community.aegirproject.org

Note: This installation process assumes that you're using a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric). I realize that this is not the version of Ubuntu that most people would choose to use, but it's what I use. If you use a lower version of Ubuntu, you may have trouble with this guide.

On most VPS providers, you'll be logged in as root initially. The installation process below assumes that you are logged in as root. Obviously, this is not a secure long-term solution, so once you're done with this guide, I suggest setting up public key authentication, turning off root login over SSH, and creating yourself a new unprivileged user. That's out of scope for this doc page, so you're probably on your own for that.

Finally, this document assumes that you're going to be installing aegir at aegir.example.com. Any time you see example.com, replace it with your domain.

1. Housekeeping

Make sure you're up to date:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

And that you have the the python-software-properties package (we'll need it later):

apt-get install python-software-properties

2. Install MariaDB

From mariadb.org:

MariaDB is a database server that offers drop-in replacement functionality for MySQL. 
MariaDB is built by some of the original authors of MySQL, with assistance from the
broader community of Free and open source software developers. In addition to the core
functionality of MySQL, MariaDB offers a rich set of feature enhancements including
alternate storage engines, server optimizations, and patches.

To get started, add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list.d:

# MariaDB repository list - created 2012-02-15 07:42 UTC
# http://downloads.askmonty.org/mariadb/repositories/
deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/mariadb/repo/5.3/ubuntu oneiric main
deb-src http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/mariadb/repo/5.3/ubuntu oneiric main

You'll also need to download the signing key:

apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xcbcb082a1bb943db

Next, update the apt cache and install MariaDB:

apt-get update
apt-get install mariadb-server

(Optional) If you want, you can use the attached my.cnf. I use this configuration on a small VPS with 512MB of RAM. MySQL runs great. To use it:

cd /etc/mysql
wget http://community.aegirproject.org/sites/community.aegirproject.org/files...
mv my.cnf_.txt my.cnf
service mysql restart

3. Install Nginx

Add the Nginx repository to your sources by running:

apt-add-repository ppa:brianmercer/nginx
apt-get update

Next, install Nginx and PHP-FPM:

apt-get install nginx-custom php5-cli php5-mysql php5-fpm php5-gd

Create the default docroot for Nginx as well:

mkdir -p /var/www/nginx-default

4. Install all the other stuff

apt-get install git-core git-doc vim drush postfix rsync unzip bzr patch curl

When prompted for Postfix configuration, select "Internet Site", then use "example.com" for the System mail name.

5. Create the Aegir user

Easy:

adduser --system --group --home /var/aegir aegir
adduser aegir www-data
chsh -s /bin/bash aegir

6. Misc Configuration

Make sure the Aegir user is allowed to restart Nginx:

echo "aegir ALL=NOPASSWD: /etc/init.d/nginx" >> /etc/sudoers

Symlink Aegir's nginx configuration into place:

ln -s /var/aegir/config/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/aegir.conf

Disable duplicated directives in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf (the Aegir config specifies these values as well - if you do not disable them in the main nginx.conf, nginx will fail to restart). You can just remove (or comment them out with a "#") the lines that start with the following

types_hash_max_size
tcp_nopush
error_log

Then, restart Nginx:

service nginx restart

7. Install Aegir

IMPORTANT Switch to the Aegir user now: IMPORTANT

su - aegir
cd ~/

Download the latest Provision release:

mkdir ~/.drush
cd ~/.drush
wget -c http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/provision-6.x-1.6.tar.gz
tar -zxf provision-6.x-1.6.tar.gz
rm provision-6.x-1.6.tar.gz

Start the Aegir install process:

cd ~/
drush hostmaster-install aegir.example.com \
--aegir_host="aegir.example.com" \
--http_service_type="nginx" \
--aegir_db_user="root" \
--aegir_db_pass="[YOUR ROOT DATABASE PASSWORD]" \
--db_service_type="mysql" \
--db_port=3306 \
--aegir_db_host="localhost" \
--client_email="[YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS] \
--script_user="aegir" \
--web_group="www-data" \
--profile=hostmaster

8. Optional Improvements

drupal.org/project/hosting_queue_runner

drupal.org/project/provision_boost