Server Setup

We have re-installed our “development” server under VMware ESXi 3.5.  So far it works well. It also gives me the opportunity to better document how I got the base system installed and prepared for actual use.  My documentation starts after you have a base system installed (i.e. Windows is up and running and all updates are installed).  My system is built with Windows Server 2008, but 2003 should not be too different. I also do any web browsing with Firefox instead of IE. If your server is going to be a domain controller, do that first. If you setup cron and ssh first and then become a domain controller it gets very confused about the users.

  • Install Cygwin
    • Download the setup program for Cygwin. (Place this file somewhere you can keep it as it caches download information.)
    • Run the setup program and click Next to begin selecting options.
    • Select Install from Internet and click Next.
    • Use the supplied options (Install to C:\cygwin, Install for All Users, Default file type is Unix) and click Next.
    • Enter whatever local package cache directory, I usually leave it where I am running Setup from, click Next.
    • Change your internet connection settings as needed (generally Direct Connection is fine), click Next.
    • Select the mirror to use, one near you. I usually use http://mirrors.xmission.com/ as it is out of Utah and pretty fast.
    • Time to make some changes to the defaults. Some of the defaults do not install things we need (like cron), so we need to make sure the following items are set to install (as designated by showing a version number). Click on each package to toggle it on or off.
      • Admin->cron
      • Admin->cygrunsrv
      • Admin->shutdown
      • Devel->cvs
      • Devel->subversion
      • Editors->nano (You can install other editors if you like, I prefer nano)
      • Interpreters->Python
      • Net->curl
      • Net->openssh
      • There are many other packages, if you are used to working on Unix boxes you might want to look around and turn on any other tools you want to use.
    • Click Next to begin downloading and installing.
    • Wait until finished.
    • Turn off Create icon on Desktop (unless you really want it), click Finish.
    • To get to the Cygwin (bash) shell, go to All Programs->Cygwin->Cygwin Bash Shell.
    • Run the following command nano /Cygwin.bat
    • Before the bash –login -i line, insert the following:
      • @SET EDITOR=nano
    • Press Ctrl-X and accept the default filename to save and exit.
    • Close the shell and open it again, this will set your default editor.
  • Enable SSH on server
    • If you have not already, start up your Bash shell (see last step above).
    • Run chmod +r /etc/passwd /etc/group
    • Run chmod a+x /var
    • Run ssh-host-config
    • If you are asked about overwriting existing files, say yes.
    • Should privilege separation be used? yes
    • New local account sshd? yes
    • Do you want to install sshd as a service? yes
    • Enter the value of CYGWIN for the daemon: ntsec (default)
    • Do you want to use a different name? (cyg_server) no
    • Create new privileged user account cyg_server? yes
    • Please enter the password: (Enter any password, you won’t need it again, but you should remember it)
    • Reenter: (Re-enter the password)
    • If Since you have the firewall enabled, open up port 22. In Server 2008 the following works:
      • Open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
      • Select the Inbound Rules category
      • Select New Rule…
      • Select the Port type of rule, click Next
      • Enter specific local port 22, click Next
      • Ensure Allow the connection is turned on, click Next
      • Ensure all rule profiles are selected, click Next
      • Enter the name Secure Shell (SSH), click Finish
    • Reboot the server, once it comes back up SSH should work.
  • Enable the Cron package for automatically running scripts
    • If you have not performed the installation of SSH you may need to run the chmod commands at the beginning of the SSH installation procedure.
    • Open up your Cygwin Bash shell (or SSH into the machine).
    • Run cron-config
    • Do you want to install the cron daemon as a service? yes
    • Enter the value of CYGWIN for the daemon: ntsec smbntsec (this is the default)
    • Do you want theh cron daemon to run as yourself? no
    • (If you did not perform the SSH procedure, the following will be different from below, but similar to the SSH procedure)
    • Do you want to use another name? no (use already created cyg_server user)
    • Please enter the password for user cyg_server: (Enter password you used when creating)
    • Reenter: (and enter again)
    • Do you want to start the cron daemon as a service now? yes
    • Your cron system should now be functional. You can edit your user crontab just like you would on any other Unix/Linux platform with crontab -e. An explanation of crontab files can be found with the command man 5 crontab.
  • Amazon S3 (http://s3tools.org/)
    • Open up a Cygwin Bash shell (or SSH into your box)
    • To download s3cmd run curl -O http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/s3tools/s3cmd-0.9.9.tar.gz
    • Run tar -xzvf s3cmd-0.9.9.tar.gz
    • Run cd s3cmd-0.9.9
