11 ProFTPd

ISPConfig has better support for proftpd than vsftpd, so let's remove vsftpd:

yum remove vsftpd

Because CentOS has no proftpd package, we must use a third-party yum repository to install it:

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://centos.karan.org/kbsingh-CentOS-Extras.repo
rpm --import http://centos.karan.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-karan.org.txt

Now we can install proftpd:

yum install proftpd

Let's create proftpd's system startup links and start it:

chkconfig --levels 235 proftpd on
/etc/init.d/proftpd start

Then create the file /etc/pam.d/ftp with the following content (otherwise you will not be able to log in with system users using FTP):

vi /etc/pam.d/ftp

#%PAM-1.0
auth    required        pam_unix.so     nullok
account required        pam_unix.so
session required        pam_unix.so

and restart proftpd:

/etc/init.d/proftpd restart

12 Webalizer

To install webalizer, just run

yum install webalizer

13 Synchronize The System Clock

If you want to have the system clock synchronized with an NTP server do the following:

yum install ntp
chkconfig --levels 235 ntpd on
ntpdate 0.pool.ntp.org
/etc/init.d/ntpd start

14 Install Some Perl Modules

ISPConfig comes with SpamAssassin which needs a few Perl modules to work. We install the required Perl modules with a single command:

yum install perl-DBI perl-Net-DNS perl-Digest-SHA1

We also need the module HTML::Parser. We could install the CentOS package perl-HTML-Parser, but this version is too old for the SpamAssassin version that comes with ISPConfig. It would result in the following error message during ISPConfig installation:

REQUIRED module out of date: HTML::Parser

Therefore we must install the latest HTML::Parser using the Perl shell.

Run the following command to start the Perl shell:

perl -MCPAN -e shell

If you run the Perl shell for the first time you will be asked some questions. In most cases the default answers are ok. Because there's no ncftp package for CentOS, the Perl shell cannot find the programs ncftpget and ncftp, and you'll see something like this:

Warning: ncftpget not found in PATH
Where is your ncftpget program? []
Warning: ncftp not found in PATH
Where is your ncftp program? []

It's ok to hit ENTER in both cases.

Please note: If you run a firewall on your system you might have to turn it off while working on the Perl shell in order for the Perl shell to be able to fetch the needed modules without a big delay. You can switch it on afterwards.

Now type in the following command to install the Perl module HTML::Parser:

install HTML::Parser

If the installation is successful, you'll see a line like this at the end:

/usr/bin/make install -- OK

Type

q

afterwards to leave the Perl shell.

15 Update zlib

CentOS comes with an outdated version of zlib (1.2.1) which has a security hole. Therefore we compile and install the newest zlib (1.2.3) from the sources:

cd /tmp
wget http://www.zlib.net/zlib-1.2.3.tar.gz
tar xvfz zlib-1.2.3.tar.gz
cd zlib-1.2.3
./configure --shared
make
make install

16 The End

The configuration of the server is now finished, and if you wish you can now install ISPConfig on it.

16.1 A Note On SuExec

If you want to run CGI scripts under suExec, you should specify /var/www as the home directory for websites created by ISPConfig as CentOS' suExec is compiled with /var/www as Doc_Root. Run

/usr/sbin/suexec -V

and the output should look like this:

To select /var/www as the home directory for websites during the installation of ISPConfig do the following: When you are asked for the installation mode, select the expert mode.

Later during the installation you are asked if the default directory /home/www should be the directory where ISPConfig will create websites in. Answer n and enter /var/www as the home directory for websites.

17 Links

• CentOS: http://www.centos.org
• ISPConfig: http://www.ispconfig.org