As I won’t have to deal with JSF in my new project I have to write down my experiences somewhere. So instead of using a file on my own computer what can be a better place to share my experience with others through this blog.

• Akismet checks your comments for spam. You have to activate this plugin with a wordpress API key. You receive this key via email when you sign up at wordpress.com.
• aLinks automatically links keywords you use in your posts, e.g. every time you use apple in a post, it’ll be linked to a pre-defined website, in this case http://www.apple.com. This plugin is highly customizable.
• Another Wordpress Meta Plugin adds the META-tags ‘keywords’ and ‘description’ with the user-defined values for each post to your pages.
• Simple Tagging and Simple Tagging Widget allow you to add tags to a post that can be presented in form of a widget in your sidebar. This plugin is highly customizable.
• Social Bookmarks Bar adds links to popular social bookmark sites like digg or delicious. I had to customize the plugin, so it doesn’t support all 39 sites (which is overload to me) and generate more cleaner html and smaller icons. I added the php-function to my themes in a manner to show the social bar in the post footer.
• Wordpress Database Backup generates a backup of your wordpress database on the fly or sends it via email. It’s also possible to schedule the backup, so you receive a daily or weekly backup by email. You have to allow wordpress to write in your wp-content directory.
• wp-cache caches your pages for faster access. It generates static pages that are returned to the caller instead of dynamically invoking php everytime a page is requested. You have to allow wordpress to write in your wp-content directory. Keep in mind that changes in themes might not become visible because a page is cached.
• wp-syntax highlights keywords in different programming languages. It also adds line numbers if desired.

wordpress installation

After you setup your vServer as described here you log in your account using a ssh connection with ssh root@[servername], e.g. ssh root@vividbreeze.org. Your main server configuration data is located at /srv/www/vhosts/[domainname]. The content is located in the subdirectory /httpdocs. Make sure that all your domain and subdomains support cgi and php.

Download wordpress and upload it to /srv/www/vhosts/[domainname]/httpdocs/ with a ftp program. First you have to create a database using plesk or mysql at the command line. Now you can follow the wordpress installation process describes here. To comply with the multi-subdomain solution you should use www as the database prefix in your wp-config.php.

multi-subdomain installation

Eric Range published a brilliant and easy solution for a multi(sub)domain hosting of wordpress. You have to change your wp-config.php as described here. You only need one wordpress installation, including one plugin and one themes directory. Every subdomain gets it’s own prefix in the database. For each subdomain you have to go through the wordpress installation process; that’s all.

Before you start installing wordpress for your subdomains you have to edit the httpd.include file in /srv/www/vhosts/[domainname]/httpdocs/conf. Please notice that everytime you change or add new subdomains using plesk httpd.include is overwritten. You can edit the httpd.include file using an editor like vi or edit it on your local computer and upload it via ftp.

We want to achieve that if you invoke the url [sub].[domainname].[tld] the corresponding weblog is presented in your browser. Since there is only one wordpress installation, all the (sub)domains have to point to this installation. First we change the domain settings:

…
<VirtualHost aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:80>
ServerName vividbreeze.org:80
ServerAlias www.vividbreeze.org
UseCanonicalName Off
SuexecUserGroup chris psacln
DocumentRoot /srv/www/vhosts/vividbreeze.org/httpdocs/wordpress
…


Then each subdomain also has to point to the wordpress directory:

<VirtualHost aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:80>
ServerName chris.vividbreeze.org:80
SuexecUserGroup chris psacln
DocumentRoot /srv/www/vhosts/vividbreeze.org/httpdocs/wordpress
CustomLog /srv/www/vhosts/vividbreeze.org/statistics/logs/access_log plesklog
ErrorLog /srv/www/vhosts/vividbreeze.org/statistics/logs/error_log
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /srv/www/vhosts/vividbreeze.org/subdomains/chris/cgi-bin/
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
SSLEngine off
</IfModule>
<Directory /srv/www/vhosts/vividbreeze.org/httpdocs>
<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
php_admin_flag engine on
php_admin_flag safe_mode on
php_admin_value open_basedir “/srv/www/vhosts/vividbreeze.org/httpdocs:/tmp”
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
php_admin_flag engine on
php_admin_flag safe_mode on
php_admin_value open_basedir “/srv/www/vhosts/vividbreeze.org/httpdocs:/tmp”
</IfModule>

You could also change the global configuration: /etc/apache2/httpd.conf or /etc/apache2/default-server.conf.

Now call the URL [sub].[domainname].[tld] in your browser and you are guided through the wordpress installation process. That’s all - as easy as a-b-c.

When you’ve finished installing all subdomains I’ll recommend to set the install.php read-only using chmod 600 install.php. Of course you can also delete or rename this file.

Strato Server Configuration

When your vServer is setup by strato the you receive an email including the hostname. First you have to login at https://config.stratoserver.net with your order number or hostname as login. The password is sent as short message to your mobile phone. After a successful login you see a menu on the right which very self-explaining. I recommend to change the password first. You also have to order a domain if you haven’t already done this. This process takes about two hours for a .org tld.

After my domain was set up I installed a new operation system under Serverkonfiguration -> NeuInstallation. Here you have to choose between different Linux distributions and versions with or without plesk (an easy setup interface). You receive an email after the installation process which takes about 30 minutes up to an hour. Then go to Serverkonfiguration -> Serverdaten an write down the root-password. Then activate and download your plesk license key under Serverkonfiguration -> Plesk.

Plesk

After the OS installation should login at plesk with your domainname and port 8443, e.g. https://www.vividbreeze.org:8443. Make sure that this port is open. Proxies or firewalls within a company might block this port. The login is admin and root-password. The certificates are not trusted by Firefox so you have to trust them manually.

I’m not really satisfied with plesk but for the first steps it’s easier than to configure your server with yast or edit the UNIX configuration files with vi. After a successful login you see a menu on the left side of the screen. First upload your License key under Server -> Lizenzverwaltung (System). Then change your password under Server -> Passwort ändern (Administrator-Informationen). You should also update your plesk version and components under Server -> Updater (Dienste).

Before you can set up your webserver you first have to add a new client under Kunden -> Neuen Kunden-Account hinzufügen. After your client is set up you can add a domain. In the domain menu you can add subdomains, add new databases, add new email accounts, alter the crontab, change the DNS settings etc. From here on plesk is self-explaining.

With each domain or subdomain you also change the webserver configuration - so the httpd.include is overwritten every time you make changes in plesk. This counts for any configuration file. I recommend to use plesk for the initial setup of your vServer. After that it’s more effective to login to your server via a UNIX shell and edit the configuration files with an editor.

Shell Login

You can now login to your server using a UNIX shell: ssh root@[servername], e.g. ssh root@vividbreeze.org. The password is the root-password shown on your strato account page. Your webserver content is initially located under /srv/www/vhosts/[domainname]. Here you’ll find a/conf directory with the httpd.include, the /httpdocs directory with your webpages etc. The /subdomains directory hosts your subdomains with a similar structure.

Before you proceed I recommend playing with plesk and get in touch with UNIX if you’re not already familiar with it. Try to setup subdomains, email accounts, databases, play with the apache webserver configuration, set up a weblog or wiki etc. You always have the chance to re-install a new operation system and to start again from scratch for your final server installation.