    • Run python setup.py install
    • The S3 client is now installed. For each user that wishes to use it you must configure it.
    • Run s3cmd –configure
    • Access Key: (Enter your Amazon S3 access key)
    • Secret Key: (Enter your Amazon S3 secret key)
    • Encryption password: (Leave blank, we encrypt our own files)
    • Path to GPG program: (Leave blank, this is also for encryption)
    • Use HTTPS protocol: Yes
    • Test access with supplied credentials? Y
    • If it reports an error, run this sequence again and verify your keys.
    • Save settings? Y
    • Amazon S3 client is now configured and can be used.
  • IIS
    • I have already installed IIS, so I did not document the steps. However, when I installed IIS I chose what seemed like the correct settings. When I went to install SQL Server 2005 it told me IIS is not installed, apparently this is a known bug and the workaround is here.
  • SQL Server 2005
    • Begin the SQL Server 2005 installation. My specific installation is the Standard Edition, 64-bit.
    • Accept the licensing terms, click Next.
    • Allow Setup to install any of the pre-requisites, click Next.
    • Click Next to begin installation procedures.
    • Verify the System Check is okay, click Next.
    • Enter your registration information, click Next.
    • Turn on SQL Server Database Service, Analysis Services, Reporting Services, and Notification Services, click Next.
    • Select and enter a Named instance for your database, click Next.
    • Select Use a domain user account and enter the login credentials for the account, click Next. (I had a huge amount of problems with the this step, it turns out changing the computers host suffix after joining a domain screws authentication up, I had to turn off the “change hosts DNS suffix when joining a new domain” option off before joining the domain).
    • Select Mixed Mode authentication type and enter the password for the sa user, click Next.
    • Leave Collation Settings the same (unless you specifically want to change them) and click Next.
    • Leave Report Server Installation Options the same and click Next.
    • Ignore Error and Usage Reports options and click Next.
    • Click Install to begin installation.
    • Once the installation has finished click Next.
    • Ignore Carefully read all the useless useful information and click Finish.
    • Insert the second SQL Server 2005 Standard Install Disc and run Setup.
    • Accept the license agreement and click Next.
    • After prerequisites have checked out, click Next.
    • Click Next to begin System Configuration Check.
    • After System Configuration Check has finished click Next.
    • Enter your name and company, click Next.
    • Turn on the following options:
      • Client Components->Connectivity Components
      • Client Components->Management Tools
      • Client Components->Business Intelligence Development.
    • Click Next.
    • Ignore the Error and Usage Reports and Click Next.
    • Click Install to begin installation.
    • Once Installation has finished click Next. (During the install, on Windows Server 2008, you will be prompted about a compatibility issue, just tell it to run the program. The SP2 update resolves it)
    • Click Finish to close installer.
    • Run the SQL Server 2005 Standard SP2 updater.
    • Click Next.
    • Accept the License Agreement and click Next.
    • On the Feature Selection screen, click Next.
    • Select Windows Authentication and click Next.
    • Ignore the Error and Reporting screen and click Next.
    • If a Running Processes screen comes up, go to the Windows Services (in Administrative Tools) and manually stop the relates services to those listed (Pretty much stop anything beginning with “SQL”).  Once you are done click Refresh, the list should now be empty, click Next.
    • Click Install to begin installation.
    • If running on Windows Server 2008, ignore the compatibility alert and click Run Program.
    • When installation finishes click Next.
    • Click Next on the review page.
    • Turn the Launch the User Provisioning Tool for Windows Vista option off and click Finish.
    • Reboot and ensure SQL Server is running correctly. I usually test this by launching the SQL Server Management Studio.
  • Arena Install
    • At this point, I did a normal clean install of Arena 2008.3.100. Nothing fancy here. Click through the installer and enter the database information.
    • When the installer finishes I went ahead and launched the website to complete the basic installation. I don’t know if I needed to do this since I was planning on importing our data from the live system anyway, but I figured might as well be safe.
    • I don’t know if this is an IIS 7 issue or just a fluke, but apparently the reporting services reports never got created during install. I think it is due to the fact that the Script bit was never turned on the ReportServer virtual site. I re-ran the SQL Installer for Arena after turning the scripts on and it created the reports correctly (I used the “Install Reporting Service Only” option in the lower left corner).
    • Finished the “basic” setup and then imported the original data from our live server, everything seems to be in order.
  • Automated Backup

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