How to install ISPConfig 3 on CentOS 7

In this article, we will show you how to install ISPConfig 3 on a CentOS 7 VPS, as well as go through the initial configuration.

ISPConfig is an open-source hosting control panel for Linux which has a user-friendly web interface – with it, users can manage their websites, email addresses, FTP accounts, DNS records, databases, and shell accounts.

The ISPConfig has four different levels of user access, which are as follows: Administrator, Reseller, Client, and Email-user. Each of these has varying levels of access to ISPConfig’s menus.

Prerequisites

• A Server running CentOS 7
• Access to the root user, or access to a user with sudo privileges.

Step 1: Connect to your server

Before we begin, you need to connect to your server via SSH as the root user, or as a user with sudo privileges. To do this, use the following command:

ssh root@IP_address -p Port_number

Of course, you will need to replace IP_address and Port_number with your actual server IP address and SSH port number.

Once you are logged in to the server, you can type the following commands to update all of your currently installed packages to their latest available versions. After that, you’ll enable the required packages for the ISPConfig by installing the “Development Tools” bundle:

yum install yum-priorities
yum update
yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'

Enable the EPEL repository if it is not already done so:

yum install epel-release

Install the following packages:

yum install NetworkManager-tui awstats bzip2 getmail quota mailman nano net-tools openssl perl-DateTime-Format-Builder perl-DateTime-Format-HTTP postgrey re2c rkhunter unzip yum-utils webalizer wget
rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/updates/7/x86_64/u/unrar-5.4.5-1.el7.x86_64.rpm

Restart the server for the changes to take effect.

Step 2: Install LAMP Stack

Once the system is up to date, we can continue installing the LAMP stack with Apache, MariaDB, PHP, NTP, and phpMyAdmin:

cd opt/
wget http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
rpm -Uvh remi-release-7.rpm
yum-config-manager --enable remi-php72
yum install ntp httpd mod_ssl mariadb-server php php-mysql php-mbstring phpmyadmin

In order to log in to phpMyAdmin from any IP address, edit the phpMyAdmin configuration file (/etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf) and remove the following lines:

<RequireAny>
Require ip 127.0.0.1
Require ip ::1
</RequireAny>

Also, edit the /etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php file and change the authentication, i.e replace:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'cookie';

with:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'http';

Edit the /etc/httpd/conf.d/awstats.conf Awstats configuration file and replace ‘Require local’ to ‘Require all granted’.
Restart the Apache service for the changes to take effect:

service httpd restart

After the LAMP stack has been successfully installed on your server, you can use the commands below to start and enable the MariaDB service on the server.

systemctl start mariadb.service
systemctl enable mariadb.service

The next command is optional but recommended by us. You can run this command if you want to secure your MariaDB server by disallowing remote root access, removing the test database, and creating a root password.

mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Press the [Enter] key - we do not have a password currently set.
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
New password: Enter your password
Re-enter new password: Repeat your password
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y

Restart the MariaDB server so that the changes take effect.

Step 3: Install Dovecot

You can execute the following command to install Dovecot on your server:

yum -y install dovecot dovecot-mysql dovecot-pigeonhole

When the installation is complete, create a dovecot-sql.conf file using the command below, after which you’ll make a symbolic link pointing back to the file you just created:

touch /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf
ln -s /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf /etc/dovecot-sql.conf

Now use the following commands to restart and enable the Dovecot service on the server.

systemctl restart dovecot.service
systemctl enable dovecot.service

Step 4: Install Amavisd-new, ClamAV, and SpamAssassin

By using the next command you will install ClamAV, Amavisd, and SpamAssassin, along with all of these additionally required packages, all in one go.

yum -y install amavisd-new spamassassin clamav clamd clamav-data clamav-devel clamav-update perl-DBD-mysql

