Introduction
Apache server is one of the most popular web servers today which runs on most operating system platforms today.
While the server might be really powerful, it has some drawbacks including the lack of a GUI to configure, monitor and manage it, which can be a real pain, especially for the newbie system administrators who are not quite familiar with the command line interface.
Fortunately, Apache GUI offers a solution to this problem by providing a web interface to manage your server. It is built with Java and has robust features which allow you to:
- Edit your web configuration files
- View Apache Logs
- Install, modify and remove Apache modules
- Manage server; start, stop and restart the Apache service
- Manage virtual hosts easily
Prerequisites Before Getting Started
- A VPS or a dedicated server running Ubuntu 18.04
- A non-root user with sudo privileges configured
- Already installed PHP. You can learn How to install PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 here
Steps
Update system packages
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
Install OpenJDK package
This is important since the software runs on Java platform.
Special Note: You may decide to install a more recent version of OpenJDK as this version is recent to the time this tutorial was written.
$ sudo apt install default-jre $ sudo apt install default-jdk $ java -versionopenjdk version "10.0.2"2018-11-05 OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 10.0.2+13-Ubuntu-1ubuntu0.18.04.2) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 10.0.2+13-Ubuntu-1ubuntu0.18.04.2, mixed mode)
Install Apache and MariaDB server
Install, start and enable the services on start up.
$ sudo apt install apache2 mariadb-server $ sudo systemctl start apache2 $ sudo systemctl start mariadb $ sudo systemctl enable mysql $ sudo systemctl enable apache2
Install and Run ApacheGUI
Get the latest version of ApacheGUI from the official download page here. Select Linux Operating System and wget the download link.
$ sudo wget https://excellmedia.dl.sourceforge.net/project/apachegui/1.12-Linux-Solaris-Mac/ApacheGUI-1.12.0.tar.gz $ sudo tar -xzvf ApacheGUI-1.12.0.tar.gz -C /usr/local/ $cd /usr/local/ApacheGUI/bin $ sudo ./run.sh
Go to your favourite web browser and enter your VPS server’s IP address
http://YOUR_IP_ADDRESS:9999/ApacheGUI/
- Follow the prompts to install it, add a username and password.
- Log into the dashboard using your newly created credentials. You should see a page such as the following after login:
Conclusion
You have installed ApacheGUI in your VPS. You can now go ahead and start exploring the vast features that the software has to offer. To stop the service, you need to navigate back to your /usr/local/ApacheGUI/bin directory and run the ./stop.sh script with sudo privileges.
Always ensure to have a strong password to avoid a malicious user password guessing or brute forcing into your dashboard.
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