, you will have to confirm that you want to install AlternC on this server :
Do you REALLY want to install AlternC on this computer ?
This message is not here to scare you, but to remind you that you will change your system quite deeply.
Indeed : AlternC configures and change a huge number of configuration files and install a load of packages such as apache2, postfix or proftpd. If you say yes, AlternC will do the necessary step to configure your server properly.
The last step of the install is made by AlternC's package itself, it should end like this :
[...] Setting up alternc (1.0.0) ... Updating /etc/alternc/local.sh checking for upgrades config phpmyadmin running alternc.install Setup MySQL and database... Granting users ... Setting AlternC 'alternc' system table and privileges Installing AlternC schema MYSQL.SH OK! Restarting apache 2 web server.... Generating locales (this might take a while)... [...] Generation complete. Reloading apache 2 configuration.... Reloading Postfix configuration... Reloading domain name service...: bind. Stopping Courier authentication services: authdaemond. Starting Courier authentication services: authdaemond. Stopping Courier IMAP server: imapd. Starting Courier IMAP server: imapd. Stopping Courier IMAP-SSL server: imapd-ssl. Starting Courier IMAP-SSL server: imapd-ssl. Stopping Courier POP3 server: pop3d. Starting Courier POP3 server: pop3d. Stopping Courier POP3-SSL server: pop3d-ssl. Starting Courier POP3-SSL server: pop3d-ssl. Reloading configuration files for periodic command scheduler: crond. Reloading ftp server: proftpd. adding open_base_dir protection for:. Creating admin user... ******************************************* * * * Admin account * * ------------ * * * * user: admin password: admin * * * * Please change this as soon as possible! * * * ******************************************* Stopping apache 2 web server....
