Linux patterns and practices for hosting web application

Question

I work mostly on desktop application on Windows platform. Now I am focusing on Linux platform to host web applications.

While hosting the application on Linux, I don't follow any procedure. I simply CHECKOUT the files from SVN and run the application on home directory. I don't know where to store the application data (example: mysql/postgres or Mongodb or redis, tokyo tyrant). Where to keep the log files.. What is the tip you have when we do the backend maintenance work on the server but display to the user saying that 'maintenance in progress' messages.

How do you host your application on VPS/dedicated/cloud service running Linux application?

Do you have any checklist? Do you have any tips & tricks?

Answer 1

Very broad question

• Where do you store application data?. Most people would install MySQL which would properly store the data in /var/lib/mysql and Apache where /var/www is typically used. These applications are usually configured in /etc/apache2 and /etc/mysql.
• Where to keep log files?. These almost always goes in to /var/log. For configuration check /etc/syslog.conf
• How do you configure a server maintenance message?. Create a HTML file with your message and serve it by configuring apache from /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
• How to do virtual Linux servers?. The easiest way is to install an instance on Amazon EC2 or you could use Oracle's VirtualBox (similar to VMWare, but free). You could also try Zen/KVM but these are far form trivial, so unless you have Linux maven around then I would stay clear of these.