Module 2 – Understand Common Infrastructure Servers

How will you solve these common problems when a site is not working correctly?

Check the Logs

Before blindly trying to track down a problem, try to check the logs of your web server and any
related components. These will usually be in /var/log in a subdirectory specific to the service.
For instance, if you have an Apache server running on an Ubuntu server, by default the logs will
be kept in /var/log/apache2. Check the files in this directory to see what kind of error messages
are being generated. If you have a database backend that is giving you trouble, that will likely
keep its logs in /var/log as well.
Other things to check are whether the processes themselves leave you error messages when
the services are started. If you attempt to visit a web page and get an error, the error page can
contain clues too (although not as specific as the lines in the log files).

Use a search engine to try to find relevant information that can point you in the right direction.
The steps below can help you troubleshoot further.

Is your Web Server Installed?

The first thing you need to serve your websites correctly is a web server.

Most people will have installed a server before getting to this point, but there are some
situations where you may have actually accidentally uninstalled the server when performing
other package operations.

If you are on an Ubuntu or Debian system and wish to install the Apache web server, you can
type:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install apache2

On these systems, the Apache process is called apache2.

If you are running Ubuntu or Debian and want the Nginx web server, you can instead type:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nginx
On these systems, the Nginx process is called nginx.

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If you are running CentOS or Fedora and wish to use the Apache web server, you can type this.
You can remove the "sudo" if you are logged in as root:

sudo yum install httpd

On these systems, the Apache process is called httpd.

If you are running CentOS or Fedora and want to use Nginx, you can type this. Again, remove
the "sudo" if you are logged in as root:

sudo rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-

release-6-8.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install nginx
On these systems, the Nginx process is called nginx.

Is your Web Server Running?

Now that you are sure your server is installed, is it running?

There are plenty of ways of finding out if the service is running or not. One method that is fairly
cross-platform is to use the netstat command.
This will tell you all of the processes that are using ports on the server. We can then grep for
the name of the process we are looking for:

sudo netstat -plunt | grep apache2

tcp6 0 0 :::80 :::* LISTEN
2000/apache2

You should change "apache2" to the name of the web server process on your server. If you see
a line like the one above, it means your process is up and running. If you don't get any output
back, it means you queried for the wrong process or that your web server is not running.

If this is the case, you can start it using your distribution's preferred method. For instance, on
Ubuntu, you could start the Apache2 service by typing:

sudo service apache2 start

On CentOS you might type something like this:

sudo /etc/init.d/httpd start

If your web server starts, you can check with netstat again to verify that everything is correct.

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Is the Syntax of your Web Server Configuration File Correct?

If your web server refused to start, often this is an indication that your configuration files need
some attention. Both Apache and Nginx require strict adherence to their directive syntax in
order for the files to be read.

The configuration files for these services are usually located within a subdirectory of
the /etc/directory named after the process itself.
Thus, we could get to the main configuration directory of Apache on Ubuntu by typing:

cd /etc/apache2

In a similar way, the Apache configuration directory on CentOS also mirrors the CentOS name
for that process:

cd /etc/httpd

The configuration will be spread out among many different files. If your service failed to start, it
will usually point you to the configuration file and the line where the problem was first found.
Check that file for errors.

Each of these web servers also provide you with the ability to check the configuration syntax of
your files.

If you are using Apache, you can use the apache2ctl or apachectl command to check your
configuration files for syntax errors:
apache2ctl configtest
AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully
qualified domain name, using 127.0.0.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive
globally to suppress this message
Syntax OK
As you can see above, we've received an informational message about a detail in our
configuration, but there were no errors. This is good.

If you have an Nginx web server, you can run a similar test by typing:

sudo nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

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As you can see, this process checks your syntax as well. If we remove an ending semi-
colon from a line in the file (a common error for Nginx configurations), you would get a
message like this:

sudo nginx -t
nginx: [emerg] invalid number of arguments in "tcp_nopush" directive in
/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:18
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed
There is an invalid number of arguments because Nginx looks for a semi-colon to end
statements. If it doesn't find one, it drops down to the next line and interpret that as
further arguments for the last line.

Are the Ports you Configured Open?

Generally, web servers run on port 80 for normal web traffic and use port 443 for traffic
encrypted with TLS/SSL. In order for you to reach the site correctly, these ports must be made
accessible.

