I am going to bet most of you know what RDP is. For those that do not know what EDP is I will explain it. RDP stands for Remote Desktop protocol. It has been around forever in the Windows world. Techies like myself eat, breath and sleep using RDP because it makes our jobs and our clients so much more accessible!

Remote desktop is made up of two parts. There is the client and the server. Both the Client and desktop use RDP to communicate back and forth.

The Linux world has had the client for a while. (ie you could remote desktop onto a Windows Server) but you could never RDP from a Windows box onto a Ubuntu box.

Until Now!

This is how you will setup your linux (ubuntu) box to get RDP access.

1.) You will need to install the software. Make sure that you have an internet connection and type this code:

Basically it means change to “Super User” and install a package called “xrdp”. Believe it or not, that is all it will take. You will be asked for your password and then it will ask if you want to install xrdp.

As you can see from the screenshot it will install around 7.4MB of new software. Obviously VNC is somehow being used. Honestly, It performs just as good as it’s windows counter part.

Once you install it, step number two will be to connect and verify that it is working.

2.) Log in a verify that everything works

I normally recommend that you use the ip Address of the xrdp server. If you know you computer can connect to the server via name resolution then you can just use the name of the server.

As you can see the login look a bit different. Let’s actually log into the machine. Like windows you will need to enter a local user on the server. In my case I made a user called “SuperDuperUser” and give it a password.

Look at that. Remote desktop in all it’s glory!

• tail -f /var/log/syslog

For example I downloaded the latest “Netbeans IDE” from their website. It is named: netbeans-6.9.1-ml-linux.sh

To install it I open the terminal and type:

sudo sh netbeans-6.9.1-ml-linux.sh

This will allow me to run the shell command. Once done it will try and load the install Wizard.

Please don’t be scared off by how long this post is! I’ve made over 70 screen shots which takes up a bunch of room. Honestly the whole procedure (minus install and updates) really doesn’t take much time to do at all! I have made a PDF version of this document. If you are wanting it please leave a comment on this blog with your email letting me know you want a copy. Your email is never posted and I will email you a copy of the PDF in all it’s glory. It looks amazing on the iPad

One question you might have before we start is why do I need a machine specific to developing for Web development? I find it’s beneficial because:

• I have a fully functional machine with everything I need on it
• Doesn’t have all the distractions that normal machine would have.
• Help streamlines the development especially like WordPress MultiSite
• Having things setup properly like backup, config tools and shortcuts right from the beginning really does help!

Here’s a very simplified high level list of things I’ll cover:

• What You will need
• My setup
• Brief How To Install Ubuntu
• Install LAMP Stack with config Tools
• Create Links for all the main web tools
• Setup Apache (Permissions,Folders and security)
• Download & Install WordPress
• Configure MultiSites in WordPress. We do this so that you can host multiple WordPress websites locally.
• Setup Web Development programs
• Learn how to use almost every browser to test a website from one machine
• Setup Backup

What you will need for this “How To”

You will need several things for following along:

• Dedicated computer/virtual machine to install Linux on
• Ubuntu Linux install disk
• A Network Server/ USB Drive for backup

My Setup

To make sure that I didn’t miss any steps in this “How to” I redid my setup on both a HP Pavillion dv6700 and a Dell 9400. For the screenshots I am using Ubuntu running in a virtual machine. The virtual machine software I used is called Virtual Box. All testing was done using Ubuntu 10.10 32bit Desktop Edition. While I don’t think the steps will change much with newer versions. If it does I will reflect the changes/updates here as needed. I am using Ubuntu 10.10.

What you will need

• You will need a machine capable of running Linux or some sort of Virtual Machine software that can run Linux
• You need to get the Ubuntu Desktop version downloaded/burnt to CD on a separte machine.
• You can download the disk image from here:  http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download
• You will need to write down all usernames and passwords as we progress through the install. If you forget them you will have to figure out how to reset them by yourself.

Terms/Items you will need to know

• %user% will always mean the user you created for Ubuntu. The user you log in as. In my examples it is “jared”
• In this example my password is just “password” for every password entered. I recommend that you don’t do the same thing
• I will use terminal or command prompt for describing being at the terminal. The terminal can be opened by going to “applications-Terminal”. Terminal has a black computer monitor icon
• I don’t recommend that you use the defaults especially if this is a production machine.

