About

This project is a requirement to finish Udacity's Full Stack Nanodegree program. the task is to take a baseline installion of a Linux server(ubuntu) and set it up to host web applications. putting into consideration a number of attack vectors, install and configure a database server, and deploy a web application with the server.

You can visit the deployed website at this address https://aqueous-wildwood-54050.herokuapp.com

Procedure

Get your server

• Start a new Ubuntu Linux server instance on Amazon Lightsail.
• Log in to Lightsail. If you don't already have an Amazon Web Services account, you'll be prompted to create one.
• Create an instance
• Pick a plain Ubunti Linux image after choosing "OS Only". I chose Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
• Choose your instance plan. Picking the lowest one to get free-tier access for a month.
• Give your instance a hostname. You can use any name you like, as long as it doesn't have spaces or unusual characters in it.
• Wait for it to start up.
  • While your instance is starting up, Lightsail shows you a grayed-out display.
  • Once your instance is running, the display gets brighter.
• The public IP address of the instance is displayed along with its name.
• Follow the instructions provided to SSH into the server.
• From the Account Menu on Amazon Lightsail, click on the SSH keys tab and download the Default Private Key.
• Move the file LightsailDefaultKey-*.pem(the * represents where the server is located) into the local folder ~/.ssh and rename it udacity_key.rsa.
• In your terminal, run the following command: chmod 600 ~/.ssh/udacity_key.rsa.
• To connect to the server, run the following command in your terminal, ssh -i ~/.ssh/udacity_key.rsa ubuntu@18.184.82.110, where 18.184.82.110 is the public IP address of the server.

Secure your server

• Update all currently installed packages.
• In your terminal, run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

• Change the SSH port from 22 to 2200. Make sure to configure the Lightsail firewall to allow it.
• Edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config by running the following command: sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config.
• Change the port number on line 5 from 22 to 2200.
• Find the PermitRootLogin and edit it to no.
• Save and exit using CTRL+X and confirm the changes with Y.
• Restart the SSH connection by running the following command: sudo service ssh restart.
• Configure the Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) to only allow incoming connections for SSH (port 2200), HTTP (port 80), and NTP (port 123).
• Run the following commands:

sudo ufw status
sudo ufw default deny incoming
sudo ufw default allow outgoing
sudo ufw allow 2200/tcp
sudo ufw allow www
sudo ufw allow 123/udp
sudo ufw enable

• Go to your Amazon Lightsail Instances and click on the three vertical dots in the instance and click on Manage. Click on the Networking tab and change the firewall configuration to match the instance firewall settings above.
• Allows ports 2200 (TCP), 80 (TCP), and 123 (UDP). Deny the default port 22.
• In your terminal, run the following command: ssh -i ~ -p 2200 ubuntu@18.184.82.110.

Give grader access

• Create a new user account named grader.
• With a password of 'enter'
• In your terminal, run the following command: sudo adduser grader.
• Enter a password twice and fill out information for grader.
• Give grader the permision to sudo.
• In your terminal, run the following command: sudo visudo.
• Under the line root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL, add this line grader ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL.
• Save and exit using CTRL+X and confirm the changes with Y.
• Create an SSH key pair for grader using the ssh-keygen tool.
• On the local machine:
• In your terminal, run the following commands:

cd ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/grader
grader
grader
cat ~/.ssh/grader.pub

• Copy the contents of grader.pub
• On ubuntu's terminal, run the following commands:

touch /home/grader/.ssh/authorized_keys

• Paste the content into this file, save and exit.
• On graders's terminal, run the following commands:

sudo chmod 700 /home/grader/.ssh
sudo chmod 644 /home/grader/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chown -R grader:grader /home/grader/.ssh
sudo service ssh restart

• You are now able to ssh as grader by running the following command: ssh -i ~/.ssh/grader -p 2200 grader@18.184.82.110

Prepare to deploy your project

• Install and configure Apache to serve a Python mod_wsgi application.
• While logged in as grader, run the following command: sudo apt-get install apache2.
• If the Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page loads after entering 18.184.82.110 into the browser, Apache was successfully installed.
• Run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi
sudo a2enmod wsgi
sudo service apache2 start

• Install git.
• While logged in as grader, run the follow command: sudo apt-get install git.

Deploy the Item Catalog project.

• Clone and setup my Item Catalog project.
• While logged in as grader, run the following commands:

sudo mkdir /var/www/catalog
cd /var/www/catalog
sudo git clone https://github.com/webBlaster/Items-Catalog
cd /var/www/catalog/ItemsCatalog
mv app.py __init__.py
nano __init__.py

• Near the bottom of __init__.py are the lines:

app.debug = True
app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=8000)

• Delete the two lines and add the following line: app.run().
• Run the following command: sudo nano database_setup.py.
• Near the bottom of database_setup.py is the line: engine = create_engine('sqlite:///itemcatalog.db')
• Replace the line with the following line: engine = create_engine('postgresql://catalog:catalog@localhost/catalog')
• Save and exit using CTRL+X and confirm the changes with Y.
• Run the following commmand: sudo nano /var/www/catalog/catalog.wsgi and add these lines:

import sys
import logging
logging.basicConfig(stream=sys.stderr)
sys.path.insert(0, "/var/www/catalog/")

from ItemsCatalog import app as application
application.secret_key = 'secret'

• Save and exit using CTRL+X and confirm the changes with Y.

* Install Flask
* Run the following command: ```pip install Flask```
* Install the project's dependencies
* Run the following command:

pip install httplib2 pip install requests pip install --upgrade oauth2client pip install sqlalchemy sudo apt-get install libpq-dev pip install pyscopg2 deactivate

* Configure Apache to Handle requests using the WSGI module .do this by editing the 
/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf file

add the following line at the end of the block right before the closing line

<VirtualHost *:80> WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/catalog/catalog.wsgi

* Configure and enable a new virtual host
* Run the following command: ```sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/catalog.conf``` and paste the following code:

<VirtualHost *:80> ServerName 18.184.82.110 WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/catalog/catalog.wsgi <Directory /var/www/catalog/ItemsCatalog/> Order allow,deny Allow from all ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log LogLevel warn CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

* Save and exit using ```CTRL+X``` and confirm the changes with ```Y```.
* Run the following command: ```sudo a2ensite catalog```
* Run the following command: ```sudo service apache2 reload```
* Install and configure PostgreSQL
* Run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install libpq-dev python-dev sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib sudo su postgres psql CREATE USER catalog WITH PASSWORD 'catalog'; ALTER USER catalog CREATEDB; CREATE DATABASE catalog WITH OWNER catalog; \c catalog REVOKE ALL ON SCHEMA public FROM public; GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO catalog; \q exit

* Paste the following into ```pg_hba.conf```:

local all postgres peer local all all peer host all all 127.0.0.1/32 md5 host all all ::1/128 md5

* Save and exit using ```CTRL+X``` and confirm the changes with ```Y```.
* Run the following command: ```sudo service apache2 restart```