You can test whether your server has its port open by using netcat from your local machine.
You just need to use your server's IP address and tell it what port you wish to check, like this:

sudo nc -z 111.111.111.111 80
This will check whether port 80 is open on the server at 111.111.111.111. If it is open,
the command will return right away. If it is not open, the command will continuously try
to form a connection, unsuccessfully. You can stop this process by hitting CTRL-C in
the terminal window.
If your web ports is not accessible, you should look at your firewall configuration. You
may need to open up port 80 or port 443.

Are your DNS Settings Directing you to the

Correct Place?
If you can reach your site through the IP address, but not through the domain name,
you may need to take a look at your DNS settings.

In order for visitors to reach your site through its domain name, you should have an "A"
or "AAAA" record pointing to your server's IP address in the DNS settings. You can
query for your domain's "A" record by running this command:

host -t A example.com

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example.com has address 93.184.216.119

The line that is returned to you should match the IP address of your server. If you need
to check an "AAAA" record (for IPv6 connections), you can type:

host -t AAAA example.com

example.com has IPv6 address 2606:2800:220:6d:26bf:1447:1097:aa7

Keep in mind that any changes you make to the DNS records will take quite a long time
to propagate. You may receive inconsistent results to these queries after a change
since your request will often hit different servers that are not all up-to-date yet.

If you are using DigitalOcean, you can learn how to configure DNS settings for your
domain here.

Make sure your Configuration Files Also Handle your Domain Correctly
If your DNS settings are correct, you may also want to check your Apache virtual host
files or the Nginx server block files to make sure they are configured to respond to
requests for your domain.

In Apache, the section of your virtual host file might look like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerName example.com

ServerAlias www.example.com

ServerAdmin admin@example.com

DocumentRoot /var/www/html

. . .

This virtual host is configured to respond to any requests on port 80 for the
domain example.com.
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A similar chunk in Nginx might look something like this:

server {

listen 80 default_server;

listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;

root /usr/share/nginx/html;

index index.html index.htm;

server_name example.com www.example.com;

. . .

This block is configured to respond to the same type of request that we discussed
above.

Does the Document Root Point to the

Location of your Files?
Another consideration is whether your web server is pointed at the correct file location.

Each virtual server in Apache or server block in Nginx is configured to point to a specific
directory. If this is configured incorrectly, the server will throw an error message when
you try to access the page.

In Apache, the document root is configured through the DocumentRoot directive:

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerName example.com

ServerAlias www.example.com

ServerAdmin admin@example.com

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DocumentRoot /var/www/html

. . .

This line tells Apache that it should look for the files for this domain in
the /var/www/html directory. If your files are kept elsewhere, you'll have to modify this
line to point to the correct location.
In Nginx, the root directive configures the same thing:
server {

listen 80 default_server;

listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;

root /usr/share/nginx/html;

index index.html index.htm;

server_name example.com www.example.com;

. . .

In this configuration, Nginx looks for files for this domain in

the /usr/share/nginx/html directory.

Is your Web Server Serving the Correct Index

Files?
If your document root is correct and your index pages are not being served correctly
when you go to your site or a directory location on your site, you may have your indexes
configured incorrectly.

When a visitor requests a directory, typically your server will want to give them an index
file. This is usually an index.html file or an index.php file depending on your
configuration.
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In Apache, you may find a line in your virtual host file that configures the index order
that will be used for specific directories explicitly, like this:

<Directory /var/www/html>

DirectoryIndex index.html index.php

</Directory>

This means that when the directory is being served, Apache will look for a file
called index.html first, and try to serve index.php as a backup if the first file is not
found.
You can set the order that will be used to serve index files for the entire server by
editing the mods-enabled/dir.conf file, which will set the defaults for the server. If
your server is not serving an index file, make sure you have an index file in your
directory that matches one of the options in your file.
In Nginx, the directive that does this is called index and it is used like this:
server {

listen 80 default_server;

listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;

root /usr/share/nginx/html;

index index.html index.htm;

server_name example.com www.example.com;

. . .

Are the Permissions and Ownership Set

Correctly?
In order for the web server to correctly serve files, it must be able to read the files and
have access to the directories where they are kept. This can be controlled through the
file and directory permissions and ownership.

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To read files, the directories containing the content must be readable and executable by
the web server process. User and group name that are used to run the web server differ
from distribution to distribution.

