Book Image

Instant Debian - Build a Web Server

By : Jose Miguel Parrella
Book Image

Instant Debian - Build a Web Server

By: Jose Miguel Parrella

Overview of this book

Debian is one of the most popular Linux-based operating systems, with over 37 thousand software packages available in several architectures. This universal operating system provides the foundation for thousands of web servers. It is easy to install, stable and provides mechanisms for system security. Starting with an insightful discussion on the architectures and methods of installing Debian, we’ll also discuss cues to plan ahead for scalability. We’ll then explore how to configure and use APT to install necessary software, taking you all the way through to presenting scenarios for security, backup/restore and maintenance. Debian: Build a Web Server How-To will help you effectively setup and deploy a Debian-based Web server with strong foundations for the future of your Web application. It teaches concepts such as library and framework availability and suitability under the APT system, how to read and process logs and events and how to respond to security incidents. Additionally it also covers planning and executing a backup and restore strategy and how to deploy clusters and proxies. The book will help you navigate installation methods, understand how to configure APT and how to use it to deploy the application parts and how to tackle common management scenarios, ending up with a ready-to-go Web server running Debian.
Table of Contents (7 chapters)

Configuring your programming language libraries (Medium)


Frameworks are very popular nowadays. Symfony, Rails, Django, or Dancer are all references for professional web development, and a Debian web server is no stranger to them. The libraries and modules that empower these frameworks are also popular, and it's important for system administrators to know how to set it up.

Getting started

You have the option to use prepackaged frameworks or downloading and installing it yourself. The prepackaged frameworks may offer ease of set up and administration at the cost of an older version. You will also have security updates coming from the APT system itself.

How to do it…

  1. Search for your library. Some PEAR libraries are available on Debian, and so are CPAN libraries for Perl, Ruby gems, Python modules, and so on. Here are some useful searches:

    aptitude search ^php-.*
    aptitude search ^lib.*-perl
    aptitude search ^ruby\|libruby-.*
    aptitude search ^python-.*
  2. In other cases you have the pear, rubygem clients available for manual installs (CPAN comes with Debian).

    apt-get install php-pear
    apt-get install rubygems
  3. Here's an example, using the Dancer framework:

    sudo apt-get install libdancer-perl
    sudo editor app.pl and type:
    use Dancer;
    get '/demo' => sub { "Dancer is OK" };
    dance;
    perl app.pl
  4. Now use a browser to go to http://localhost:3000 (or use wget or curl on the console) to check whether the framework is working correctly.