Hosting ASP.NET 2.0 Applications on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS using Apache & mod_mono

Posted on June 13th, 2010

Being a .NET developer by trade, I’ve got several web applications written in ASP.NET that I’d like to host. Currently, I have hosting with Rackspace Cloud, and pay per hour based on the resources I’m allocating. I toyed with deploying a 2nd VM running windows, but the price was a bit steep for the kind of hobbyist activities I’m doing here. I figured I’d check to see how ASP.NET hosting on Apache has evolved over the years. I’ve concluded that it seems like it’s fairly stable now, and relatively easy to get running. This tutorial will help you deploy virtual hosting with mod_mono on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Firstly, you’ll need to install mod_mono

$ sudo apt-get install mod_mono

Next, enable mod_mono

$ sudo a2enmod mod_mono

We’ll need to change the default index a bit to match up more closely with an IIS environment.
You’ll need to edit /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/mod_mono.conf

Change this (Line 2):

DirectoryIndex index.aspx

To this:

DirectoryIndex Default.aspx index.aspx

Next, we create our site.
Edit /etc/apache2/sites-available/YOUR-SITE-URL and use the following template:
Note: Replace YOUR-SITE-URL and /var/www/mysite with values appropriate for your configuration

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName YOUR-SITE-URL
 
        DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite/
 
        MonoDocumentRootDir "/var/www/mysite"
        MonoServerPath monosite "/usr/bin/mod-mono-server2"
        MonoApplications monosite "/:/var/www/mysite"
 
        <Directory /var/www/mysite/>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
                MonoSetServerAlias monosite
                SetHandler mono
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Next, you’ll need to enable the site and reload Apache:
Note: Replace YOUR-SITE-URL with the same value you used above

$ sudo a2ensite YOUR-SITE-URL
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Next, we’ll test it out.

Edit /var/www/YOUR-SITE-URL/Default.aspx and paste the following:
Note: Replace YOUR-SITE-URL with the same value you used above

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
  <head>
    <title>ASP Test Page</title>
  </head>
  <body>
        <form id="form1" runat="server">
          <asp:label id="lbl1" runat="server">ASP Test Page</asp:label>
        </form>
  </body>
</html>

Now visit your site in your browser. http://YOUR-SITE-URL

It should be working at this point.

Good luck!

Installing MindTouch Deki WIki on Mac OSX Snow Leopard (10.6)

Posted on June 7th, 2010

I run mindtouch as my wiki software. It’s been a great piece of software, and I will continue running it until I can find something better. Recently, I’ve been working to overhaul all the bsd.bz sites, and bring them under one umbrella (same theme, unified header). In an effort to better develop changes to the wiki’s theme, I need to run that software locally on my dev machine (my macbook pro).

So, without further delay, this is how I got MindTouch Core v.9.12.2 installed under Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6).

This tutorial assumes you already have PHP & Apache working.

First, we’ll need to install some pre-requisite software. I’ve included direct links the the current versions of the software for your convenience. I make no guarantee these links will work in the future, but have included links to the respective download location.

Mac Ports (Currently 1.8.2) – [ Direct DL ]
MySQL (Currently 5.1.47) – [ Direct DL (Intel x86_64) ]
Mono (Currently 2.6.4) – [ Direct DL (Intel) ]

Update your hosts file.
I use wiki.localdomain so I can add other name based virtual hosts and have my mini-production replica on my dev machine. ie blog.localdomain, wiki.localdomain, etc
Open up /etc/hosts in your favorite editor (I use vi)

$ sudo vi /etc/hosts

Add this line:

127.0.0.1 wiki.localdomain

Next, we’ll need to install the pre-requisites required to run Mindtouch, and html2ps

$ sudo port selfupdate
$ sudo port sync 
$ sudo port install ImageMagick
$ sudo port install clucene
$ sudo port install p5-libwww-perl 
$ sudo port install texlive
$ sudo port install netpbm 
$ sudo port install wget

Now, we have enough to install html2ps. Run the installer, and choose “/opt/local” for the install path:

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ wget http://user.it.uu.se/~jan/html2ps-1.0b5.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf  html2ps-1.0b5.tar.gz
$ cd html2ps-1.0b5
$ sudo ./install

Next, download and install Mindtouch:

