Getting WordPress set up with pretty urls on nginx is fairly straightforward. First thing we need to do is create a database for WordPress in MySQL and a user for this database.
mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO “user”@”localhost”
IDENTIFIED BY “pass”;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT
Enter your MySQL root password when prompted and fill in your own values for user and pass.

Now that… Continue reading

The nginx webserver is a lightweight alternative to apache and is perfect for running on a vps where resources are scarce. First we need to install our packages.
sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client libmysqlclient15-dev
I am using apt-get instead of aptitude here so we don’t get a lot of unwanted dependencies installed. The MySQL install will prompt you for a password for the root user. Remember this is not the same… Continue reading

Following on from my previous article on setting up a vps server running Ubuntu 8.04 I am now going to configure a simple firewall.

Linux uses a rules based firewall system known as iptables. To check your current rules use the following command.
sudo iptables -L
As it’s a new install we don’t have many rules, infact we are allowing pretty much everything. The output should look something like this.
Chain INPUT (policy… Continue reading

These are the steps I took to setup a fresh vps at linode.com running Ubuntu 8.04. Hopefully this will serve as a basic tutorial to configuring and securing a linux server.

Once you’ve deployed your distribution in the linode account manager and waited for the server to build your vps you need to connect to it using an ssh client. I am using Windows XP on my home box so the… Continue reading