Aegir is a hosting platform for deploying, managing, and maintaining Drupal sites. It makes it easy to install Drupal distributions and uses Drush for backend functionality. The document provides step-by-step instructions for installing Aegir on a clean Linux Ubuntu server, including setting up the server with LAMP, installing required packages, configuring Aegir, and obtaining the Aegir control panel. It concludes by explaining how to download Drupal using Aegir after installation is complete.

1. Author: Hector Iribarne @hectoriribarne

2. •What is Aegir?1
•Installing Aegir on
clean Linux Ubuntu
2
•Post install Aegir
Basics
3

3. Let's get started . . .
What is Aegir?

4. A hosting platform for deploying, managing and maintaining Drupal sites
(Drupal 6, Drupal 7, etc)
Makes it easy to install Drupal distributions (e.g. Managing News, Open
Publish, Commons, etc.)
Uses Drush for backend functionality
Installs directly on clean Linux install at aegir.example.com
Aegir can manage local and remote servers
Current version is Aegir 1.4, which is Drupal 6 based
Future Aegir 2.0 will be based on Drupal 7
Support on IRC: #drupal-aegir irc://irc.freenode.net/aegir
@hectoriribarne

5. Step-by-step Installation
Installing Aegir on
Linux Ubuntu
10.04 LTS

6. Italics means that you will have to use your information in place of the
italics
servername = the name of your server (e.g. linode12345, or
whatever you name it)
IPaddress = the public IP of your server
example.com = your domain name
DomainHost.com = your domain name host (e.g. godaddy.com, etc.)
VPShost.com = the domain of your VPS host (e.g. linode.com,
rackspace.com, etc.)
Linux commands are in blue.
Text inside files is in green.
Pay extra attention to text in red.
@hectoriribarne

7. Go to your domain name host (i.e. DomainHost.com) and point your main
domain name (i.e. example.com) to the name servers of your host (e.g.
ns1.linode.com, ns2.linode.com or dns1.stabletransit.com,
dns2.stabletransit.com, etc.) Wait about 2 hours for the change to take
effect, although sometimes it can be a little longer.
Add A records for aegir and servername. You may also want to add one
for mail and www, if you don't already have one
After waiting the appropriate time. Do a whois on your domain name to
make sure it is pointing to the name servers you set up. You should not
process with installing aegir unless your name servers are set up for your
domain
Login as root to your server so we can begin typing in the commands in
the continuing slides
@hectoriribarne

8. Update your linux distribution
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
Update your FQDN (fully qualified domain name)
/bin/hostname servername.example.com
echo servername.example.com > /etc/hostname
REBOOT YOUR SERVER
Install LAMP server (You will be asked to enter a mysql database password)
sudo apt-get install lamp-server^
Edit your hosts file
sudo nano /etc/hosts
While editing your hosts file, add the following line:
IPaddress servername.example.com servername
@hectoriribarne

9. Enable ssl (Don't restart apache at this time. Wait until later when you will
be told to do so in the slides)
a2enmod ssl
Enable rewrite, headers and expires modules
a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod headers
a2enmod expires
Enable mod_status
sudo nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
While editing your httpd.conf file, add the following lines:
ExtendedStatus On
<Location /server-status>
SetHandler server-status
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
</Location>
@hectoriribarne

10. Install Apachetop to monitor Apache (More information can be found at
http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/apachetop)
sudo apt-get install apachetop
Update the apache2.conf file (don’t forget to change servername below)
sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
While editing your httpd.conf file, add the following lines at the end:
# Caching & cache headers
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault "access plus 300 seconds"
ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 1 day"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 day"
ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 day"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 day"
</IfModule>
# 6 HOURS
<FilesMatch ".(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|swf|mp3|mp4)$">
Header set Cache-Control "public"
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=21600"
Header unset Last-Modified
</FilesMatch>
# 2 HOURS
<FilesMatch ".(html|htm|xml|txt|xsl|js|css)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=7200, must-revalidate"
</FilesMatch>
ServerName servername
@hectoriribarne