On Ubuntu and Debian, both Apache and Nginx run as the user www-data which is a
member of thewww-data group.
On CentOS and Fedora, Apache runs under a user called apache which belongs to
the apachegroup. Nginx runs under a user called nginx which is a part of
the nginx group.
Using this information, you can look at the directories and files that make up your site
content:

ls -l /path/to/web/root

The directories should be readable and executable by the web user or group, and the
files should be readable in order to read content. In order to upload, write or modify
content, the directories must additionally be writeable and the files need to be writeable
as well. Set directories to be writable with great caution though, because it can be a
security risk.

To modify the ownership of a file, you can do this:

sudo chown user_owner:group_owner /path/to/file

This can also be done to a directory. You can change the ownership of a directory and
all of the files under it by passing the -R flag:
sudo chown -R user_owner:group_owner /path/to/file

You can learn more about Linux permissions here.

Are you Restricting Access through your

Configuration Files?
It's possible that your configurations are set up to deny access from the files you are
trying to serve.

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In Apache, this would be configured in the virtual host file for that site, or through
an .htaccess file located in the directory itself.
Within these files, it is possible to restrict access in a few different ways. Directories can
be restricted like this in Apache 2.4:

<Directory /usr/share>

AllowOverride None

Require all denied

</Directory>

This line is telling the web server not to let anybody access the contents of this
directory. In Apache 2.2 and below, this would be written like this:

<Directory /usr/share>

AllowOverride None

Order deny,allow

Deny from all

</Directory>

If you find a directive like this for the directory containing the content you are trying to
access, this will prevent your success.

In Nginx, these restrictions will take the form of deny directives and will be located in
your server blocks or main config files:
location /usr/share {

deny all;

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If you have a Database Backend, is it

Running?
If your site relies on a database backend like MySQL, PostreSQL, MongoDB, etc. you
need to make sure that it is up and running.

You can do that in the same way that you checked that the web server was running.
Again, we can search for the running processes and then pick out the name of the
process we are looking for:

sudo netstat -plunt | grep mysql

tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN

3356/mysqld

As you can see, the service is running on this machine. Make sure you know the name
that your service runs under when searching for it.

An alternative is to search for the port that your service runs on if you know that. Look at
the documentation for your database to find the default port that it runs on or check your
configuration files.

If you have a Database Backend, can your

Site Connect Successfully?
The next step to take if you are troubleshooting an issue with a database backend is to
see if you can connect correctly. This usually means checking the files that your site
reads to find out the database information.

For instance, for a WordPress site, the database connection settings are stored in a file
called wp-config.php. You need to check that the DB_NAME, DB_USER,
and DB_PASSWORD are correct in order for your site to connect to the database.
You can test whether the file has the correct information by trying to connect to the
database manually using something like:

mysql -u DB_USER_value -pDB_PASSWORD_value DB_NAME_value

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If you cannot connect using the values you found in the file, you may need to create the
correct accounts and databases or modify the access permissions of your databases.

Is your Web Server Configured to Pass

Dynamic Content to a Script Processor?
If you are using a database backend, you almost certainly are using a programming
language like PHP to process request for dynamic content, fetch the information from
the database, and render the results.

If this is the case, you need to make sure that your web server is configured correctly to
pass requests to the script processor.

In Apache, this generally means making sure that mod_php5 is installed and enabled.
You can do that on Ubuntu or Debian by typing:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5
sudo a2enmod php5
For CentOS/Fedora systems, you'll have to type:

sudo yum install php php-mysql

sudo service httpd restart
In Nginx, this is a bit more complicated. Nginx doesn't have a PHP module that can be
enabled, so we need make sure that we have php-fpm installed and enabled in our
configurations.
On an Ubuntu or Debian server, ensure that the components are installed by typing:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install php5-fpm php5-mysql
On CentOS or Fedora, you'd do this by typing:

sudo yum install php-fpm php-mysql

Since the PHP processor isn't a part of Nginx, you need to tell it to pass the PHP files
explicitly. Follow step four of this guide to learn how to configure Nginx to pass PHP
files to php-fpm. You should also take a look at the portion of step three that deals with
configuring the PHP processor. This should be pretty much the same regardless of your
distribution.

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If all else Fails, Check the Logs Again

Checking the logs should actually be your first step, but it is also a good last step prior
to asking for more help.

If you have reached the end of your ability to troubleshoot on your own and need some
help (from a friend, by opening a support ticket, etc.), you will get more relevant help
faster by providing log files and error messages. Experienced administrators will
probably have a good idea of what is happening if you give them the pieces of
information that they need.