Step 5: Install PHP and Apache2 Modules

In this step, we will install some required Apache and PHP modules, such as mod_php, mod_fcgid, php-mysql, and so on. To proceed with the installation of the modules, use the command below:

yum -y install php-ldap php-mysql php-odbc php-pear php php-devel php-gd php-imap php-xml php-xmlrpc php-pecl-apc php-mbstring php-mcrypt php-mssql php-snmp php-soap php-tidy curl curl-devel mod_fcgid php-cli httpd-devel php-fpm perl-libwww-perl ImageMagick libxml2 libxml2-devel python-devel

Step 6: Install PureFTPd

The most popular method for transferring files from one server to another or from one place to other is through the FTP protocol. In order to use this protocol, you’ll need to install an FTP server first. We will install PureFTP server because it is simple to install and easy-to-use. To install it on your server you only need to execute the following command:

yum -y install pure-ftpd

Step 7: Install BIND

BIND, or named, is one of the most commonly used Domain Name System software packages available on the Internet. In order for ISPConfig to be able to manage and configure the DNS settings, you need to install the following packages on the server:

yum -y install bind bind-utils

Edit the /etc/named.conf file, remove all the lines and add the following lines:

options {
        listen-on port 53 { any; };
        directory       "/var/named";
        dump-file       "/var/named/data/cache_dump.db";
        statistics-file "/var/named/data/named_stats.txt";
        memstatistics-file "/var/named/data/named_mem_stats.txt";
        allow-query     { any; };
				allow-recursion {"none";};
        recursion no;
};
logging {
        channel default_debug {
                file "data/named.run";
                severity dynamic;
        };
};
zone "." IN {
        type hint;
        file "named.ca";
};
include "/etc/named.conf.local";

Create a new ‘named.conf.local’ file in the /etc directory on your server:

touch /etc/named.conf.local

Restart the named service for the changes to take effect:

service named restart

Step 8: Install Let’s encrypt

We can easily add support for Let’s Encrypt in Apache using:

yum -y install certbot-apache

Add a cronjob so the Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates can be renewed automatically:

* 4 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew >/dev/null 2>&1

Step 9: Install fail2ban

Stop and disable the firewalld service:

systemctl stop firewalld.service
systemctl disable firewalld.service

Then, install fail2ban:

yum install iptables-services fail2ban fail2ban-systemd

Step 10: Install ISPConfig

After we finish all previous steps, it’s time to download and install ISPConfing 3 on the server. We will use the wget command to make a copy of the official web link on the ISPConfig website. To change the directory to /opt/ and download the ISPConfig packages, run the next two commands:

cd /opt/
wget http://www.ispconfig.org/downloads/ISPConfig-3-stable.tar.gz

Once the package has been downloaded, we’ll need to unpack it in order to use it. Unpack it with the command:

tar -zxvf ISPConfig-3-stable.tar.gz

Then use the following command to change the directory where the install script is placed.

cd ispconfig3_install/install/

To start the installation, you need to run this command:

php -q install.php

Output:

The installation instructions are self-explanatory, with each prompt describing exactly what sort of input ISPConfig expects. Once the setup is complete, you can continue to the next step.

Step 11: ISPConfig Login

Since the installation is completed, you should be able to access the ISPConfig control panel on your web browser. Open your preferred web browser and type your server’s IP address with the default configured port for ISPConfig, as shown below.
https://server_IP_address:8080/

Enter the login credentials so that you can log in.

Upon login on the ISPConfig panel, you will see the panel dashboard, as shown in the image below.

In this article, we showed you how to install LAMP, Dovecot, Amavisd-new, ClamAV, SpamAssassin, PureFTPd, BIND, and of course, ISPConfig. Now you can continue exploring this open source control panel and check the possibilities that it offers.

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Of course, if you are one of our Managed CentOS Hosting customers, you don’t have to install ISPConfig 3 on your CentOS 7 VPS – simply ask our admins, sit back, and relax. Our admins will install and configure ISPConfig 3 on CentOS 7 for you immediately. You can also use one of our Managed ISPConfig Hosting plans, where ISPConfig comes pre-installed and set up out-of-the-box, ready to be used.

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