Setup a Siteleaf site with a corresponding Gmail account on DigitalOcean

README.md

Setup Siteleaf site and Gmail on DigitalOcean

I recently setup a Siteleaf site and corresponding Gmail account via DigitalOcean. It occured to me these steps may be useful to people looking to do the same.

If you've already created your Droplet, installed vsftpd and apache, skip to step 4.

DO - do this step on Digital Ocean
SL - do this step on Siteleaf
GA - do this step on Google Apps for Business
REG - do this at your domain's registrar

1. DO: Create a Droplet with a Debian image and SSH keys. If you haven't created ssh keys already, follow the instructions below. If you want to manage multiple id_rsa files, name your files something that corresponds to your Digital Ocean (ie. id_rsa_DIGITALOCEAN)

   http://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-use-ssh-keys-with-digitalocean-droplets

   If you are managing multiple keys, on your computer, update your ssh config to include a Host that points to your Droplet's IP address and the corresponding id_rsa file.

    #DIGITALOCEAN
    Host do-WEBPROJECTS
    HostName your-droplet-ip-address
    User root
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_DIGITALOCEAN
   

   Login to your droplet using the following command:

    ssh do-WEBPROJECTS
   

2. DO: setup vsftpd (FTP server) https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-set-up-vsftpd-on-ubuntu-12-04

    sudo apt-get install vsftpd
   

   Update the configuration file.

    sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf
   

   Find the following lines and confirm these settings:

    anonymous_enable=NO
    local_enable=YES
    write_enable=YES
    chroot_local_user=YES
   

   Restart the server.

    sudo service vsftpd restart
   

3. DO: Install apache

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install apache2
   

4. DO: Point your domain to your Droplet by adding the DNS record from your DO control panel. You should add both yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com.

5. REG: Add the following nameservers at your domain's registrar.

    NS1.DIGITALOCEAN.COM
    NS2.DIGITALOCEAN.COM
    NS3.DIGITALOCEAN.COM
   

6. DO: Add a new user for the site.

    adduser username
   

7. DO: Install fail2ban

8. DO: Setup a virtual host

   IMPORTANT: Create a folder for the document root without creating a public_html folder. We'll eventually use a symlink to point to the content.

    sudo mkdir -p /var/www/yourdomain.com/
   

   Give read privileges to all users.

    sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/yourdomain.com/
   

9. DO: Jail the user to their folder in /home and only allow them to write to public_html.

   We'll upload our files here:

    mkdir /home/username/public_html
   

   Remove write privileges to user's home folder to allow vsftpd login.

    chmod a-w /home/username
   

   We enable write privileges on a subfolder.

    chown username:username /home/username/public_html
   

   Allow all users to read from the subfolder.

    sudo chmod -R 755 /home/username/public_html
   

10. DO: Point to our site's content from the document root via a symlink.

     ln -s /home/username/public_html /var/www/yourdomain.com/public_html
    

11. DO: Create virtual host file and enable virtual hosts.

    Create a new virutal host file.

     sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default /etc/apache2/sites-available/yourdomain.conf
    

    Open the file.

     sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/yourdomain.conf
    

    Update the following in the host file.

     <VirtualHost *:80>
         ServerAdmin webmaster@yourdomain.com
         ServerName www.yourdomain.com
         ServerAlias yourdomain.com
         DocumentRoot /var/www/yourdomain.com/public_html
         [...]
     </VirtualHost>
    

    Activate the host.

     sudo a2ensite yourdomain.conf
    

    Restart apache.

     sudo service apache2 restart
    

12. SL: Setup FTP publishing via Siteleaf.

    Create a new site and go to Settings -> Hosting -> FTP

    Enter the following in the FTP fields:

         Domain: yourdomain.com
         Host: yourdomain.com
         FTP Username: username
         Password: password
         Path: /public_html
    

    Click the refresh path icon to check the FTP connection.

    If you see a checkmark, click 'Save'. If you see an error, double check your FTP settings.

    When you're ready to push your content, click 'Publish changes' at the top right.

    Visit yourdomain.com in a web browser to view your changes.

13. DO: After uploading files, make all subfolders of public_html readable.

     find . -type d -exec chmod -R 755 {} +