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/mindtouch/MindTouch_Core_9.12.2_Source.tar.gz
$ tar xfvz MindTouch_Core_9.12.2_Source.tar.gz
$ cd MindTouch_Core_9.12.2_Source
$ mkdir ~/Sites/wiki.localdomain
$ cp -r web/*  ~/Sites/wiki.localdomain/
$ chmod a+w ~/Sites/wiki.localdomain/config/

Now, add a virtualhost to httpd.conf or an included vhosts config:

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerName wiki.localdomain
	DocumentRoot "/Users/YOUR-USERNAME-HERE/Sites/wiki.localdomain"
 
	RewriteEngine On
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
	RewriteRule ^/$ /index.php?title= [L,NE]
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/@gui/[^.]+$
	RewriteRule ^/@gui/(.*)$ /proxy.php?path=$1 [L,QSA,NE]
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(@api|editor|skins|config|@gui)/
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index\.php
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/favicon\.ico$
	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/robots\.txt$
	RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$ [OR] %{REQUEST_URI} ^/Special:Search
	RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ /index.php?title=$1 [L,QSA,NE]
 
	# deki-api uses encoded slashes in query parameters so AllowEncodedSlashes must be On
	AllowEncodedSlashes On  
	<Proxy *>
	    AddDefaultCharset off
	    Order deny,allow
	    Deny from all
	    Allow from all
	</Proxy>
 
	# mod_proxy rules
	ProxyPass /@api http://localhost:8081 retry=1
	ProxyPassReverse /@api http://localhost:8081
	SetEnv force-proxy-request-1.0 1
	SetEnv proxy-nokeepalive 1
 
 
	## Logging ##
	# Possible values: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, alert, emerg
	LogLevel error
	CustomLog "/var/log/apache2/wiki.access.log" combined
	ErrorLog  "/var/log/apache2/wiki.error.log"
</VirtualHost>

I encountered an error at this point when I tried to visit the website. I assume this is a string parsing bug.

Error: MySQL enabled, but client version is too old: mysqlnd 5.0.7-dev - 091210 - $Revision: 294543 $. We require at least version 5.0.0 of the PHP MySQL client.

The “fix” was a bit more heavy handed than I normally prefer, but it works.
Open up the file ~/Sites/wiki.localdomain/maintenance/install-utils.inc and comment out the MySQL check.
Mine was at lines 43-48.

/*
$client_ver = mysql_get_client_info();
if ( !version_compare($client_ver, REQUIRED_MYSQL_VERSION, ">="))
{
        echo_fail(wfMsg('Page.Install.check-mysqlc-fail', htmlspecialchars($client_ver), REQUIRED_MYSQL_VERSION));
        $return = false;
}
*/

After fixing the errors, visit http://wiki.localdomain and perform your initial setup.

Once setup is complete, you’ll need to locate your api key for use in next step:

$ cat /Users/YOUR-USERNAME/Sites/wiki.localdomain/LocalSettings.php |grep wgDekiApiKey|awk -F\" '{print $2}'

Next, edit /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mindtouch.dekiwiki.plist and use this template:
(You’ll need to input your api key, and username into the template)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
            <key>Disabled</key>
            <false/>
            <key>KeepAlive</key>
            <true/>
            <key>Label</key>
            <string>com.mindtouch.dekiwiki.itasca</string>
            <key>ProgramArguments</key>
            <array>
                    <string>sudo</string>
                    <string>/usr/bin/mono</string>
                    <string>/User/YOUR-USERNAME/Sites/wiki.localdomain/bin/mindtouch.host.exe</string>
                    <string>apikey</string>
                    <string>ENTER-API-KEY</string>
                    <string>script</string>
                    <string>/etc/dekiwiki/mindtouch.deki.startup.xml</string>
                    <string>path-prefix</string>
                    <string>@api</string>
                    <string>http-port</string>
                    <string>8081</string>
                    <string>ip</string>
                    <string>localhost</string>
                    <string>notty</string>
                    <string>connect-limit</string>
                    <string>-5</string>
            </array>
            <key>RunAtLoad</key>
            <true/>
    </dict>
    </plist>

Start the dekihost service on computer start.

$ sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mindtouch.dekiwiki.plist

That’s it!
You should be up and running now.

Archives

Meta

Hosting ASP.NET 2.0 Applications on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS using Apache & mod_mono

Posted on June 13th, 2010

Installing MindTouch Deki WIki on Mac OSX Snow Leopard (10.6)

Posted on June 7th, 2010