Ubuntu and LAMP installed BUT next steps...

[watters]

Folks,

 

First a short background

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I'm very new to Ubuntu but I managed to install Ubuntu desktop 9.04, followed by LAMP server, and then followed by phpmyadmin. As part of doing all that I did:

 

$sudo chown user-id /var/www

$sudo chgrp user-id /var/www

 

to change the group and owner of the web server directories to the user I use to log into the Ubuntu machine with. I don't know if that was the right thing to do or not but seemed a good idea at the time.

 

I am shortly going to install webmin to give me a web gui way of configuring Apache etc after which I want to install TikiWiki. The Ubuntu box is sitting behind a router on my LAN. I'd like to be able to access the TikiWiki and Ubuntu box across the Internet after all is done somehow. My LAN accesses the Internet via an ADSL2/2+ modem/router and I do not have the luxury of a static IP address.

 

Questions

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Q1. Presumably a LAMP installation starts out with some security in mind with the defaults set for Apache but are there some standard things that should be set for Apache bearing in my mind the chown and chgrp I have already done as mentioned earlier?

 

Q2. My router would be open on port 80 by default and presumably all other ports will be closed. I gather that Webmin uses port 10000? If so, while I've read that webmin isn't secure by nature presumably it should be secure by being behind my router? I'd appreciate hearing thoughts on this please.

 

Q3. During the journey so far I got a message saying "Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name". Presumably I need to register a website name with a DNS registrar, and then delegate it to a dynamic DNS provider such as dyndns.org or something like that and set Apache accordingly? However, I gather that dynamic DNS isn't very secure and TSIG should be used. Are there any free public dynamic DNS providers that support TSIG? Then again, presumably I also need to find a router that supports TSIG too?

 

Thanks and Regards,

 

 

Watters