Hosting a Website on the Raspberry Pi with Rocky Linux

Sun, 19 Feb 2022 15:00:00 -0500

First Download Rocky Linux for the Raspberry Pi 3 & 4 from their website.

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Next you want to burn this image to the sd card that you are going to use. Now start up the Raspberry Pi and login with the default user rocky and the password is rockylinux.

To make the image take up the whole drive, run:

sudo rootfs-expand
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Now, you should create a new user:

sudo useradd -m -g users -G wheel userName
-sudo passwd username
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Next, we should delete the default user so logout and login to your new user:

sudo userdel rocky
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Setting a static IP address

The easiest way is to run:

sudo nmtui
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Select Edit a connection and select your network interface.

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Select Show for IPv4 CONFIGURATION and enter the IP you want to set. Then select OK at the bottom, and quit the program.

Securing the PI

SSH Key Authorization

The best way to secure the pi is to use an SSH key to login instead of a password. First you want to generate an SSH key by running on your computer:

ssh-keygen -t rsa
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Next, to copy your SSH key to your server, run:

ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/mykey user@host
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To test that it works, run:

ssh -i ~/.ssh/mykey user@host
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If it worked, you should be able to connect without needing a password.

To force an SSH key to login, edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config using nano or vim.

Change PermitRootLogin yes to PermitRootLogin no and PasswordAuthentication yes to PasswordAuthentication no.

Setting up fail2ban

First start and enable firewalld to run at boot:

sudo systemctl start firewalld
-sudo systemctl enable firewalld
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Now, enable the EPEL repository for Rocky Linux and install fail2ban:

sudo dnf install epel-release -y
-sudo dnf install fail2ban fail2ban-firewalld -y
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Start and enable fail2ban to run at boot:

sudo systemctl start fail2ban
-sudo systemctl enable fail2ban
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Now, we have to make fail2ban work with firewalld, run:

sudo mv /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/00-firewalld.conf /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/00-firewalld.local
-sudo systemctl restart fail2ban
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To create an SSH jail, edit the ssh config file with vim or nano:

sudo nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/sshd.local
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Paste the following into the file and change the values as you see fit:

[sshd]
-enabled = true
-bantime = 1d
-maxretry = 3
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Save and close the file and restart fail2ban:

sudo systemctl restart fail2ban
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Setting up Dynamic DNS with Google Domains

Configuring Google Domains

First, on Domains.google.com go the DNS page for your domain. Scroll down and click on Show advanced settings, Click Manage dynamic DNS, and then click Create new record. Enter your subdomain or leave it black for the domain itself. Finally, click Save.

Installing ddclient

To install ddclient you need to enable the PowerTools Repo for the perl dependency.

First, install dnf-plugins-core:

sudo dnf -y install dnf-plugins-core
-sudo dnf upgrade
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Next, enable PowerTools:

sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled powertools
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Then, you can install ddclient:

sudo dnf install ddclient
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Now, we want to edit the config file for ddclient:

sudo nano /etc/ddclient.conf
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You'll want to look for where it says protocol=dyndns2, and enter your information:

##
-## nsupdate.info IPV4(https://www.nsupdate.info)
-##
-protocol=dyndns2
-use=web, web=http://ipv4.nsupdate.info/myip
-server=domains.google.com
-login=username
-password=password
-domain.tld
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Wait about 5 minutes and on the Google Domains website, under Dynamic DNS you should see your IP address under Data.

Setting up NGINX and Let's Encrypt

Installing NGINX

First, install nginx Webserver:

sudo dnf install nginx
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Next, start and enable nginx to run at boot:

sudo systemctl start nginx
-sudo systemctl enable nginx
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Then, check the status to see if it is running:

sudo systemctl status nginx
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Now, we have to allow HTTP traffic through the firewall:

sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=http --permanent
-sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=https --permanent
-sudo firewall-cmd --reload
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In a web browser, go to the local ip of the server and you should see the nginx welcome page.

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Configuring NGINX

First, make your folder for the website, this is where your website will live:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/websiteName
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Next, we need to set the proper permissions to make sure everything works:

sudo chown -R nginx /var/www/websiteName
-sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/websiteName
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Now, we will create the config file for website:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/websiteName.conf
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and paste the following into the file:

server {
-	listen 80;
-	server_name domain.tld www.domain.tld;
-	root /var/www/websiteName;
-	index index.php index.html index.htm;
-	access_log /var/log/nginx/websiteName.access.log;
-	error_log /var/log/nginx/websiteName.error.log;
-}
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Now, confirm that the nginx configuration is ok:

sudo nginx -t
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Restart nginx:

sudo systemctl restart nginx
-sudo systemctl status nginx
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Next, set SELinux to permissive mode:

sudo setenforce permissive
-sudo getenforce
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Now, we will need to set SELinux to permissive mode permanently:

sudo sed -i --follow-symlinks 's/SELINUX=enforcing/SELINUX=permissive/g' /etc/sysconfig/selinux
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Installing and Running Certbot

To install Certbot run:

sudo dnf install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
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To get SSL certificates for your websites run:

sudo certbot --nginx
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Answer the prompts that show up on screen as you wish.

To configure auto renewal of the SSL certificate run:

crontab -e
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and add the following line:

0 12 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew --quiet
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This will check everyday at noon to see if the certificate will expire in the next month, if so it will renew the certificate.

Now your website should be operational.

Jacob McDonnell