Learning Linux! (Part 2)

Hello!

I’ve been taking the LinuxCBT Ubu12x Edition course and learned a few useful tricks that I would like to share here!

Please note that the following content has been tested on Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS.

Make a HTTP Server!

Open a Terminal.
Run the following command to install the Apache web server.
```
 sudo apt update && sudo apt install apache2
```
Run the following command to check whether the Apache service is running:
```
 sudo systemctl status apache2
```
[OPTIONAL] The Apache server should have started automatically. If not, use the following command to manually start it:
```
 sudo systemctl start apache2
```
Run the following command to check what port the Apache server is listening on:
```
 sudo lsof -i | grep "apache2"
```
By default, the Apache service listens on port 80.
Open a web-browser and visit http://localhost:80. You should see the Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page
Read the Configuration Overview section very carefully!

Replace the contents of /var/www/html with a website of your choice! For example, if we create a file /var/www/html/index.html with the content:

 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
     <h1>
         Hello world!
     </h1>
 </html>

The following site is served:

Hello world!

Finally to stop the Apache service run:
```
 sudo systemctl stop apache2
```
It is very likely that the TCP port 80 is closed for access from the internet. In order to make your website accessible from the internet, you will have to forward TCP port 80 through your router’s management interface. Since this process varies from router to router, instead of discussing the port forwarding process here, I would recommend you view the excellent guides at PortForward.

Disk Partitions

Open a Terminal.
Run the following command, to view all partitions and connected drives.
```
 sudo fdisk -l
```
Note that, entries /dev/sda1/, dev/sda2/ and /dev/sda3/ are partitions of the same physical drive.

Entries /dev/sda1/ and /dev/sdb1/ are different physical drives.
Run the following command to open the default partitioning tool bundled with Ubuntu.
```
 sudo parted
```
Run the following command to select a physical disk. Replace /dev/sda with the a physical drive’s name you want to create a partition in. The name can be found from Step 1:
```
 select /dev/sda
```
Run the following command to give the new partition a msdos type label:
```
 mklabel msdos
```
Other label types such as bsd, gpt and mac are also viable options, however msdos is the most universally supported.
Run the following command to display available space in the selected drive:
```
 print free
```
Please note the Start and End values of free space where you would like to create the parition. This will be required later!
Run the following command to create a Primary parition. Note that you can create a logical partition if you do not intend to make the new partition bootable.
```
 mkpart primary
```
You will now be prompted to enter a partition type. For Linux use, ext4 is recommended. However, personally, I prefer ntfs because it allows access to the partition from both Linux and Windows-based systems in a multi-boot environment. ext4 isn’t supported by Windows, however ntfs is fully-supported by both Windows and Linux
Next you will be promted to enter a Start and End values for the partition. Enter the values you noted in Step 6. Press Enter, to finish creating the partition!

Auto-mount a partition at startup

Open a Terminal.
Run the following command, to view all partitions and their UUIDs:
```
 sudo blkid
```
Note down the UUID of the partition you would like to automatically mount at startup.
Run the following command to find the current user’s user ID:
```
 id -u $USER
```
Note down the printed user ID.
Run the following command to find the current user’s group ID:
```
 id -g $USER
```
Note down the printed group ID.
Open the /etc/fstab in a code-editor of your choice. I will be using Visual Studio Code:
```
 code /etc/fstab
```
Copy-paste the following line at the end of the file:
```
 UUID=<YOUR_UUID> <YOUR_MOUNT_PATH> <PARTITION_TYPE> defaults 0 0
```
- Replace <YOUR_UUID> with the UUID from Step 2.
- Replace <YOUR_MOUNT_PATH> with the path at which you would like to mount your partition. I personally like to mount partitions in /media/username/.
- Replace <PARTITION_TYPE> with the type of the partition.
If your partition type is ntfs, please replace defaults with the following string:
```
 uid=<YOUR_UID>,gid=<YOUR_GID>,umask=0022,auto,rw
```
- Replace <YOUR_UID> with the user ID from Step 3.
- Replace <YOUR_GID> with the group ID from Step 4.
Save and close the file!