How to Install zPanel on CentOS 6 step by step

This tutorial will guide you to successfully install and setup zPanel CP on Centos 6 VPS. This is basically not normally what I prefer but so many requests ask me to post such tutorial. Well, many of those requests are asking about cPanel/WHM and Kloxo installation but however I prefer zPanel (also called zPanelx). Why? First because it is free and secondly it is more user-friendly. If you’re going to ask me about Kloxo vs zPanel and which is better, so my answer is simple. If you want a free Control Panel for your VPS that is very easy to use and user friendly, then go to zPanel. But if you want more complex and advanced panel, then go to Kloxo because you may be also able to use Nginx with it.

Preparation

This guide is done on a cloud vps running CentOS 6.4 64-bit. This will also work on any CentOS 6 32-bit or 64-bit but for better compatibility make sure you use at least CentOS 6.3.
Also, although zPanel is very lightweight panel in regard of resource usage (compared to cPanel/WHM), but it is strongly recommended to have at least 512MB of RAM if you wish to use -any- control panel with your VPS.

How to Install zPanel CP?

UPDATE: zPanelx v10.1.1 is released. The way how to install it has also changed. Read my new guide on how to install zPanelX CP using its new installer script.
Below is the old one
Step 1 – Prepare a fresh CentOS 6 VPS. Log in to your server via SSH (use Putty or Terminal) as root.
Step 2 – Now try to stop Apache and MySQL service (just in case if you have them installed and running already).

1 2	service httpd stop service mysql stop

in my case I only have Apache running so I stop it:

Step 3 – Then remove Apache and MySQL service:

1 2	yum remove httpd yum remove mysql

Hit Y to confirm. Screenshot:

Step 4 – Now lets download the installer file:

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# for 64-bit use:  wget https://github.com/zpanel/zpanelx/releases/download/10.1.0_orig/installer-10-1-0-centos-64.sh.x # for 32-bit use:  wget https://github.com/zpanel/zpanelx/releases/download/10.1.0_orig/installer-10-1-0-centos-32.sh.x

Pic:

Step 5 – Now you have to make the installer executable:

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# For CentOS 64-bit: chmod +x installer-10-1-0-centos-64.sh.x # For CentOS 32-bit: chmod +x installer-10-1-0-centos-32.sh.x

pic:

Step 6 – Also install required packages:

1	yum install ld-linux.so.2 curl

You may need to type Y twice for confirmation:

Step 7 – Finally, issue this command to start installing zPanel:

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# for CentOS 64-bit: ./installer-10-1-0-centos-64.sh.x # for CentOS 32-bit: ./installer-10-1-0-centos-32.sh.x

You have to answer few simple questions. The process should take few minutes, so sit tight and wait till it finishes:

Step 8 – At the end of the process you’ll see all generated passwords displayed, write that down. Also, the process requires restarting your server hence you’ll automatically be logged out from your server.

Step 9 – Now open up your favorite web browser then access your server by typing its ip address. Voila, you’ll now see default zPanel login page. Use zadmin as username and use generated password (step 8 above) to login. Once logged in, you can then change default generated password to something easier to remember but make sure it still uses strong combination.

Step 10 – That’s it. Now you can do some necessary tasks in zPanel control panel area once you logged in. Don’t be worry, all settings inside zPanel are really easy to understood so you’ll be familiar in no time. If you can use cPanel then you should also be able to use zPanel.

NEXT TO DO

1. Install zPanel on CentOS VPS (you are here)
2. Install Ajaxplorer File Manager on zPanel CP

F.A.Q

Q: Does zPanel already include Apache, MySQL and PHP?
A: Yes. During installation the installer also installs Apache web server, MYSQL, PHP5 and PHPMyAdmin along with necessary tools like FTP server and mail server.
Q: How much RAM zPanel consumes?
A: Once installed, with all of those services installed and running (Apache, Mysql, PHP, SMTP, IMAP, POP3 and FTP), I got following on my vps:

As you can see above, used RAM is about 106MB (still below 128MB) assuming with no traffic (fresh zPanel install).

How to Install Apache, PHP And MySQL On CentOS 7 (LAMP)

This tutorial shows how you can install an Apache2 webserver on a CentOS 7.0 server with PHP5 support (mod_php) and MySQL support. LAMP is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP.

