Multiple hosts in Apache (httpd) problem

zeljkozivkovic

Hi,
I used Arch (Antergos) before to do web development (WordPress / PHP / MySql), but I decided to move to Solus as my daily driver...
So, I installed Apache (httpd), MariaDB, PHP and all other things that I need.
I moved about 100Gb from backup to my _/www/ folder, and in /etc/httpd/conf.d/httpd.conf set the following:

<IfModule unixd_module>
User zeljko
Group zeljko
</IfModule>

LoadModule rewrite_module lib64/httpd/mod_rewrite.so

Include /etc/httpd/conf.d/vhosts/kick2018.ulrikaskickstart.test
Include /etc/httpd/conf.d/vhosts/tester.zeljkozivkovic.test

#ServerName localhost

If your host doesn't have a registered DNS name, enter its IP address here.

ServerName 127.0.0.1:80

Then, I set in vhosts/ proper configuration for sites, also in /etc/hosts added 127.0.0.1 hostname
And everything seemed to work fine. After restarting httpd and php-fpm, sites were loading.
BUT: in admin part of WP, it says that it cannot update plugins, and that folder for writing logs are not writeable (permissions issue).
_/www/ content is owned by $USER: zeljko, and under group zeljko. Also, file permissions are set to 755 for directories and 644 for files. So, obviously, httpd (apache) is not respecting instructions set for User/Group in httpd.conf file.

I spent countless hours trying to find the solution (Googling mostly), but none so far worked.
Any help would be appreciated.

zeljkozivkovic

Hello,
I kinda solved the problem, here's the solution.
In: /etc/php/php-fpm.d/www.conf file I set user and group with the same values I set in httpd.conf. Restarted httpd and php-fpm, and everything started to work in WP backend.
The only issue I still have is poor performance on my beefy machine (16Gb RAM, i5) but I guess that is to some parameters not properly set.
If I find a solution, I'll post it here.
Thanks anyway

dbarron

I would assume you wouldn't have this issue, but just gonna suggest it. Initial poor performance could be dns based? Do you have good dns, do you have your local host in /etc/hosts? I'm sure you do...but just to make sure of one easy fix.

zeljkozivkovic

First, thanks for the answer 🙂
Well, here's the content of my /etc/hosts
zeljko@optiplex7020  ~  cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
127.0.1.1 optiplex7020.local optiplex7020
192.168.8.110 optiplex7020.local optiplex7020

127.0.0.1 localhost

127.0.0.1 optiplex7020

127.0.0.1 kick2018.ulrikaskickstart.test
127.0.0.1 tester.zeljkozivkovic.test
127.0.0.1 ulrikadavidsson.test

The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts

::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts
zeljko@optiplex7020  ~ 

Anything that I should change here?

zeljkozivkovic

dbarron

What did you name your host in the apache config? (just make sure it's in your hostfile). From what you showed, I think it's covered, but look it over 😉

zeljkozivkovic

Hi dbarron,
well, there sure must be some inconsistency, but I can't pinpoint the problem...
Here's a screenshoot of both hosts and httpd.conf if you can find the issue:

Thank you for your effort.
I still got Gateway Timeout (aka error504) 🙁

zeljkozivkovic

Small update. I set LogLevel debug in httpd.conf so now I have more info needed to troubleshoot.
When I get "Gateway Timeout" 504 error, in log I have this:
[Thu Mar 21 10:44:07.493317 2019] [proxy:debug] [pid 13953:tid 139661831509760] proxy_util.c(2334): AH00943: FCGI: has released connection for (*)

any clue?

zeljkozivkovic

in the end, I gave up.
Returned everything to the starting point (as when you do a fresh install).
So, for now, I have a semi-usable machine, hoping somebody will give us a fully working solution for web development on Solus.
But, just in case, I downloaded Ubuntu (budgie) iso if no solution is found here 🙁
I would really hate to leave Solus (since I already have it on 3 computers).

zeljkozivkovic

I made one more try...
I went back to default settings for httpd/php-fpm.
So, I moved one of sites on which I'm working to /var/www/
On start, site content (files) were owned by root, which gave me some problems in WordPress (updating not working) and also Timeout (504 error).
So, then I changed ownership to: phpfpm:phpfpm (user : group) -> and WordPress starting to work as expected. Really snappy and updates were going without issues.
Now, this is not ideal solution - because I can't use GIT since files are owned by phpfpm user (group: phpfpm).
Any idea how can I overcome this limitation?

here's my current httpd.conf:

zeljkozivkovic

Before that, I did a fresh install of Solus.

So, now, why can't I override user/group setting in /etc/httpd/conf.d/http.conf?
on site is says that: "while still enabling the system administrator (or a user with the appropriate permissions) to override the vendor configuration via the system-wide configuration location, /etc"
source: https://getsol.us/articles/software/httpd/en/
For now, as you can see, I commented that part, because it was not working...

dbarron

Technically, your installation can run as any user (httpd), though it's possibly that changes from default can break upgrades.
In my opinion (and I don't know a thing about wordpress..so this may be stupid, if I knew more..but throwing out anyway), configure wordpress to work with the webserver userid. Use group permissions to your benefit.
Unixes are very flexible, should be simple if you understand the permission models.
I can't give you a recipe, just giving general advise.

zeljkozivkovic

Hi dbarron, there's no way to set web serve userid on WordPress.
It was running even from my home folder with my user/group, but it was working really slow and couldn't be updated (contant Timeouts).
And if I could only set <if module> to respect user/group that I specify without changing that in php-fpm configs...
any idea why that is not working?

zeljkozivkovic

dbarron

In the past with php, I've simply set it to use the webserver id and gone on about my php development. Probably not the best security, but does a development environment really need to be that secure? Just make it work, damnit.
I've never really had any problem with it...but I haven't done development since I switched to Solus last year, so I've never configured a php installation on Solus.

zeljkozivkovic

when I changed back to my user/group ownership (but still under /var/www/) here's the problem I have (picture above)

zeljkozivkovic

Well, thanks a lot dbarron.
Really appreciate it 🙂
I'll try tomorrow morning one more time 🙂

dbarron

Yes, someone who has actually done this on this distro would be useful to you....but I'm not seeing such a person volunteer at the moment, so trying to help as I can 🙂
What level of unix ability do you consider yourself (will help in how I can answer)?

zeljkozivkovic

Yeah, I was also hoping for that outcome 🙂
Thanks anyway..
Greetings from Serbia

dbarron

To address your writeable log direction, (again really bad security), you can just make it group or world writeable. If that's the error you seek to address.
One thing I don't like about this new forum is that I can't get a hi-res view of what you posted...making it very hard for me to read it.