Skip to content

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Tested with i-doit 36 and RHEL 9.6

We explain which packages need to be installed and configured in a few steps in this article.

System Requirements#

The general system requirements. To determine which version is in use, you can run the following command in the console:

1
cat /etc/os-release

The system architecture should be x86 in 64-bit:

1
uname -m

x86_64 means 64-bit, i386 or i686 means only 32-bit.

Package installation#

On an up-to-date system, the following will be

  • the Apache HTTP Server 2.4,
  • the scripting language PHP-FPM 8.3,
  • the database management system MariaDB 10.11, and
  • the caching server memcached

installed.

First, packages are updated from the standard repositories:

1
sudo dnf update

Installing PHP 8.3 and MariaDB via module stream:

1
2
sudo dnf module enable php:8.3 mariadb:10.11 -y
sudo dnf module install php:8.3 mariadb:10.11 -y

The installation of additional packages follows:

1
sudo dnf install httpd boost-program-options memcached unzip php php-{bcmath,curl,gd,json,ldap,mysqli,mysqlnd,odbc,pecl-zip,pgsql,pdo,snmp,soap,zip} -y

Additional steps are required for the PHP memcached extension: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/7002155. i-doit also works without it.

To ensure that the Apache HTTP Server, MariaDB, PHP-FPM, and memcached are also started at boot, the following commands are required:

1
sudo systemctl enable httpd mariadb php-fpm memcached

Then the services are started:

1
sudo systemctl start httpd mariadb php-fpm memcached

Furthermore, the standard HTTP port 80 is allowed through the firewall. The firewall must be restarted after the adjustment:

1
2
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
sudo systemctl restart firewalld.service

For HTTPS, additional steps must be performed that are not covered here, see Security and Protection

Configuration#

The installed packages for Apache HTTP Server, PHP, and MariaDB already come with configuration files. It is recommended to store custom settings in separate files rather than modifying the existing configuration files. The default configuration settings are supplemented or overridden by the custom ones.

PHP Configuration#

First, a new file is created and populated with the required settings:

1
sudo nano /etc/php.d/i-doit.ini

This file receives the following content as specified by us. For more information about the parameters, visit PHP.net

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
allow_url_fopen = Yes
file_uploads = On
magic_quotes_gpc = Off
max_execution_time = 300
max_file_uploads = 42
max_input_time = 60
max_input_vars = 10000
memory_limit = 256M
post_max_size = 128M
register_argc_argv = On
register_globals = Off
short_open_tag = On
upload_max_filesize = 128M
display_errors = Off
display_startup_errors = Off
error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT
log_errors = On
default_charset = "UTF-8"
default_socket_timeout = 60
date.timezone = Europe/Berlin
session.gc_maxlifetime = 604800
session.cookie_lifetime = 0
mysqli.default_socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

The memory_limit must be increased if needed, e.g., for very large reports or extensive documents. The value (in seconds) of session.gc_maxlifetime should be greater than or equal to the Session Timeout in the system settings of i-doit. The date.timezone parameter should be adjusted to the local time zone (see list of supported time zones).

Apache HTTP Server Configuration#

The Welcome Page is renamed and replaced with an empty file:

1
2
sudo mv /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf{,.bak}
sudo touch /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf

Now a new Virtual Host is created for i-doit:

1
sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/i-doit.conf

This file receives the following content:

  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  9
 10
 11
 12
 13
 14
 15
 16
 17
 18
 19
 20
 21
 22
 23
 24
 25
 26
 27
 28
 29
 30
 31
 32
 33
 34
 35
 36
 37
 38
 39
 40
 41
 42
 43
 44
 45
 46
 47
 48
 49
 50
 51
 52
 53
 54
 55
 56
 57
 58
 59
 60
 61
 62
 63
 64
 65
 66
 67
 68
 69
 70
 71
 72
 73
 74
 75
 76
 77
 78
 79
 80
 81
 82
 83
 84
 85
 86
 87
 88
 89
 90
 91
 92
 93
 94
 95
 96
 97
 98
 99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName idoit.example.com
    ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com

    DocumentRoot /var/www/html

    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/idoit_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/idoit_access.log combined

    <Directory /var/www/html/>
        ## See https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#allowoverride
        AllowOverride None

        ## Apache Web server configuration file for i-doit
        ##
        ## This file requires:
        ##
        ## - Apache HTTPD >= 2.4 with enabled modules:
        ##   - rewrite
        ##   - expires
        ##   - headers
        ##   - authz_core
        ##
        ## For performance and security reasons we put these settings
        ## directly into the VirtualHost configuration and explicitly set
        ## "AllowOverride none". After each i-doit update check if the .htaccess file, in the i-doit directory,
        ## has changed and add the changes in the VirtualHost configuration.
        ##
        ## See the i-doit Knowledge Base for more details:
        ## <https://kb.i-doit.com/>

        ## Disable directory indexes:
        Options -Indexes +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch

        <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD}  =GET
            RewriteRule "^$" "/index.php"

            ## Deny access to meta files:
            <Files "*.yml">
                Require all denied
            </Files>

            ## Deny access to hidden files:
            <FilesMatch "^\.">
                Require all denied
            </FilesMatch>

            ## Deny access to bash scripts:
            <FilesMatch "^(controller|.*\.sh)$">
                Require all denied
            </FilesMatch>