11. Finally! : Restart Apache
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Install mytop for monitoring MySQL databases (More information can be found at
http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/mytop)
aptitude install mytop
Install phpmyadmin to administer MySQL databases (1) Choose apache2 webserver,
2) Configure database for phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common = yes, 3) Enter password for database)
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin
Install PHP command line interface
sudo apt-get install php5-cli
Remove deprecated hash and change it to a semicolon
sudo nano /etc/php5/cli/conf.d/mcrypt.ini
Edit mcrypt.ini file and change # to ;
; configuration for php MCrypt module
@hectoriribarne

12. Install PHP libraries and scripting capabilities
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install libssh2-1-dev libssh2-php
sudo apt-get install php-pear php5-curl php5-dev php5-gd
Install PECL PHP Extension Community Library (at the cursor, hit enter)
pecl install -f ssh2
Some more PHP configs
echo 'extension=ssh2.so' > /etc/php5/conf.d/ssh2.ini
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php-apc
echo 'extension=apc.so' > /etc/php5/conf.d/apc.ini
sudo apt-get install rsync
sudo pecl install uploadprogress
echo 'extension=uploadprogress.so' > /etc/php5/conf.d/uploadprogress.ini
@hectoriribarne

13. Again: Restart Apache
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Install Postfix mail transfer agent that routes and delivers mail ( 1)
General type of mail configuration = Internet Site, 2) servername.example.com ).
sudo apt-get install postfix
Configure Postfix ( 1) General type of mail configuration = Internet Site, 2)servername.example.com
, 3) left blank, 4) leave list of defaults, 5) No forced synchronous updates, 6) network blocks leave default,
7) mailbox file limit left at 0, 8) left + default value, 9) ipv4).
For more details on configuring Postfix, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Postfix
sudo dpkg-reconfigure postfix
Install build-essential for building debian packages. (More info can be found
at http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/build-essential)
sudo aptitude install build-essential
@hectoriribarne

14. Edit Apache PHP Resource Limits
sudo nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
Update to the following (keep in mind that the memory limit can be set
higher depending on the amount of memory on your server)
max_execution_time = 300
max_input_time = 300
memory_limit = 128M
Edit PHP command line interface Resource Limits
sudo nano /etc/php5/cli/php.ini
Update to the following (keep in mind that the memory limit can be set
higher depending on the amount of memory on your server)
max_execution_time = 300
max_input_time = 300
memory_limit = 192M
@hectoriribarne

15. Install Git
apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git-core
Create and configure Aegir user
ln -s /var/aegir/config/apache.conf /etc/apache2/conf.d/aegir.conf
useradd -r -U -d /var/aegir -m -G www-data aegir
echo 'aegir ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/apache2ctl' >> /etc/sudoers
Obtain Key for installing Aegir
echo "deb http://debian.koumbit.net/debian stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/koumbit-stable.list
wget http://debian.koumbit.net/debian/key.asc
apt-key add key.asc
apt-get update
Install latest stable version of Drush
wget http://mirror.pnl.gov/ubuntu//pool/universe/d/drush/drush_4.4-1_all.deb
dpkg -i drush_4.4-1_all.deb
@hectoriribarne

16. @hectoriribarne

17. Aegir is installed . . .
Now what?

18. Execute automatic Aegir install (1) domain for aegir - aegir.example.com, 2) enter a database
password. After Aegir installs, it will provide you with a one time login where you will have to change your
password for aegir.example.com )
apt-get install aegir
Login as the Aegir user
su -s /bin/sh aegir
Change to the Aegir directory
cd /var/aegir/platforms
ls –al
Download the latest version of Drupal
drush dl
@hectoriribarne

19. @hectoriribarne

20. Community Aegir site:
http://community.aegirproject.org/
http://community.aegirproject.org/installing/debian
Presentation from John Studdard:
http://www.slideshare.net/jpstuddard/aegir-overview-florida-drupal-
camp-2011
Videos from mig5 on installing Aegir
http://vimeo.com/17131725
http://vimeo.com/groups/webdesigntuts/videos/9127281
Blog posts from Victor Kane:
http://awebfactory.com.ar/node/427
http://awebfactory.com.ar/node/444
@hectoriribarne

21. Questions?
@hectoriribarne

22. Hector Iribarne
Twitter: @hectoriribarne