Brief overview on how to install Ubuntu Linux.

I expect that you have Ubuntu on a DVD and that you are ready to proceed.

One thing I need to warn you is that Linux is always playing catch up in regards to hardware drivers. If you have the latest and greatest hardware you might not be able to find a driver that works with your rig. That being said, it’s nice to see that recently some companies are taking the initiative to develop drivers for Linux at the same time they release the driver for Windows. The Linux install process has come along way in the last 20 years. The hardest part about the Ubuntu install is going to be whether your machine will have hardware support.

You will need to make sure that computer can boot the machine from the Cd/DVD drive. Most machines from Dell, HP, ACER etc have notes during the boot screen to tell you what you need to press. If you aren’t sure do a search for your particular machine and  model # for the Boot Keys.

Here’s a visual walk through of a install (Follow left to right. Top to bottom):

Your install should be done!

It is time to start building this development machine. In order to do this we will need to get the webserver up and running. There are MANY ways of installing a webserver, MySQL and PHP but I will show you one of the ways I do it that has proven to be VERY reliable for me.
Make sure that everything is all up to date. Type:

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get update

Apply any updates you are presented with. Open “Update Manager”. Install everything in the list.

I normally restart the machine at this point because there is normally a Linux kernel upgrade. Make sure to reboot now.

Install the LAMP stack

You’ve already got the “L” part of LAMP done. Now let’s install Apache, MySQL, and PHP (AMP). To do this we will open a command prompt and type:

sudo apt-get install tasksel

Hit “Y” for everything that comes up. Next type:

sudo tasksel

*NOTE*- I have heard some people get “tasksel: aptitude failed (100)” error. This means that there are updates waiting to be applied and you missed the last step. You should install those updates first. Type: sudo apt-get update to force your machine to check updates and then select “Install”.

Follow the instructions on the screen.

Now go check –http://localhost–. You should see that Apache is install correctly.

Install PhpMyAdmin

This program allows you to setup and work with both MySQL databases and users. To install it at the command line type:

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

NOTE – Hit “Y” and enter to install.

Follow the screen shots for the install info.

*Note* – In order to select an item you need to press the space bar. This will insert a “*” to the left of the item you were selecting. Enter moves you on to the next screen.

Now go check and log into:

• http://localhost/phpmyadmin

*NOTE* – If you get a 404 error on phpmyadmin then you made a mistake most likely things aren’t up to date. No worries. Run this if you are getting the 404 Error and follow the prompts: sudo dpkg-reconfigure -plow phpmyadmin

Install Webmin

While this isn’t completely needed I am sure you will use it eventually. It’s a very powerful application that can configure your Linux box. This tool is a must on headless boxes. Here’s how to install Webmin:

Download webmin from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/webadmin/files/webmin/1.530/webmin_1.530_all.deb/download

You will want to download the .deb version and open it with “Ubuntu Software Center

Click install and and verify that it is installing through the “In Progress” section (left side).

You should create and check the links to the websites we just created in FireFox

• http://localhost
• https://localhost:10000   <– Webmin
• http://localhost/phpmyadmin

*NOTE* – The first time you log into Webmin there will be a security warning. The reason for this warning is that Webmin by default uses HTTPS. HTTPS needs a certificate. What this warning is basically saying is that you are using a private (FREE Cert) or that the Cert doesn’t match the url you typed into the machine. It’s no big deal. You wouldn’t want to use a private cert if you were planning on using this as a full time hosting machine.

Setup MySQL

• Log into PhpMyAdmin
• Click on Privilages
• Click on “add new User”
• Fill out info. NOTE – Do not use WordPress as a username if you plan on putting your machine on the internet or in a production environment!
• Click on “Go” at the bottom of the Webpage once you fill out the info
• You will see that the user has been created. Phpmyadmin will even show you the script it ran.

Configure Apache

This is going to be some of the hardest parts of the whole “How to” if you were trying to figure things out yourself. Trust me! This section is one of the main reason’s why I made this “how to” article.

• Create a www in Home directory. Apply “World Icon” to show it’s a folder used for web server.
• The globe icon I find helps you find the directory faster later.

