How to install Subsonic as a non-root user on Ubuntu 10.04
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 1:53 amNOTE:These instructions were compiled from several sources and tweaked/updated by me where needed. Thanks to Zachary Lund from Lundscape.com, Baaldemon and Sean P. Keown from the Subsonic forums, The Apache Tomcat FAQ and of course Andre, all of whom did the really heavy lifting 
Reference: http://blog.lundscape.com/2009/05/insta ... ment-11745
Since I'm somewhat of a novice, I used the Ubuntu Desktop edition and set it up as a server. I installed Nomachine's NX Server to get remote access to the GUI when I needed it. Http://www.nomcahine.com . You'll need to also install openSSH from the repositories to get NX to work.
Why would I want to go through the trouble of doing this when I can just download and install the .deb file from Subsonic?
Because by default the .deb file will install as root, which is a significant security risk if you are going to enable external access to the server. Using this method will install Apache/Subsonic as an unprivileged user, limiting the ability of an attacker to compromise your system. It is also recommended to use port-forwarding on your router from a non-standard port to port 8080 (or whatever port you set up, default is 8080) internally on your Tomcat/Subsonic server.
What's the advantage of using the Apache Tomcat version in the Ubuntu repositories rather than downloading and installing it directly from Apache.org?
Security and convenience. Since you can install it from the repositories in Synaptic the initial setup is much easier. But most importantly it creates a user called tomcat6 and runs under that rather than root, which makes things a lot more secure. However if you are experienced Tomcat user and would rather use the traditional install that'll certainly work too.
What is Apache's Tomcat anyway?
Tomcat is a free, open source web server specifically designed to run Java-based applications like Subsonic.
More info can be found at:
http://tomcat.apache.org/
1. Install the necessary Java packages, Tomcat, and Lame:
apt-get install java-common sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-jre
apt-get install tomcat6
apt-get install lame
2. Stop Tomcat before changing the Tomcat configuration and installing the Subsonic web application.
/etc/init.d/tomcat6 stop
NOTE: in the Ubuntu repo version of tomcat6 this should be turned off by default, making this next step unnecessary. You may just want to check /etc/init.d/tomcat6 to make sure. If not, the steps below should correct it.
cd /etc/init.d/
mv tomcat6 tomcat6.bak
sed "s/TOMCAT6_SECURITY=yes/TOMCAT6_SECURITY=no/" tomcat6.bak > tomcat6
chmod +x tomcat6
rm tomcat6.bak
3. Download and extract the Subsonic 4.2 WAR file:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/subsoni ... p/download
4. Go to the directory where you downloaded the file. (in this case my Firefox Downloads folder):
cd /home/user/Downloads
5. Unzip and move subsonic.war into the webapps directory:
unzip subsonic-4.2-war.zip -d subsonic
mv subsonic/subsonic.war /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/
6. Subsonic expects certain directories to exist. The following creates those directories and sets the permissions.
mkdir /var/subsonic
mkdir /var/subsonic/playlists
mkdir /var/subsonic/transcode
chown -R tomcat6:nogroup /var/subsonic
7. Subsonic uses Lame to transcode/compress mp3s for streaming. The next two lines make Lame available to Subsonic:
cd /var/subsonic/transcode
ln -s /usr/bin/lame lame
8. Now start Tomcat again:
/etc/init.d/tomcat6 start
Subsonic should now be running and available at http://localhost:8080/subsonic/. The port might vary depending on the installation of Tomcat. Log in. You can change the password by clicking on “Settings” and then “Users” and then selecting the admin account.
How do I override the default home page loaded by Tomcat?
If you are using port forwarding for external access to your Subsonic server, you'll want your Subsonic login page to come up as the default “index” page rather than a subdirectory from the root URL in order for forwarding to work properly. Here's how.
From:
http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/HowTo#How ... _Tomcat.3F
After successfully installing Tomcat, you usually test it by loading http://localhost:8080 . The contents of that page are compiled into the index_jsp servlet. The page even warns against modifying the index.jsp files for this reason. Luckily, it is quite easy to override that page. Inside $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/web.xml there is a section called <welcome-file-list> and it looks like this:
<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
<welcome-file>index.htm</welcome-file>
<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
The default servlet attempts to load the index.* files in the order listed. You may easily override the index.jsp file by creating an index.html file at $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/ROOT. It's somewhat common for that file to contain a new static home page or a redirect to a servlet's main page. A redirect would look like:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://mydomain.com/some/path/to/servlet/homepage/">
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
This change takes effect immediately and does not require a restart of Tomcat.
