Install

...

With Ubuntu installing is very straightforward,

Code Block
language bash
sudo apt-get install apache2

Apache 2.x is now installed.

If you load up your browser and type in the ip address of your server you will see a simple page letting you know Apache is working.

Provide Server Name

Apache is working fine, but during restart you will get the warning message, "apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using ...".

Most websites have a domain name attached to them. Apache is looking for this on startup. There actually is not much documentation on exactly what is happening here. If you happen to know then please let me know via comments on this page. Based on my reading here is how to resolve the error.

First use the hostname command to determine the name of your system,

hostname # Determine name of your system. In this example this server will return tinman
tinman

Next load the empty /etc/apache/httpd.conf into an editor of your choice,

sudo ne /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Add to the very top of the httpd.conf file,

ServerName tinman

Test

Verify that the Apache Web Server is running first by hitting your server's IP Address. If you do not know your ip address, at the console type,

...

Sometimes you may get back more than one IP address if you have more than one Ethernet card. If you are unsure, just try them one at a time in the next step. In this case mine is 173.203.126.225.

Then launch Launch a browser and enter your ip address into the browser.

You should see a webpage show up saying "It works!".

Apache Basic Server Hardening

Here are some of the basic hardening steps I take today.

Edit /etc/apache2/conf.d/security

set ServerTokens Prod - This turns off all the extra header information sent by Apache. Primarily, it would let a client know what version of Apache is being used. The information could be used to look up vulnerabilities on the particular version of Apache you are running.

set ServerSignatures Off - Removes footer information from default apache pages. For example, page not found.

Optional Optimization

I found that you can save (according to htop about 3MB) of memory if the status apache module is disabled,

sudo a2dismod
Your choices are: alias auth_basic authn_file authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_user autoindex cgid
                  deflate dir env filter jk mime negotiation proxy proxy_http rewrite setenvif status substitute
Which module(s) do you want to disable (wildcards ok)?
status
Module status disabled.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
  service apache2 restart
sudo service apache2 restart

...

default Apache webpage.

Status, Stopping, Starting, Restarting and Reload

You should know the basic commands to running Apache 2. Go ahead and try them. Note ignore the warning message about "fully qualified domain name" as that is covered in the next section.

As of Ubuntu 12, the following the basic commands to manage Apache2 are,

sudo service apache2 status
sudo service apache2 stop
sudo service apache2 start
sudo service apache2 restart # restart will restart the service (safer, as not all services support reload)
sudo service apache2 reload # reload will re-load the configuration files, with little or no downtime.  Not all services support it (source: http://askubuntu.com/questions/105200/what-is-the-difference-between-service-restart-and-service-reload)

Before Ubuntu12,

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 status
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Provide Server Name

Apache is working fine, but during restart you will get the warning message, "apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using ...".

Most websites have a domain name attached to them. Apache is looking for this on start-up. Depending on the version of Apache and Ubuntu this can be resolved by adding the ServerName Directive with the hostname.

You can determine hostname by typing,

hostname 

Adding an entry into the Global Configuration ensures that the change will persist even if Apache is upgraded,

# create the configuration file in the "available" section
echo "ServerName localhost" | sudo tee /etc/apache2/conf-available/servername.conf
# enable it by creating a symlink to it from the "enabled" section
sudo a2enconf servername

This concept has changed over time and look here for legacy versions of Apache.

Restart Apache to confirm you do not get the warning messages,

sudo service apache2 restart

Uninstall Apache Completely

.. these instructions need to be improved, and there is nothing here about removing logs.

1. stop apache:

sudo service apache2 stop

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2

...

stop

2. 

That is for now. I might flush this section out a bit more later. Surprisingly, the default Apache configuration is very robust that I rarely need optimization. Instead, we focus optimization efforts on application servers which usually give us the biggest improvements.

remove:

sudo apt-get remove apache2

sudo apt-get purge apache2

References

http://cloudservers.mosso.com/index.php/Ubuntu_-_Apache_configuration#Security_Settings - Rackspace wiki on hardening Apache Web Server.

Apache Web Server Hardening Guide - https://geekflare.com/apache-web-server-hardening-security/