Tell Apache to use this new folder as the default Web server. Go to:

• Webmin – https://localhost:10000
• Login
• Servers
• Apache Webserver
• Existing virtual Hosts tab
• Virtual Server
• Click Document Options Icon
• Document root will be ” /home/%user%/www”
• click “save”

Scroll all the way to the bottom

We need to save these setting and then restart Apache

In Webmin click:

• Apply changes (top right)
• Stop Apache
• Start Apache

We will now tell Apache to run as your account. This will give Apache the ability to save and edit files to the new “www” folder that is located in your home directory. To configure this go to:

• Webmin
• Servers
• Apache Webserver
• Global Configuration tab
• Users and Groups”
• Run as unix user- ” %username%
• Run as Unix Group- admin

Because WordPress uses index.php to start the install we need to allow index.php to automatically load when you visit the root of a folder. To allow Apache to do this we must make one configuration change. You must:

• Open a Terminal
• sudo gedit /etc/apache2/conf.d/php.conf
• enter “DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm index.php index.php3″
• Save the php.conf file

Configure “Pretty Links”

At this point you might be wanting to start in on the WordPress install. Don’t! We need to enable an apache module that will allow apache to do some real magic when it comes to creating dynamic URLS! While WordPress by itself doesn’t need to have “pretty links” enabled, it will if you plan on using the enabling “MultiSite” for WordPress. “Pretty Links” module’s real name is called “rewrite_mod”. Let’s enable it and set things up so that WordPress can take advantage of it’s magic.

• Open command line
• sudo a2enmod rewrite
• sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/default- This should open up a file in a text editor
• In default there should be 2 separate sections that look almost the same. In my example it was the second section that we need to change: “Directory /home/%user%/www/>”. Change None to All
• Restart apache by running this command: “sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart“

You should see this

Download WordPress

• http://wordpress.org/download/

Install WordPress

Wow. We’re finally at the part where we can start installing WordPress. To do this you will need to:

• Copy Files from the WordPress download into the “www” folder we created a few steps ago
• Run WordPress install by going to: http://localhost/

View the screenshots on how to install WordPress

Log in with your new credentials

Configure MultiSites

MultiSites is a feature of WordPress that allows you to have multiple sites in one WordPress install! This is great for developers who need a play ground in which to develop multiple client websites and not have to worry about having multiple databases kicking around. Another nice feature of Multisites is that it makes backup much easier as well.

To configure MultiSites you need to make one change to your “wp-config.php” file. The “wp-config.php” file is located in the root of where you installed WordPress. You will need to use some sort of text editor to edit this file. You will want to add this line to the file:

define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);

“I like to put it above the line that reads “That’s all, stop editing!…”

Save the file, log out of WordPress and then log back in. Click on Tools – Network. Select Sub-directories and then fill out info. Click install button.

It’s say’s create a folder called “blogs.dir” in wp-content.

In the “wp-config.php” file you edited earlier

Open up terminal and type – sudo gedit .htaccess

Paste info into .htaccess file and hit save.

Log out and then back into WordPress.

MultiSites is now setup.

Setup Tools to help with Web Development

This next section is the tools and add-ons that I can’t live without when I do web programming. I hope that you will try these out and see just how helpful they can be.

Netbeans IDE

This is by far one of the best editors I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. The GUI might not be the BEST looking (Visual studio is my favorite looking IDE) but I find it is the best IDE for open source programming. Go to “Ubuntu Software Centre”. Search for “Netbeans”. Tell it to install.

GIMP

This program has really matured. While I still find it not as good as Photoshop the program can do most things almost as well. One thing that it’s missing by default is a slicing program. I’ve found a way to emulate slicing like in photoshop by installing Slicer. Similar to Netbeans search for “Gimp”. Click install. I’ve included a link to “slicer”.

• http://docs.gimp.org/en/python-fu-slice.html – Slicer

Inkscape

Inkscape is to Adobe Illustrator ad Gimp is to Photoshop. Inkscape is a vector drawing tool that is very good. You can search and install it much like “The Gimp”.

PlaysOnLinux

Use Ubuntu Software Center to install “PlayOnLinux”. This will also install “Microsoft Core Fonts” during install. You need to install them.

This program will install the most common MS fonts on Linux as well as helping you install:

• IE6
• IE7
• Chrome
• Safari

To run “PlayOnLinux” you need to click on “Applications-Games-PlayOnLinux”

Let’s setup PlayOnLinux.

If it finds any updates you will have to manually download it.