1 Preliminary Note 

In this tutorial, I use the hostname server1.example.com with the IP address 192.168.0.100. These settings might differ for you, so you have to replace them where appropriate.
I will add EPEL-7 repo here to install latest phpMyAdmin as follows:

rpm -ivh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/beta/7/x86_64/epel-release-7-0.2.noarch.rpm

2 Installing MySQL 5 

To install MySQL, we do install mariadb like this: yum -y install mariadb-server mariadb Then we create the system startup links for MySQL (so that MySQL starts automatically whenever the system boots) and start the MySQL server:

systemctl start mariadb.service

systemctl enable mariadb.service

Set passwords for the MySQL root account:

mysql_secure_installation

[root@server1 ~]# mysql_secure_installation
/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation: line 379: find_mysql_client: command not found

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MariaDB, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): <--ENTER
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n]
New password: <--yourmariadbpassword
Re-enter new password: <--yourmariadbpassword
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!


By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] <--ENTER
 ... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] <--ENTER
 ... Success!

By default, MariaDB comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] <--ENTER
 - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] <--ENTER
 ... Success!

Cleaning up...

All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MariaDB
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MariaDB!
[root@server1 ~]#

3 Installing Apache2

CentOS 7.0 ships with apache 2.4. Apache2 is directly available as a CentOS 7.0 package, therefore we can install it like this:

yum -y install httpd

 [root@server1 ~]# yum install httpd
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: ftp.plusline.de
 * extras: mirror.23media.de
 * updates: mirror.23media.de
Package httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do
[root@server1 ~]#

By default apache will be installed, if-not then please install it as shown above
Now configure your system to start Apache at boot time...

systemctl start httpd.service

systemctl enable httpd.service

In CentOS 7.0 uses Firewall-cmd, so I will customize it to allow external access to port 80 (http) and 443 (https).

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
firewall-cmd --reload

Now direct your browser to http://192.168.0.100, and you should see the Apache2 placeholder page:

4 Installing PHP5

We can install PHP5 and the Apache PHP5 module as follows:

yum -y install php

We must restart Apache afterwards:

 systemctl restart httpd.service

5 Testing PHP5 / Getting Details About Your PHP5 Installation

The document root of the default website is /var/www/html. We will now create a small PHP file (info.php) in that directory and call it in a browser. The file will display lots of useful details about our PHP installation, such as the installed PHP version.

vi /var/www/html/info.php

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Now we call that file in a browser (e.g. http://192.168.0.100/info.php):
As you see, PHP5 is working, and it's working through the Apache 2.0 Handler, as shown in the Server API line. If you scroll further down, you will see all modules that are already enabled in PHP5. MySQL is not listed there which means we don't have MySQL support in PHP5 yet.

6 Getting MySQL Support In PHP5

To get MySQL support in PHP, we can install the php-mysql package. It's a good idea to install some other PHP5 modules as well as you might need them for your applications. You can search for available PHP5 modules like this:

yum search php

Pick the ones you need and install them like this:

yum -y install php-mysql

In the next step I will install some common PHP modules that are required by CMS Systems like Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal:

yum -y install php-gd php-ldap php-odbc php-pear php-xml php-xmlrpc php-mbstring php-snmp php-soap curl curl-devel

Now restart Apache2:

 systemctl restart httpd.service

Now reload http://192.168.0.100/info.php in your browser and scroll down to the modules section again. You should now find lots of new modules like curl etc there.:

7 phpMyAdmin installation

phpMyAdmin is a web interface through which you can manage your MySQL databases.
phpMyAdmin can now be installed as follows:

yum install phpMyAdmin

Now we configure phpMyAdmin. We change the Apache configuration so that phpMyAdmin allows connections not just from localhost (by commenting out the <Directory "/usr/share/phpmyadmin"> stanza):

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf

[...]
Alias /phpMyAdmin /usr/share/phpMyAdmin
Alias /phpmyadmin /usr/share/phpMyAdmin

#<Directory /usr/share/phpMyAdmin/>
#   <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
#     # Apache 2.4
#     <RequireAny>
#       Require ip 127.0.0.1
#       Require ip ::1
#     </RequireAny>
#   </IfModule>
#   <IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
#     # Apache 2.2
#     Order Deny,Allow
#     Deny from All
#     Allow from 127.0.0.1
#     Allow from ::1
#   </IfModule>
#</Directory>


<Directory /usr/share/phpMyAdmin/>
        Options none
        AllowOverride Limit
        Require all granted
</Directory>

[...] 

