Install vsftpd, PHP, mysql, phpmyAdmin on CentOS using puTTY

vsftpd is one of the most secure and fastest FTP server for UNIX-like systems. I will show in this tutorial how to use puTTY (SSH and telnet client). I will use TightVNC to establish a remote connection to my host. With TightVNC, I can connect and install any application from my local computer.

Download and install puTTY

To download putty go to http://www.putty.org.

Download and install TightVNC

To download TightVNC go to : http://www.tightvnc.com/download.php

Run TightVNC: (for more information check the documentation online)

Start puTTY and connect to the remote host

Run puTTY, and enter your connection settings

Click Open to start the SSH session.

If this is your first time connecting to the server from this computer, you will see the following output. Accept the connection by clicking Yes.

install vsftpd

Once on the console, as a matter of best practice we’ll update our packages:

yum -y update

Install vsftpd and any required packages:

yum -y install vsftpd

Configure vsftpd

vim /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf

Useful commands on vim editor

i to insert
a to append
x to delete
dd to delete a line
: to begin a command sequence
:w to save
:q to quit
:q! to quit without saving
:wq to save and quiti to insert
a to append
x to delete
dd to delete a line
: to begin a command sequence
:w to save
:q to quit
:q! to quit without saving
:wq to save and quit

What to modify vsftpd.conf

Disallow anonymous, unidentified users to access files via FTP; change the anonymous_enable setting toNO:

anonymous_enable=NO

Allow local uses to login by changing the local_enable setting to YES:

local_enable=YES

If you want local user to be able to write to a directory, then change the write_enable setting to YES:

write_enable=YES

Local users will be ‘chroot jailed’ and they will be denied access to any other part of the server; change the chroot_local_user setting to YES:

chroot_local_user=YES

Exit and save the file with the command :wq .

Restart the vsftpd service:

systemctl restart vsftpd

Then set the vsftpd service to start at boot:

systemctl enable vsftpd

Step 3: Allow vsftpd Through the Firewall

Allow the default FTP port, port 21, through firewalld:

firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=21/tcp

And reload the firewall:

firewall-cmd --reload

Install Apache, MySQL, PHP

yum. A package manager allows us to install most software pain-free from a repository maintained by CentOS.

For our purposes, we can get started by typing these commands:

sudo yum install httpd

sudo command: operations get executed with root privileges.

Afterwards, your web server is installed.

Once it installs, you can start Apache on your VPS:

sudo systemctl start httpd.service

http://your_server_IP_address/ now works !

Enable Apache to start on boot. Use the following command to do so:

sudo systemctl enable httpd.service

Install MySQL (MariaDB)

sudo yum install mariadb-server mariadb

sudo systemctl start mariadb

Run a simple security script that will remove some dangerous defaults and lock down access to our database system a little bit. Start the interactive script by running:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Enter Y, and follow the instructions:

Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
root user without the proper authorization.

New password: password
Re-enter new password: password
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!

sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

Install PHP

sudo yum install php php-mysql

sudo systemctl restart httpd.service

Install PHP Modules

To see the available options for PHP modules and libraries, you can type this into your system:

yum search php-

The results are all optional components that you can install. It will give you a short description for each:

php-bcmath.x86_64 : A module for PHP applications for using the bcmath library
php-cli.x86_64 : Command-line interface for PHP
php-common.x86_64 : Common files for PHP
php-dba.x86_64 : A database abstraction layer module for PHP applications
php-devel.x86_64 : Files needed for building PHP extensions
php-embedded.x86_64 : PHP library for embedding in applications
php-enchant.x86_64 : Enchant spelling extension for PHP applications
php-fpm.x86_64 : PHP FastCGI Process Manager
php-gd.x86_64 : A module for PHP applications for using the gd graphics library
. . .

Test PHP Processing on your Web Server

Open the file info.php CentOS, this directory is located at /var/www/html/. We can create the file at that location by typing: sudo vi /var/www/html/info.php

This will open a blank file. We want to put the following text, which is valid PHP code, inside the file:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

When you are finished, save and close the file.

If you are running a firewall, run the following commands to allow HTTP and HTTPS traffic:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http 
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

I can test whether my web server can correctly display content generated by a PHP script. To try this out, we just have to visit this page in our web browser. You’ll need your server’s public IP address again.

The address you want to visit will be:

http://your_server_IP_address/info.php

Install phpMyadmin

phpMyAdmin is an open source tool used for the administration of MySQL.

Add the EPEL Repository

phpMyAdmin is part of Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL), which is a community repository of non-standard packages for the RHEL distribution. First, we’ll install the EPEL repository:

rpm -iUvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/e/epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm

Install phpMyAdmin

yum -y install phpmyadmin

Basic Configuration for phpMyAdmin

vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf

By default, the configuration for phpMyAdmin only allows access from the server on which it is installed. Find the following sections and change each IP address to the one you found in Step 3, or another IP address that will be connecting to phpMyAdmin remotely:

Require ip 127.0.0.1

Allow from 127.0.0.1

Require ip 127.0.0.1

Allow from 127.0.0.1

Then exit and save the file with the command :wq .

Restart Apache:

systemctl restart httpd

Verify that phpMyAdmin is working by visiting http://the_IP_of_your_server/phpmyadmin. For example: http://5.5.5.5/phpmyadmin