(Deprecated) How to set up a LAMP server to run eFront

Note: This article has been deprecated as of 2024/01/10. It is no longer maintained and may contain outdated information. For updated content, please refer to How to install a local eFront portal using Docker.

Reason for Deprecation: custom, local installations are no longer supported.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact our support.

This article will guide you through the process of setting up a Linux server capable of running eFront with default settings, suitable for a simple application.

You will need a CentOS 7 server with SSH access (get the image). Then, follow these steps:

Install and configure MariaDB
Install and configure Apache Web Server
Install and Configure PHP - PHP-FPM
Configure PHP-FPM
Install Memcached
Install OPCache
Configure cron job for notifications
Using Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificates
Installing your owned SSL Certificate
How to Install an SSL/TLS Certificate In Apache Open SSL
How to redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS

Step A: Install and Configure MariaDB Server

Create repo for MariaDB. Log in to your server and access the directory /etc/yum.repos.d
```
[root]# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
```

Create the file MariaDB-Server.repo and add the below in it:

[mariadb]
name = MariaDB
baseurl = http://yum.mariadb.org/10.4/centos7-amd64
gpgkey=https://yum.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck=1

Run yum update to load the new repository for MariaDB Server and install the MariaDB Server:

[root]# yum update
[root]# yum -y install mariadb-server (accept all required packages if asked)

Use SSH to sign in to your server, using the root account, and run yum upgrade to bring the system up to date with the latest patches.
```
[root]# yum -y upgrade
```
Enable the query cache: edit the file /etc/my.cnf and add the following lines inside the [mysqld] section:
```
query_cache_type = 1
query_cache_limit = 1M
query_cache_size = 64M
```

Start MariaDB:

[root]# /bin/systemctl start mariadb.service

Run mysql_secure_installation to set up and secure MariaDB:
```
[root]# mysql_secure_installation
```

Make sure MariaDB starts automatically:

[root]# systemctl enable mariadb.service

Connect to MariaDB and create a new user and database for eFront:

[root]# mysql
MariaDB> create database efront;
MariaDB> grant all privileges on efront.* to 'efront'@'localhost' identified by '<dbpass>';
MariaDB> flush privileges;
MariaDB> exit;

Note: where<dbpass>is your preferred password.

Note: if you are going to create a separate WebServer and Database Server, you need to add a MySQL client in the WebServer with the below command: yum -y install mysql
After you have setup Database Server, you may test the connectivity from WebServer to the Database Server using the below command in the WebServer:

root# mysql -h<DB_IP_Address> -u<efront_user> -p<dbpass>

Where DB_IP_Address is the Database IP Address, efront_user the Database user for eFront (which was created in step A-9, i.e efront), dbpass is the password for the database user for eFront.

Testing step: to test that the new user has access to the efront database, run the command:

[root]# mysql -uefront -p<dbpass> efront

If the above command is successful, you should log into the MariaDB Command Line interface

MariaDB>

Note: Make sure that the SQL Mode of your MySQL Server does not include the optionONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY. You can find out by running the following command:SELECT @@GLOBAL.sql_mode;. Our recommended values are the following: IGNORE_SPACE,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE,NO_ZERO_DATE,ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION.

Step B: Install and Configure Apache Web Server

Install EPEL Repository for CentOS:
```
[root]# yum -y install epel-release
```
Install Apache Web Server:
```
[root]# yum -y install httpd
```
Make sure Apache starts automatically:
```
[root]# systemctl enable httpd.service
```
Edit the file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf and add the below line at the bottom of the file: IncludeOptional sites.d/*.conf
In the same file, change the ServerName option to match the server’s domain name or IP address

Create a configuration file for the Virtual Host:

[root]# mkdir /etc/httpd/sites.d
[root]# vi /etc/httpd/sites.d/efront.conf

Add the following lines inside the newly created file efront.conf:

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
 ServerName localhost
 TimeOut 300
 DocumentRoot /var/www/efront/www/
 ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/efront-error.log
 CustomLog /var/log/httpd/efront-access.log combined
 LogLevel warn
<FilesMatch "\.php$">
 SetHandler "proxy:fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000"
</FilesMatch>
<Proxy "fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000/">
</Proxy>
<Directory /var/www/efront/www/>
 AllowOverride All
 Order allow,deny
 allow from all
 Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Upload the efront zip file (for example, eFront-5.2.16.zip) to the server and extract to the proper location:

[root]# mkdir /var/www/efront
[root]# cd /var/www/efront
[root]# mv ~/efront-5.2.16.zip .
[root]# unzip efront-5.2.16..zip
[root]# rm efront-5.2.16..zip
[root]# chown -R apache:apache

Note: If you have enabled selinux, then you have to permit Apache to write to the filesystem, by executing the following command:

[root]# chcon -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t /var/www/efront -R

Note: The last command enables the user running apache to change any of the platform's files. This simplifies things but is potentially unsafe. In production configurations, it is recommended to give write access only to the folders temp/, backups/, www/content/ and, for the duration of the installation, to libraries/

Restart Apache:
```
[root]# systemctl start httpd.service
```

Step C: Install and Configure PHP - PHP-FPM

Install REMI repository by running the following command:
```
sudo yum -y install
```
https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
Install YUM utils by running the following:
```
sudo yum -y install yum-utils
```

Enable remi php 7.4 repository as follows:

sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php74

Update YUM:
```
sudo yum update
```

Install the PHP required packages (7.4 version) as follows:

yum install php.x86_64 php-cli.x86_64 php-common.x86_64 php-devel.x86_64
php-embedded.x86_64 php-fpm.x86_64 php-gd.x86_64 php-ldap.x86_64 php-mbstring.x86_64
php-mysqlnd.x86_64 php-opcache.x86_64 php-pdo.x86_64 php-process.x86_64 php-tidy.x86_64
php-xml.x86_64 php-pecl-memcached php-pecl-zip php-pecl-oauth

Set proper PHP limits: Edit the file /etc/php.ini and change max_execution_time, memory_limit and upload_max_filesize:
```
upload_max_filesize = 1024M
post_max_size = 1024M
memory_limit=512M
```
Install OAuth:
```
[root]# yum install gcc
[root]# pecl install oauth-1.2.3
```
Then, edit the file /etc/php.ini and add the line extension=oauth.so (You can also add this at the bottom of the file or among the other extensions existing in this file).

Make sure PHP-FPM starts automatically:

[root]# systemctl enable php-fpm.service

Step D: Configure PHP-FPM

Go to the directory /etc/php-fpm.d/ and copy existing www.conf to www.conf.original
```
[root]# cp /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf.original
```

Create a new www.conf and set the below values:

[root]# vi /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
listen = 127.0.0.1:9000
listen.allowed_clients = 127.0.0.1
listen.owner = nobody
listen.group = nobody
user = apache
group = apache
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 50
pm.start_servers = 10
pm.min_spare_servers = 10
pm.max_spare_servers = 15
pm.max_requests = 200
pm.status_path = /php-fpm-status
ping.path = /php-fpm-ping
ping.response = pong
slowlog = /var/log/php-fpm/www-slow.log
security.limit_extensions =
php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/log/php-fpm/www-error.log
php_admin_flag[log_errors] = on
php_value[session.save_handler] = files

Restart HTTPD and PHP-FPM Services to load the new configuration file.

[root]# systemctl restart httpd.service
[root]# systemctl restart php-fpm.service

Step Ε: Install Memcached

Install Memcached

[root]# yum -y memcached.x86_64 libmemcached.x86_64 libmemcached-devel.x86_64

Ensure that the file: /etc/sysconfig/memcached has the below

values:
PORT="11211"
USER="memcached"
MAXCONN="1024"
CACHESIZE="64"
OPTIONS=""

Make sure Memcached starts automatically:
```
systemctl enable memcached.service
```

Start Memcached:

[root]# systemctl start memcached.service

Step F: Install OPCache

Install OPCache with the following commands:

# yum update && yum install epel-release
# yum install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm 
# yum install php-opcache

Confirm that OpCache is installed by running the following:
```
# php -v
```
You should see results similar to
Restart your webserver to complete the process.

Step G: Configure cron job for notifications

Add the following lines in your cron job file so that eFront can send email notifications to your users. Edit the cron job file:

[root]# crontab -e

Update the following lines, replacing <hostname> with the actual domain name of your installation, for example https://example.efrontlearning.com.

MAILTO=""
*/3 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/efront/www/cron.php https://example.efrontlearning.com

If you visit the server's URL in the browser, for example, https://example.efrontlearning.com/you should see the installation wizard's first page. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up eFront and you're done.