            ## Deny access to all PHP files…
            <Files "*.php">
                Require all denied
            </Files>

            ## Deny access to wrongly created config backup files like ...inc.php.0123123 instead of ...inc.012341.php
            <FilesMatch "\.php\.\d+$">
                Require all denied
            </FilesMatch>

            ## …except some PHP files in root directory:
            <FilesMatch "^(index\.php|controller\.php|proxy\.php)$">
                <IfModule mod_auth_kerb.c>
                    Require valid-user
                </IfModule>
                <IfModule !mod_auth_kerb.c>
                    Require all granted
                </IfModule>
            </FilesMatch>

            ## …except some PHP files in src/:
            <Files "jsonrpc.php">
                Require all granted
            </Files>

            ## …except some PHP files in src/tools/php/:
            <FilesMatch "^(rt\.php|barcode_window\.php|barcode\.php)$">
                Require all granted
            </FilesMatch>

            ## …except some PHP files in src/tools/php/qr/:
            <FilesMatch "^(qr\.php|qr_img\.php)$">
                Require all granted
            </FilesMatch>

            ## …except some PHP files in src/tools/js/:
            <FilesMatch "^js\.php$">
                Require all granted
            </FilesMatch>
        </IfModule>

        ## Deny access to some directories:
        <IfModule mod_alias.c>
            RedirectMatch 403 /imports/.*$
            RedirectMatch 403 /log/.*$
            RedirectMatch 403 /temp/.*(?<!\.(css|xsl))$
            RedirectMatch 403 /upload/files/.*$
            RedirectMatch 403 /upload/images/.*$
            RedirectMatch 403 /vendor/.*$
        </IfModule>

        ## Cache static files:
        <IfModule mod_expires.c>
            ExpiresActive On
            # A2592000 = 30 days
            ExpiresByType image/svg+xml A2592000
            ExpiresByType image/gif A2592000
            ExpiresByType image/png A2592000
            ExpiresByType image/jpg A2592000
            ExpiresByType image/jpeg A2592000
            ExpiresByType image/ico A2592000
            ExpiresByType text/css A2592000
            ExpiresByType text/javascript A2592000
            ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
            ExpiresDefault "access 2 week"

            <IfModule mod_headers.c>
                Header append Cache-Control "public"
            </IfModule>
        </IfModule>

        ## Pretty URLs:
        <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
            RewriteEngine On
            RewriteRule favicon\.ico$ images/favicon.ico [L]
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
            RewriteRule .* index.php [L,QSA]
        </IfModule>

        ## Deny access to all ini files…
        <Files "*.ini">
            Require all denied
        </Files>

        </Directory>

    TimeOut 600
    ProxyTimeout 600
</VirtualHost>

i-doit ships custom Apache settings in files named .htaccess. These must be reviewed after each update and updated in the VirtualHost configuration.

In the next step, the Apache HTTP Server is restarted:

1
sudo systemctl restart httpd php-fpm

For Apache to have read and write permissions in the future i-doit installation directory, this must be allowed by SELinux:

1
2
sudo chown apache:apache -R /var/www/html
sudo chcon -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t "/var/www/html/" -R

MariaDB#

To ensure MariaDB delivers good performance and can be operated securely, a few steps are needed that should be carried out meticulously. This starts with a secure installation. The recommendations should be followed. The root user should receive a secure password:

1
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Do not enable socket authentication for the root user, as this would prevent i-doit from connecting to the database.

Then MariaDB is stopped and set to slow shutdown:

1
mysql -u root -p -e"SET GLOBAL innodb_fast_shutdown = 0"

A new file is created for the custom configuration settings:

1
sudo nano /etc/my.cnf.d/99-i-doit.cnf

This file contains the new configuration settings. For optimal performance, these settings should be adjusted to the (virtual) hardware:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
[mysqld]
# This is the number 1 setting to look at for any performance optimization
# It is where the data and indexes are cached: having it as large as possible will
# ensure MySQL uses memory and not disks for most read operations.
#
# Typical values are 1G (1-2GB RAM), 5-6G (8GB RAM), 20-25G (32GB RAM), 100-120G (128GB RAM).
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1G
# Redo log file size, the higher the better.
# MySQL/MariaDB writes two of these log files in a default installation.
innodb_log_file_size = 512M
innodb_sort_buffer_size = 64M
sort_buffer_size = 262144 # default
join_buffer_size = 262144 # default
max_allowed_packet = 128M
max_heap_table_size = 32M
query_cache_min_res_unit = 4096
query_cache_type = 1
query_cache_limit = 5M
query_cache_size = 80M
tmp_table_size = 32M
max_connections = 200
innodb_file_per_table = 1
# Disable this (= 0) if you have slow harddisks
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 1
innodb_flush_method = O_DIRECT
innodb_lru_scan_depth = 2048
table_definition_cache = 1024
table_open_cache = 2048
# Only if your have MySQL 5.6 or higher, do not use with MariaDB!
#table_open_cache_instances = 4
innodb_stats_on_metadata = 0
sql-mode = ""

Finally, MariaDB is started:

1
sudo systemctl restart mariadb.service

Finally, we need to configure SELinux so that Apache can access the network and the database:

1
2
3
4
5
6
# Allow Apache to connect to the database
sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect_db 1
# Allow Apache to connect to the network
sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1
# Allow Apache to connect to unusual pgsql Port for JDisc
sudo semanage port -a -t postgresql_port_t -p tcp 25321

Next Step#

The operating system is now prepared so that i-doit can be installed:

Continue to Setup