Next we change the authentication in phpMyAdmin from cookie to http:

vi /etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php

[...]
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type']     = 'http';    // Authentication method (config, http or cookie based)?
[...]

Restart Apache:

systemctl restart  httpd.service

Afterwards, you can access phpMyAdmin under http://192.168.0.100/phpmyadmin/:

How to Configure Samba in Centos 6 step by step

Installing Samba

1.    Use yum to install the Samba package:
        yum -y install samba

 
Creating Samba Test Directory and Files
For this part of the procedure, you'll use the su - (switch user) command to work as root. Although it’s not best practice to do this regularly, there are times where it's much more practical to work directly as root instead of trying to use sudo to do everything. This is one of those times.
You're going to create a new directory containing three empty files which you'll share using Samba.

2.    While logged on as root, create the new directory /smbdemo with the following command:
       mkdir /smbdemo
3.    Change the permissions on the new directory to 770 with the following command:
       chmod 770 /smbdemo
4.    Navigate to the new directory with the following command:
       cd /smbdemo
5.    Add three empty files to the directory with the following command:
        touch file1 file2 file3

Figure 1: Using touch to create files for the Samba exercise.

Adding the Samba User
You must add users to the Samba database in order for them to have access to their home directory and other Samba shares.
6.    Use the following command to add a new Samba user (the new Samba user must be an existing Linux user or the command will fail):
       smbpasswd -a <username>
        For example, to add the user don, use the command smbpasswd -a don.
Creating the Samba Group
7.    Perform the following steps to create a smbusers group, change ownership of the /smbdemo directory, and add a user to the smbusers group:
        groupadd smbusers
        chown :smbusers /smbdemo
        usermod -G smbusers don

Figure 2: Adding the smbusers group, changing ownership on /smbdemo, and adding a user to the smbusers group.

Configuring Samba

Note: In several of the steps in this exercise, I mention specific line numbers. The line numbers I mention are based on CentOS version 6.5. If you’re running any other version, your line numbers may be different. In that case, just search for the relevant text string.

Samba configuration is done in the file /etc/samba/smb.conf. There are two parts to /etc/samba/smb.conf:

• Global Settings: This is where you configure the server. You’ll find things like authentication method, listening ports, interfaces, workgroup names, server names, log file settings, and similar parameters.

• Share Definitions: This is where you configure each of the shares for the users. By default, there’s a printer share already configured.

Configuring smb.conf
8.    In the Global Settings section, at line 74, change the workgroup name to your workgroup name. I’m going to use soundtraining as a means of shamelessly promoting my company during your quest for knowledge. I’m sure you understand.

soundthinking point: Enable Line Numbering in vimYou can enable line numbering in vim with the command :set nu. If you want to turn it off, use :set nu!.

Figure 3: Changing the workgroup in the Samba configuration file.

9.    Now, confirm that the authentication type is set to user by going to the authentication section, still in Global Settings, and line 101. Make sure there is no hash mark at the beginning of the line to enable user security.

Figure 4: Confirming user authentication in the Samba configuration file.

This change allows users on your Red Hat/CentOS server to log in to shares on the Samba server.
10.    Next, add a section for /smbdemo, which you created earlier. You can just add it to the very bottom of /etc/samba/smb.conf with the following lines:

Figure 5: Configuring Samba share definitions.

11.    Be sure to save your changes with a :wq.
You can use the command testparm to test the configuration. In order for the server to re-read the configuration file and make the changes, you must restart the Samba service with the commands service smb restart and service nmb restart.
When properly configured, you should be able to connect from a computer running the Windows operating system and see both the general share and the user’s home directory:

Figure 6: Viewing Samba shares from a Windows computer.

You can test it by opening the user’s home directory in Windows, adding a file, and then viewing that file on the Linux server.

Troubleshooting Samba

In addition to checking for spelling and typographical errors, check to ensure the Linux firewall is permitting Samba traffic. Similarly, if you're using SELinux on your system, you must explicitly permit Samba traffic, and finally you must enable Network Discovery on the Windows client machine.