Setup a server on your raspberryPi

This is a summary of what I did to setup a server on my raspberry Pi. This is based on previous post on the same topic and this link:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Web-Server/

Before starting, make sure that your raspberry software are updated and let us install the VIM editor as well:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vim

This post is not about vim but if you want to have a go, here are a few commands. First, type the character i to enter into the insert mode to be able to start editing. To save, press ESC key followed by :w. To enter the insert mode again; type i. To save and quit, type ESC followed by :wq. That’s it for the vim tutorial. Let us go back to the raspberry server.

hostname

The first step proposed in the link above is to setup a hostname for your computer. I should admit that it did not work for me but I do not mind to use the IP address. I’ll put the information for bookkeeping.

First, let us edit the dhclient.conf file

sudo -i
vim /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf

Now look for the line “#send host-name “xxxxxx”;” (on the raspberry version I used, xxxxxx is andare.fugue.com), and remove the “#” symbol from in front of it. Now press Esc key, and type “:wq” to save the changes.

Back in the shell, type:

hostname xxxxxx  # where "xxxxxx" is what you want to call your server

Finally for this step, type

ifdown eth0
ifup eth0

Now to reboot the system type

halt

Once you have started the raspberry pi again, change the password::

sudo -i
passwd pi

Install apache

sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5

you may get a few warnings (could not reliably determine the server’s full qualified name for servername). You may ignore them. I got the warning but the server works.

The group may be already setup but it does not cost anything to check:

sudo groupadd www-data
sudo usermod -g www-data www-data

then open a browser and type http://localhost

To enable htaccess files you must modify the config files::

sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default"

You’ll see a line like the following:

AllowOverride None

change it to

    AllowOverride ALL

Mysql

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client php5-mysql

It may take a while. When asked for a password, enter one and confirm it.

install an FTP server

In order to upload files on your FTP server, type in

sudo chown -R pi /var/www

Then, install this tool:

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

And edit its configuration file:

sudo vim /etc/vsftpd.conf

Search through the file and change the following lines:

anonymous_enable=YES Change To anonymous_enable=NO

and uncomment these lines (remove the hash )

#local_enable=YES
#write_enable=YES

Also, add a line to the bottom of the file:

force_dot_files=YES

Now restart the FTP server with

    sudo service vsftpd restart

Now you are able to connect to your Raspberry Pi with an FTP client, using the following information:

Host: (Hostname you set up or IP address)
Username: pi
Password: (Password you set previously)
Port: 21

CGI Python script configuration

edit the file /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default and adapt the section related to CGI script as follows:

 ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/www/cgi-bin/
        <Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
                AddHandler cgi-script .py
        </Directory>

Create the directory and change the permission:

mkdir /var/www/cgi-bin
chmod 755 /var/www/cgi-bin

You can try this sctipt:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-
import cgi
 
def main():
    print "Content-type: text/html\n"
    form = cgi.FieldStorage()
    print "<h1>Test photo</h1>"
main()

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