Step H: Using Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificates

Log in to your server’s terminal via Secure Shell (SSH). Enable the EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) repository.

sudo yum install -y epel-release

If you are using RHEL or Oracle Linux, you will also need to enable the optional channel. On EC2, RHEL users can enable the optional channel by running the following command, substituting your EC2 region for REGION in the command:

sudo yum -y install yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhui-REGION-rhel-server-extras rhui-REGION-rhel-server-optional

Run this command on the command line on the machine to install Certbot.

sudo yum install certbot python2-certbot-apache

Run this command to get a certificate and have Certbot edit your Apache configuration automatically to serve it, turning on HTTPS access in a single step.

sudo certbot --apache

We recommend running the following line, which will add a cron job to the default crontab.

echo "0 0,12 * * * root python -c 'import random; import time; time.sleep(random.random() * 3600)' && certbot renew -q" | sudo tee -a /etc/crontab > /dev/null

To confirm that your site is set up properly, visit https://example.efrontlearning.com/ in your browser and look for the lock icon in the URL bar.

Step I: Installing your own SSL Certificate

How to Generate a CSR for Apache Web Server Using OpenSSL

Log in to your server’s terminal via Secure Shell (SSH). Make sure that openssl package has been installed in your system by running:

sudo yum list installed | grep openssl

If you receive no response, then install it by running the following command:

sudo yum install -y openssl

Generate a private key and CSR by running the following command:

openssl req -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout server.key -out server.csr

Note: Replace “server” with the domain name you intend to secure.

Add your details

Enter the following CSR details when prompted:

Common Name: The FQDN (fully-qualified domain name) you want to secure with the certificate such as www.google.com, secure.website.org, *.domain.net, etc.
Organization: The full legal name of your organization including the corporate identifier.
Organization Unit (OU): Your department such as ‘Information Technology’ or ‘Website Security.’
City or Locality: The locality or city where your organization is legally incorporated. Do not abbreviate.
State or Province: The state or province where your organization is legally incorporated. Do not abbreviate.
Country: The official two-letter country code (i.e. US, CH) where your organization is legally incorporated.

Note: You are not required to enter a password or passphrase. This optional field is for applying additional security to your key pair.

Find the newly created CSR and open it in a text editor. Copy all the text from BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST to END CERTIFICATE REQUEST.

Note 1: Your CSR should be saved in the same user directory that you SSH into unless otherwise specified by you.

Note 2: We recommend saving or backing up your newly generate “.key” file as this will be required later during the installation process.

Now you are ready to copy/paste the CSR in the relevant application form of your provider (SSL Authority).

Step J: How to Install an SSL/TLS Certificate In Apache Open SSL

Before you proceed, make sure that you have, your server certificate, your intermediate certificates, and your private key. You should be able to find these files saved in the server’s directory, where all certificate/key files are stored.

Edit the httpd.conf file and enter the following commands on your VirtualHost to enable SSL:

<VirtualHost *:443>
 DocumentRoot /var/www/efront
 ServerName www.yourwebsite.com
 SSLEngine on
 SSLCertificateFile /path/to/your_domain_name.crt
 SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/your_private.key
 SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/cabundle.crt
 </VirtualHost>

Note 1: The SSL config file can be in a <VirtualHost> block in another config file. You can always search for it on your CentOS7 Server using this grep command (as root or with sudo privileges): grep -i -r “SSLCertificateFile” /etc/httpd/

Note 2: If you need the site to load via https and http, create another virtual host for http. You can simply copy the existing config file before making any during this step.

Test your new config file by running the following command: httpd -t
If the test is successful restart your Apache by running this command: httpd restart

Note 3: You may be asked to enter the password you generated with your RSA key. If you do not want to be asked for a password, you will need to re-generate your RSA key file.

All done. To confirm that the certificate works as expected visit the website in your browser at https://example.efrontlearning.com/ and view the certificate/site information.

Step K: How to redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS

To do so, edit the httpd.conf file and enter the following commands on your VirtualHost:

<VirtualHost *:80>
 DocumentRoot /var/www/efront
 ServerName www.yourwebsite.com
 Redirect permanent / https://www.yourwebsite.com/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
 DocumentRoot /var/www/efront
 ServerName www.yourwebsite.com
 SSLEngine on
 SSLCertificateFile /path/to/your_domain_name.crt
 SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/your_private.key
 SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/cabundle.crt
</VirtualHost>

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