Need Some Help - Web Server (Nextcloud, Wordpress, Domains etc...)

Hi everyone,

Hope y'all are doing well. This is my first post on the forums. I've been working on a little project of mine for the last little while, but I'm at a standstill. Let me give you some context (It might a be gongshow lol). A few months back, I purchased a base tier from Linode with CentOS7. I installed a LAMP stack using this guide HERE. Also, I followed basic server hardening guidelines. With the help of a friend, I installed an instance of Nextcloud. As of right now, the way that I access this instance is by typing the following into the the web browser:

http://ip.of.the.server/nextcloud

Over the course of the last few months, it has worked great, no complaints. but now, I have to expand the utility of my server. So, I recently purchased a few domains from Hover. Here are my plans:

  1. Setup the websites for WordPress
  2. Setup a subdomain on one site for my Nextcloud
    Ex: nextcloud.example1.com
  3. Setup a subdomain on another site for a forum (don't worry, I'm not competing with you guys lol)
    Ex: forums.example2.com
  4. Using Let's Encrypt for HTTPS on both sites

There are future plans, but one thing at time (I've already bitten more than I can chew).

So, here's the thing, I've read so many guides, watched so many YouTube videos that I have no idea what to do right now. I kinda just read one guide, doesn't work, move on to the next.

Anyway... here come the questions. This is my first time working with any form of web server, so be patient please :)

  1. How to change the name servers of the domain?
    I use Linode as VPS and Hover as Domain Registration.

  2. How to install WordPress and use it with both of the sites?
    I had tried to install WordPress using this guide HERE, but I think I've probably butchered so much stuff before that it wouldn't regardless. I made it to Step 4, but nothing worked after that.

  3. How to setup Let's Encrypt/HTTPS on both sites?

  4. How to associate my Nextcloud instance with a subdomain of one of the domains?

  5. How to setup up a subdomain for a forum?

I have no problem restarting from scratch.

I appreciate any help that you can provide. Sorry if it's a little vague. If you need me to provide a little more precision for anything just let me know. I'll see what I can do. Also, if anyone could provide/write up some form of "Step by Step" guide, it would be super helpful. Problem solving abilities in this area are not the finest :)

Thanks,

k3rnelpan1k

So I was kind of in the same boat a couple of weeks ago. Tried to build a web server on linode and screwed it up. So I tried to find step-by-step guides that I could follow so I couldn't mess it up. I registered my domain on GoDaddy and also used linode. I went with Ubuntu 16.04 because it had the most documentation online but you probably can get away with any other distro though. You might have to do some things a little differently though. Here's a list of guides I did in order if it helps. I didn't include NextCloud in this list but there some great documentation here.

1.Getting Started with Linode
or Initial Server Setup with Ubuntu 16.04 (I used both of these but there pretty much the same)
2. Securing Your Server
3. How to Configure a Firewall with UFW
4. How To Install Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack on Ubuntu 16.04
5. DNS Manager Overview
6. How To Set Up Apache Virtual Hosts on Ubuntu 16.04 (For multiple sub domains)
7. How To Secure Apache with Let's Encrypt on Ubuntu 16.04
8. How To Install WordPress with LAMP on Ubuntu 16.04

3 Likes

Thanks a lot @tmckenna! I appreciate it. I'll give an update once I get some more time to work on it.

Thanks,

k3rnel_pan1k

Thank you for the informative post.