You can download PlayOnLinux here: http://www.playonlinux.com/en/download.html

You need to use the “Debian” file format with Ubuntu. Tell it to open with “Ubuntu Software Centre” when it is downloaded.

Tell it to upgrade.

Open “PlayOnLinux” again. It will most likely ask you to install some more MS Fonts. Let it do it’s job. You will have to agree with it’s EULA.

Click install to start installing Internet Explorer:

I won’t go through all the installs with you as they are all pretty similar. Click on the program you want installed and the program will automatically download and install on your machine. I found IE 6 works awesome. IE 7 however isn’t all that great but does the job re: checking websites.

Once you are all done you can use all these programs.

Setup Backup.

My favorite backup tool is called “Deja Dup”. It’s a front-end program for duplicity. It works very much like Time Machine for Mac OSX. What’s great about this program is that it is able to backup to almost any media known to man. SSH, FTP, Windows Share or even Amazon S3!

When it backups it will only copy files that have changes since the last backup! This means that backup sizes are smaller and much, much faster! You can also schedule backups as well with it. Ok, enough talk let get it setup!

Very much like every other program in this “How to” we’ve installed apps through Ubuntu Software Centre. This program is no exception. Search for “Deja Dup” and install it. Once installed it will add itself to the system tools menu under Applications.

While you might be tempted to jump into the backup program it would be best to think out your backup needs and know where you want to backup to. I recommend that you backup to an external hard drive or NAS. I have a DLink 323 that has Samba (Windows Share) running on it. My walk through will show how I connect to my share and then make a link to the folder I want to backup to.

First go to places – Connect to server.

Enter the server information. Here’s what my server info is:

Doing this will mount the network folder to your places. Find the folder you want to backup to and then drag it to the “places” sidebar. It will become more apparent in future steps why we will need this.

Now we need to open the backup program “Deja Dup”. Remember the first backup will take the longest.

It can’t get much easier than this. Do you want to backup or do you want to restore!

You want to select the shortcut to the backup folder you added to your “places side bar”. Select “Encrypt” if you don’t want someone looking at the backups.

You will need to specify the items that need to be backed up. Remember we moved the HTML files into www in our profile? That will all be nicely backed up now

When the backup is done you will be asked if you want to schedule the backup. I recommend that you backup at least once a day.

Here’s another link you might want to read. There is a member of the WordPress Community here in Winnipeg that also blogged about Netbeans and WordPress - http://dan.bernardic.ca/wordpress-netbeans/

Free Ebook

sudo netstat –pltn

After you run that command you will see something similar:

As you can see on my test machine I am running a SSH Server(SSHD), Printer server (cups), Dropbox, Vinoserver(VNC), Apache Server (Web). If you don’t use “sudo” in the command you might receive an error that you can’t view all the running processes.

1. SSH – Stands for Secure Shell
2. VNC – Open standard remote desktop program. It’s very slow and choppy but runs on almost any platform
3. SSH Tunnel – You can tunnel specific ports through the SSH connection. Basically you encrypt the information from one computer you own to another

Why would you want to use VNC over an SSH Tunnel? Well, VNC by default has no security built into it. Your password is sent clear text the whole way. This makes it very easy to “sniff” your password. A person could then use the password they sniffed to log into your machine.

What will you need to follow along?

• 2 Computers. I’m going to be using a laptop and a desktop computer.
• Router
• Internet connection on either side
• Putty (Name of software)
• VNC Client (Type of software)

What you need to know about the “test” setup.

• Our SSH Server’s IP address will be 192.168.2.2
• Our Router’s Internal IP address will be 192.168.2.1
• Our Router’s External IP address will be 24.24.24.24 which is linked to company.dyndns.org
• SSH’s default Port is Port 22
• VNC Server port default is port 5900
• Port Putty will create for us will be 5902. This number can be almost anything as long as it doesn’t interfere with a port already in use on your computer.
• Port 22 outbound should be blocked if you are at work
• Port 443 is normally open. Can you imagine if it wasn’t?

Please write down what your own information like IP addresses before you start setting things up. Trust me. It makes things much easier to figure out. There are two main parts of this how to. The first part is getting the SSH connection up and running. Here’s how the SSH connection is going to look.

