RackTables is a web-based application that allows you to track your data center assets, such as servers, switches, and racks. Installing RackTables on your Ubuntu server is straightforward and can be done in a few steps. In this tutorial, we will demonstrate how to install and configure RackTables on an Ubuntu server.
Before installing RackTables, you should have:
The first step is to update your Ubuntu server. To do this, run the following commands in your terminal:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
RackTables is a web application that requires a web server to function correctly. So, you need to install the Apache2 web server on your Ubuntu server. To do that, run the following command:
sudo apt-get install apache2
RackTables is written in PHP, so you need to install PHP on your Ubuntu server. You can install PHP along with Apache2 by executing the following command:
sudo apt-get install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql
RackTables stores its data in a MySQL database. To install MySQL, run the following command:
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
During the installation, you will be prompted to set up a password for the root user.
After installing the MySQL server, you need to create a new database for RackTables. Run the following command to log in to the MySQL server using the root account:
sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter the password you set during the installation process.
Now, create a new MySQL database:
CREATE DATABASE racktablesdb;
Create a new user and grant that user access to the newly created database:
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON racktablesdb.* TO 'racktablesuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
Replace 'password' with a strong password of your choice.
Flush the privileges to apply the changes:
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Exit the MySQL console:
exit
Next, download the latest release of RackTables from the official website (http://racktables.org/download/). Choose the release version you want to install.
Create a directory for RackTables and navigate to it:
sudo mkdir /var/www/racktables
cd /var/www/racktables
Use the following command to download RackTables:
sudo wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/racktables/files/latest/download
This will download the latest version of RackTables to your server.
Extract the downloaded file:
sudo tar -xzvf download
Now, rename the extracted folder to 'racktables':
sudo mv RackTables-* racktables
Copy the sample configuration file to the actual configuration file:
sudo cp /var/www/racktables/wwwroot/inc/secret-dist.php /var/www/racktables/wwwroot/inc/secret.php
Edit the configuration file:
sudo nano /var/www/racktables/wwwroot/inc/secret.php
Replace the following values with your own:
$dbUser = 'racktablesuser';
$dbPass = 'password';
$dbName = 'racktablesdb';
Save and close the file.
Next, set the correct permissions for the RackTables directory:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/racktables
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/racktables
To access RackTables from a web browser using a domain name, you need to create a virtual host in the Apache2 web server.
Create a new configuration file for RackTables:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/racktables.conf
Copy and paste the following content into the file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/racktables/wwwroot/
ServerName example.com
<Directory /var/www/racktables/wwwroot/>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/racktables_error.log
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/racktables_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Replace 'ServerAdmin', 'ServerName' and 'allow from' entries with your own website details.
Save and close the file.
To enable the new virtual host, run the following command:
sudo a2ensite racktables.conf
Finally, restart the Apache2 web server to apply the changes:
sudo service apache2 restart
You can now access RackTables by entering the server's IP address or domain name in your web browser's address bar:
http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/racktables/
Replace 'YOUR_SERVER_IP' with the IP address of your Ubuntu server.
In this tutorial, you learned how to install and configure RackTables on an Ubuntu server. You can now use RackTables to track your data center assets with ease.
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