Conclusion
Hopefully these troubleshooting tips will have helped you track down and fix some of the
more common issues that administrators face when trying to get their sites up and
running.

If you have any additional tips for things to check and ways of problem solving, please
share them with other users in the comments.

How to Find Web Server Type Running On a Linux or Windows Machine?

#curl -I www.linuxnix.com
# curl -I itig

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Via: 1.1 us-PROXY1, 1.1 us-PROXY2
Connection: close
Proxy-Connection: close
Expires: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:26:55 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat)
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.1.6
Set-Cookie: b2933756b1f0288a74dd630e51954bff=5sl7jaqpgliambi2fq7q3ailv6;
path=/
P3P: CP=”NOI ADM DEV PSAi COM NAV OUR OTRo STP IND DEM”

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Last-Modified: Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:26:55 GMT

Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
In the above output we can see server as Apache 2.2.3.

How To See Total Processes Are Running, Files Opened, Memory Used
By A User?

To see all the process run by a particular user

#ps -u username u
-u used to specify user name, and u at the end of the command shows you complete path
of the command executed.
Example
#ps -u rajesh u
or

To see all the files opened by user

#lsof | grep username

Example
#lsof | grep rajesh
To see memory used by a particular user
#ps -u username u | awk ‘{print $2}’

Example
ps -u krishna u | awk ‘{print $2}’
Now you will get all the PID’s run by user Krishna. So try to get memory usage by
using pmap command.

How to Access the Web Server through a Hostname?

Step1: Check for the package installed or not
#rpm -qa | grep httpd
Step2 : Install the package
#yum install httpd
Step3 : For hostbased web access we require DNS server entries of our host.
Example host in this post is : server1.example.com(Actual server name) and
hostbase.example.com(our virtual host name)
So we have to give A record for the server1.example.com and CNAME
record for hostbase.example.com which points toserver1.example.com
Step3 : Create the root web directory and a test index.html for this testing.
I want to create my web directory in /hostnamebase

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#mkdir /hostnamebase
Now create index.html and try to write something in to that file then save the file.
#vi /hostnamebase/index.html
save and exit the file.

Step4: Now edit the httpd.config file

#vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Step4 (a): Please specify the NameVirtualHost
NameVirtualHost 192.168.0.1
What is the significance of this entry?
Ans: This directive is a set to IP address/actual system name if you want to configure your
server to host. Name based virtual hosting. So here I am using ip address of my system.
You can try to put actual hostname if you want to test it.
Step4 (b): Now configure virtual host entry as shown below.
Go to last line and write the below content
<VirtualHost 192.168.0.1>
ServerName hostbase.example.com
DocumentRoot /hostnamebase/
DirectoryIndex index.html
</VirtualHost>
Save the file and exit.

Let me explain ServerName entry

ServerName hostbase.example.com This is used to specify what is the virtual host name
of your new Virtualhost. So user can type this FQDN to access this site.

Now save the file and exit.

Step5: Check for the syntax errors in the httpd.conf file before restarting the apache
service.
#httpd -t
Or
#httpd -k graceful
Step6: Now start the service and then add it to booting scripts so that it will start
automatically at every boot of the system

#service httpd restart

#chkconfig httpd on
Step7: Now check the site using http://hostbase.example.com in your browser.

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How to Assign or Change Hostname in Linux and Unix?

Computers are assigned with a name as we do for human beings. This is called hostname in
computer world. So how to assign a hostname to a Linux system? It’s very much simple.
Before doing this we should know every task in Linux can be done in two ways:

1. Temporary way (once you boot your system the changes made in this way will go away)
2. Permanent way (Changes made in this way will be retained even after rebooting of the
system).
Before changing the hostname, check what is your present system name by using hostname
command
#hostname
This command will show present system name.
Now we will see how to assign a host name to a Linux machine in both(temporary as well as
permanent) ways.

Temporary way: Use hostname command to change the host name

#hostname your-system-nameExample:
#hostname office-laptop.example.com
Permanent way : Change hostname in Redhat/CentOS/Fedora:
Edit /etc/sysconfig/network file, use HOSTNAME variable in that file to denote
hostname.
#vi /etc/sysconfig/network
HOSTNAME=office-laptop.example.com

Save the file and exit

Then your hostname is changed permanently to your desired name.

Change hostname in Ubuntu/Debian:

Edit /etc/hostname, just write down what is your hostname in to that file.
#vi /etc/hostname
office-laptop.example.com

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