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I'm trying to set up an unmanaged VPS to test uploading drupal.

All I ever get is a 403 forbidden error when trying to access my URL.

Because the VPS is unmanaged, I installed webmin and virtualmin—not that I've actually got around to understanding any of it.

I'm still confused over /root, /var, /home (and I have looked at diagram of Centos hierarchy of directories), but I can't really get my head around it.

I followed a tutorial to wget drupal then extract to /var/www. The trouble is it became /var/www/drupal-7.17 and then I wondered why I was not putting in public_html as you do in a web host environment. So I moved it to public_html and that did nothing: still 403 errors. So checked permissions and then ownership (can't change ownership because when I try it says "no such username" and I don't actually know what username I should use).

So then I tried moving the entire contents of drupal-7.17 folder to www but didn't know the command so had to individually mv each file over to www but in the end it doesn't show invisible files and anyway still says there are 8 files in drupal folder, two of which look like this . and .. which I thought was a directory command!

I'm so completely lost now.

Now my set up with drupal is a mess and I'd like to just start again but it won't allow me to rm the drupal directory even though I chmodded it to 777 to remove it.

When I try and edit a file such as .htaccess (which is not even visible on command) or some other pertinent file some tutorial says I should edit, I open the file to edit with vi command and it opens but I can't edit it- I've tried! It just sits there and won't let me do anything or uncomment as they tell you to do - how!? Yes I know remove the # but it doesn't let you edit.

Main thing I find really confusing as I'm used to ftp is logging on my filezilla to see what the hell I've been doing on command line logging in as VPS user not root and seeing nothing but a few bash files and one .ssh folder - I can't see any drupal folder or www or public.html - where is everything?

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No offense, but if you don't know how to manage the OS well then perhaps you are better off with a simple web hosting account, where someone else takes care of issues such as many of these, than a VPS which you are required to manage yourself (keeping server software up to date, make sure it is protected against intrusions by e.g. firewalls and configuration, etc.). A VPS gives you great power at a relatively low cost, but requires that you feel comfortable wielding that power. A VPS is an alternative to hardware colocation, not to a web hosting account. – Michael Kjörling Nov 26 '12 at 12:05
I do it to learn, that's the point. I enjoy learning even though it can be frustrating at times and usually I work things out eventually by reading. It is the challenge, I am now a self appointed student of unix command line from a free education online. Already a computer science professor in Oslo is allowing me to read his textbook for beginners on unix. There are wonderful people like that who support people wishing to learn. – freja Nov 26 '12 at 14:33
..and I can tell you I work a million times harder at it than anyone else because it does not come easy for me. “Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” – Isaac Asimov – freja Nov 26 '12 at 14:42
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@freja Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. wonderful words to live by except you should be starting with the basics of the UNIX/Linux system before you start doing complicated things. – Karlson Nov 26 '12 at 14:58
I mean to say I prefer to jump in the deep END, it motivates me. – freja Nov 27 '12 at 5:11
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closed as not a real question by jasonwryan, Renan, warl0ck, derobert, Mat Nov 28 '12 at 6:30

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

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Ouch! I feel your pain.

You have quite a few things going on, and all of them require some knowledge in different areas.

Let's start with vi:

it's not a word processor like the ones we've become so accustomed to.

vi has several 'modes', and when you start it up you are not in edit mode. I would point you to a tutorial such as http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/UnixAndC/Editors/ViIntro.html

To take care of the rest we would need to break down the issues into smaller pieces and attack them one by one.

If you look at my stack exchange profile you should see a link to my online profile, or twitter my @jharrys, I'd be happy to walk you through some of the issues to get you back on track.

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Thank you!It is now evening in Australia and I have not stopped coding since 8 am so going to stop now. Hope I can make contact tomorrow. I will keep away from all things 'terminal' during the day (which I planned anyway after the mess I've made) so when I catch you I will be able to keep up! Thanks again, you don't know how much I appreciate it. – freja Nov 26 '12 at 8:17
Hi John, I have re-installed my server to start from scratch and will not be using webmin considering am using vps to learn for now.I am going to follow that tut you posted because now managed to quickly install apache mysql php following this blog rickymills.com/tutorials/… and no longer have 403 error YAY! Thank you so much for offering your help. – freja Nov 27 '12 at 4:06
That is a great little tutorial- thx! but don't know why they don't just use arrow keys to move to letters when editing. :) Found this other tut as well which goes in more depth ccsf.edu/Pub/Fac/vi.html – freja Nov 27 '12 at 5:10
I worked it all and it is funny reading this now! – freja Dec 10 '12 at 13:13

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