Reference: http://blog.lundscape.com/2009/05/insta ... ment-11745
Since I'm somewhat of a novice, I used the Ubuntu Desktop edition and set it up as a server. I installed Nomachine's NX Server to get remote access to the GUI when I needed it. Http://www.nomcahine.com . You'll need to also install openSSH from the repositories to get NX to work.
Why would I want to go through the trouble of doing this when I can just download and install the .deb file from Subsonic?
Because by default the .deb file will install as root, which is a significant security risk if you are going to enable external access to the server. Using this method will install Apache/Subsonic as an unprivileged user, limiting the ability of an attacker to compromise your system. It is also recommended to use port-forwarding on your router from a non-standard port to port 8080 (or whatever port you set up, default is 8080) internally on your Tomcat/Subsonic server.
What's the advantage of using the Apache Tomcat version in the Ubuntu repositories rather than downloading and installing it directly from Apache.org?
Security and convenience. Since you can install it from the repositories in Synaptic the initial setup is much easier. But most importantly it creates a user called tomcat6 and runs under that rather than root, which makes things a lot more secure. However if you are experienced Tomcat user and would rather use the traditional install that'll certainly work too.
What is Apache's Tomcat anyway?
Tomcat is a free, open source web server specifically designed to run Java-based applications like Subsonic.
More info can be found at:
http://tomcat.apache.org/
1. Install the necessary Java packages, Tomcat, and Lame:
apt-get install java-common sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-jre
apt-get install tomcat6
apt-get install lame
2. Stop Tomcat before changing the Tomcat configuration and installing the Subsonic web application.
/etc/init.d/tomcat6 stop
NOTE: in the Ubuntu repo version of tomcat6 this should be turned off by default, making this next step unnecessary. You may just want to check /etc/init.d/tomcat6 to make sure. If not, the steps below should correct it.
cd /etc/init.d/
mv tomcat6 tomcat6.bak
sed "s/TOMCAT6_SECURITY=yes/TOMCAT6_SECURITY=no/" tomcat6.bak > tomcat6
chmod +x tomcat6
rm tomcat6.bak
3. Download and extract the Subsonic 4.2 WAR file:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/subsoni ... p/download
4. Go to the directory where you downloaded the file. (in this case my Firefox Downloads folder):
cd /home/user/Downloads
5. Unzip and move subsonic.war into the webapps directory:
unzip subsonic-4.2-war.zip -d subsonic
mv subsonic/subsonic.war /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/
6. Subsonic expects certain directories to exist. The following creates those directories and sets the permissions.
mkdir /var/subsonic
mkdir /var/subsonic/playlists
mkdir /var/subsonic/transcode
chown -R tomcat6:nogroup /var/subsonic
7. Subsonic uses Lame to transcode/compress mp3s for streaming. The next two lines make Lame available to Subsonic:
cd /var/subsonic/transcode
ln -s /usr/bin/lame lame
8. Now start Tomcat again:
/etc/init.d/tomcat6 start
Subsonic should now be running and available at http://localhost:8080/subsonic/. The port might vary depending on the installation of Tomcat. Log in. You can change the password by clicking on “Settings” and then “Users” and then selecting the admin account.
How do I override the default home page loaded by Tomcat?
If you are using port forwarding for external access to your Subsonic server, you'll want your Subsonic login page to come up as the default “index” page rather than a subdirectory from the root URL in order for forwarding to work properly. Here's how.
From:
http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/HowTo#How ... _Tomcat.3F
After successfully installing Tomcat, you usually test it by loading http://localhost:8080 . The contents of that page are compiled into the index_jsp servlet. The page even warns against modifying the index.jsp files for this reason. Luckily, it is quite easy to override that page. Inside $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/web.xml there is a section called <welcome-file-list> and it looks like this:
<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
<welcome-file>index.htm</welcome-file>
<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
The default servlet attempts to load the index.* files in the order listed. You may easily override the index.jsp file by creating an index.html file at $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/ROOT. It's somewhat common for that file to contain a new static home page or a redirect to a servlet's main page. A redirect would look like:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://mydomain.com/some/path/to/servlet/homepage/">
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
This change takes effect immediately and does not require a restart of Tomcat.
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