Archive | Web General

Installing Minio as a Service on CentOS 7.3+

Introduction

This document outlines the procedures to install Minio as a Service on a new CentOS 7.3 Minimal server. It provides a little more detail to the procedures in the references at the bottom of this article.

My Test Environment

I’m using VirtualBox on a Windows 10 Workstation, with a fresh install of CentOS 7.3 Minimal. Also installed is a copy of Git Bash for Windows.

The reason I use Git Bash is because I can copy/paste text from the examples below into the Git Bash prompt.
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Finding the Right OS

Quite often, I use the Pareto principle of spending 20% of the effort to get 80% of the results. On other occasions, I spend far too much time to get something just right.

From DOS 1.0 in 1981 to Windows 8 and Linux today, I’ve installed dozens of micro and minicomputer operating systems over the years. To me, an OS needs to fit like a glove, which is why I’ve spent considerable time looking for a version of Linux that will complement my Windows 7 desktop environment. Being on a tight budget, I use Oracle’s VirtualBox instead of VMWare Player as it includes a Snapshot facility.
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Site Backups

backups

If you have ever experienced the horror of losing files or a database, then you’ll understand the importance of implementing and TESTING your backups and site recovery capabilities.

I’ve developed some scripts that run on my local Debian server, which backs up my Hostgator sites and associated databases on a daily as well as a weekly basis.

Note: Unless you have a pre-existing arrangement in place, do not assume that your web host provider has adequate backup/recovery protection for your web sites. You’ve been warned.

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A Web Development Environment

Update: Working on a new version, which isn’t ready yet. It should contain:

  • Secure backups
  • Review of all content
  • Linux Mint
  • Git update with database migration and serialization
  • I’ve created a document that describes setting up a web development environment using a Windows 7 workstation, an Ubuntu 12.04 Virtual machine along with a Hostgator Reseller account and, most importantly, Git.

    This document provides lots of examples. Feel free to provide constructive feedback to atuline@gmail.com.

    Topics covered include:

    Oracle Virtualbox phpMyAdmin
    Hostgator Web Hosting vim
    Drupal Git
    WordPress drush
    Site Migration wp-cli
    FTP Samba
    Apache SSH
    MySQL GIMP
    PHP NetBeans

    I have now released version ‘1.0‘ of this document as well as a sister document for installing Virtualmin and Webmin on Ubuntu 12.04.

     

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On Web Development Environments

I have to admit at times to an amount of ‘Mac envy’. Whenever I attend either a WordPress or Drupal conference, most of the delegates that brought a computer will be using a Mac of some form. The code sprint rooms are packed with Mac users. Myself, I have a 5 year old ASUS laptop, running Windows 7, as well as a 5 year old Windows 7 desktop at home. They were nicely spec’ed when I bought them, so performance is not really an issue. The challenge I have, is, creating a seamless web development environment to support my Drupal and WordPress sites. My requirements include:

  • To match my production environment as close as possible
  • To support Git and a host of Linux/Unix tools
  • To support Photoshop
  • To provide seamless support for developing and staging web sites
  • Can take it on the road with me
  • Can survive a hard disk crash without too much pain

It’s no exaggeration to say that, aside from purchasing a Mac, I’ve tried a LOT of variations and am currently using:

  • My desktop if my principal environment
  • Occasionally use my laptop
  • Oracle VirtualBox
  • KVM

Let me explain. . . .

First off, I’ve been developing with Linux Mint on Oracle VirtualBox hosted on my desktop for several months now. I’ve been looking to offload it from my desktop, as I don’t like putting all my eggs in one basket. Therefore, I setup KVM on a dedicated host so that I could implement several servers independently of my desktop, including my main development environment. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the obvious disadvantage here is that I can’t take that on the road with me. That is, unless I’m prepared to use a rather slow VNC connection.

Rather than offload my principal Linux box to KVM, I think I’ll continue to host my Linux on VirtualBox on my desktop and to copy that environment to my laptop for those times when I’m offsite, let’s say at a development meetup or client site. In the meantime, I’ll continue to use KVM to host various machines, such as my production backup server, test servers as well as a home media server.

In some respects, it’s not quite as seamless as a Mac, but my development environment is stored as an image and can move seamlessly between my desktop and laptop. I’ve also got file sharing and drive mappings setup so that it’s easy to access my Linux Machine from Windows. Furthermore, VirtualBox’s seamless mode looks pretty awesome.

I’m pretty happy with my development environment, and now just need a Haswell chip to run it on. In the meantime, I’ll back off on the Craigslist search for a used Macbook.

Update: Just bought a 4770K desktop with 32G of RAM. Lots of room for virtual servers.

Update2: That desktop rocks!

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On Text Editors

The first text editor I used after graduating university back in the day was Edlin . . . on DOS 1.0. That nasty old editor prompted an ongoing quest to find the ‘perfect’ text editor. I’ve used many over the years, and on several different operating systems but haven’t yet come across one that ‘just works’ for me. The main challenge is that I use several operating systems, each with their own editors.

On Linux, I’ve settled on vi, more out of history and habit than anything else and Notepad++ on Windows. Both editors worked fine, but I never really fell in love with them. I’ve tried the Netbeans IDE, and it has a lot of really cool features that I’d like to see in a lightweight package. I guess I want something that loads as fast as vi, works in a terminal, yet has the features of Netbeans.

The other day, I ran across Sublime Text. One of the cool things about it is that it has Linux, OSX as well as Windows 7 distributions. It’s also received a lot of rave reviews on the Internet. After a very short trial, I purchased a license that I can use on any of the systems I use. What a superb arrangement.

Out of the box, Sublime Text looks pretty cool. It works well with Linux, but not in a terminal. I think I’ll spend some time with it to see if it’s the text editor of my dreams.

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Update:

I don’t do a huge amount of coding, but when I do, it’ll typically be with Sublime Text. Otherwise, for quick updates, I’ll either use Notepad++ (for printing in Windows) or vi in Linux. That multi-line edit capability in Sublime Text is pretty awesome.

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