Ok. If you read the “What you need to know” section you’d already know that if you are at work you will most likely not be able to SSH into a box at home because any good admin doesn’t give their end users access to SSH. Unfortunately SSH can be run on almost any port. In this example we are going to be telling the SSH client to talk on port 443 and for the router to listen on port 443 for SSH. The router will convert the port 443 to port 22 using port forwarding. The router will send it to our server called “sshserver”.

NOTE – I recommend that if you plan on doing this often that you use a service like DynDNS. It allows you to type in an english domain name and be taken to your ip address no matter if your home IP address changes. In this example we will be using the DNS name “company.dyndns.org” which resolves to a public ip address of 24.24.24.24.

“sshserver” setup

To setup the Ubuntu server we named sshserver  we are going to install “open SSH server”. To do this we will type this command at the terminal:

The program will automatically create the certificates you are going to need to secure your communications.

Next we need to enable VNC. To do this it is very easy. We must:

(Ps- I move “Remote Desktop” up in the list just so the screenshot could be a bit smaller)

We need to allow people to view and control the desktop. We also need to enter a password that a person will use to log on to the VNC server.

That was easy to setup the server eh?

Now let’s setup the router. We will want to log in to the router. Each router is going to be different. What you are going to want to look for is “port fowarding”(linksys) or “virtual Servers” (dlink). In it you should have the ability to say what port you are wanting to listen on and what IP address and port you want to translate to.

Next we need to setup Putty on “laptop”. Laptop is running Ubuntu Linux with the latest version of Putty installed. We installed it from the Ubuntu Software Centre. If you have a windows box you can also run putty by going to the website and downloading the program.

We’re going to setup putty like this:

Enter the info and then click on “Default Settings” and hit Save. This alone will allow us to SSH into our server called “sshserver”. When you connect you will be prompted for your Ubuntu username and password. Once logged in it’s like your right in front of the terminal of “sshserver”! The best part is everything is completely encrypted!

This next part is the part I had the hard time with the first time I started using SSH. SSH Tunneling allows you to send certain ports across in a tunnel like fashion. We are going to use VNC and connect to our “sshserver” across the internet.

We already know that ON “sshserver” VNC is running locally on port 5900. We are going use Putty to create a port that “laptop” listen. Anything sent to this port we will forward to the destination port of 5902 on the “sshserver”. Making sense? To do this we will need to go down to the connection section in putty, Click on SSH so that it drops down and then select tunnels. This is how mine looked after I was done:

Just so that I don’t have to enter this info in again you should get back up to the first screen (Session), click on “Default settings” and click save.

You should now make a connection to “sshserver” using putty by click “open” button. Great! Log into the terminal by using the username and password of your “sshserver” default user.

We now need to open a vnc client. On Ubuntu you can click on “Applications-Internet-Remote Desktop Viewer”.

Click on “Connect”.

Click on VNC Protocol and then type the Local port ON the laptop that was created BY Putty.

Click Connect. You will be asked for a password. Enter the password you entered for the Remote Desktop. You’re done!

• “sudo apt-get install acpi”

Like all apt-get commands it is going to ask you for your admin password and make you verify that you want to install the command using the letter “Y”.

The next thing you will need to do in order to check the batter power from the command line is to run this command:

• “sudo acpi -b”

This will give you the batter power from the command line.

When I first saw this I figured my network card/drivers weren’t compatible with wireshark. I did some searching around and it turns out that the issue is caused by not running Wireshark as root.

If you want to run Wireshark in Ubuntu you will need to run it as root. To do this you can either run Wireshark from the command line using:

1. sudo wireshark
2. Change the shortcut to the program to run as root

NOTE – If you can’t run the program as root from the command line using “Sudo wireshark” it’s most likely caused by you not giving “sudo” a password. You can do this by typing: “sudo passwd”. You will have to enter a password for sudo.

At the command line type “sudo wireshark” and the program should work as expected. If you don’t want to have to type that in every time all you have to do is either edit the existing shortcut icon or make a new one and change it’s properties. To run a program as root from gnome interface you need to preface the command with “gksudo”. To do this just right click the shortcut and select “properties”. This will open a new window. Click on the command line. Leave the existing “wireshark” command there. Copy and paste “gksudo” before the command. Make sure there is a space between “gksudo” and “wireshark”.

Double click the icon to verify that it works. Hope this helped you to get the network cards in Wireshark to show up for you