Linux

HES deployment - Linux

• Option 1: CentOS Linux Stream 9

• Option 2: Ubuntu Server LTS 22.04

• Option 3: Ubuntu Server LTS 24.04

Before you start

• You need to know how to create and edit text files in Linux. For example, you can use vim editor. Here you can find a quick start guide on how to use the Vim editor.

1. Preparation

1.1. System Update

CentOS

sudo dnf update -y

Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y  

Reboot system

sudo reboot

1.2 Disable SELinux (CentOS only)

sudo sed -i 's/SELINUX=enforcing/SELINUX=disabled/' /etc/selinux/config
sudo reboot

To verify that SELinux is disabled, you can type:

sudo sestatus
SELinux status:                 disabled

Note: on production servers, usually after installation and verification, you need to re-enable SELinux and configure it accordingly.

1.3 Firewall Configuration (optional)

To access the server from the network, ports 80 and 443 and port 22 (default port for connection via ssh) should be opened:

CentOS:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=22/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=80/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=443/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Ubuntu:

sudo ufw allow 22
sudo ufw allow 80
sudo ufw allow 443
sudo ufw enable

2. Installing Prerequisites

2.1. Installing additional packages

CentOS stream 9 :

sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm -y
sudo dnf install libgdiplus libicu jq -y
sudo dnf install compat-openssl11 -y

Ubuntu 22.04:

sudo apt install libgdiplus libicu70 jq gss-ntlmssp-dev -y

Ubuntu 24.04:

sudo apt install libgdiplus libicu74 jq gss-ntlmssp-dev -y

Package descriptions:

• libgdiplus – An open-source implementation of the GDI+ graphics library used by .NET applications for image rendering and drawing operations on Linux.

• libicu70 – International Components for Unicode (ICU) library that provides robust Unicode and globalization support, including string collation, date/number formatting, and locale-specific operations.

• jq – A lightweight command-line processor for JSON data, enabling filtering, parsing, and transformation of structured JSON directly in the terminal.

• gss-ntlmssp-dev – Development package for GSS-NTLMSSP, which enables NTLM authentication through the GSSAPI framework, often used for integrating Linux services with Windows Active Directory.

3. Installing the HES server

3.1. Download HES server

cd ~
curl -O https://update.hideez.com/hes/linux_x64_latest.tar.gz

3.2. Extracting files and moving to the /opt directory

tar -xvf linux_x64_latest.tar.gz
sudo mv HES /opt/

3.3. Configuring the HES

Navigate to the '/opt/HES/' directory and run the HES.Wizard application

cd /opt/HES/
sudo ./HES.Wizard

next, follow the setup tips and configure the server

3.4. Daemonizing of the HES

We already prepared the configuration file to start and manage the HES server in the /opt/HES/Deploy directory. You need to copy the file HES.service to the /lib/systemd/system/:

sudo cp /opt/HES/Deploy/HES.service /lib/systemd/system/HES.service

Enabling autostart:

sudo systemctl enable HES.service
sudo systemctl restart HES.service

You can verify that HES server is running with the command:

sudo systemctl status HES

The output of the command should be something like this:

● HES.service - Hideez Enterprise Server
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/HES.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2022-12-21 14:15:03 UTC; 8s ago
   Main PID: 929817 (HES.Web)
      Tasks: 18 (limit: 4405)
     Memory: 103.1M
        CPU: 4.817s
     CGroup: /system.slice/HES.service
             └─929817 /opt/HES/HES.Web

4. Configuring Reverse Proxy Server

To access your server from the local network as well as from the Internet, you have to configure a reverse proxy. We will use the Nginx server for this.

4.1. Install Nginx

CentOS 7:

sudo yum install nginx -y
sudo systemctl enable nginx

Ubuntu:

sudo apt install nginx -y

4.2. Copying of self-signed certificates for Nginx

We have prepared a self-signed certificate for nginx that you can use to test running HES. Just copy it to nginx:

sudo mkdir /etc/nginx/certs
sudo cp /opt/HES/Deploy/certs/*   /etc/nginx/certs

Note :

In the production environment, you should take care of acquiring a certificate from a certificate authority. For a self-signed certificate, the browser will alert you that site has security issues.

4.3. Updating Nginx config

We prepared some Nginx configurations for different versions of Linux and placed them in the /opt/HES/Deploy directory. You may just copy the corresponding file or you can review and edit it for your needs.

CentOS 7:

sudo cp /opt/HES/Deploy/CentOS7/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Ubuntu 20:

$ sudo cp /opt/HES/Deploy/Ubuntu20/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

• remove default nginx site:

sudo rm  /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Ubuntu 22, Ubuntu 24:

sudo cp /opt/HES/Deploy/Ubuntu22/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

• remove default nginx site:

sudo rm  /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

After copying the file, it is recommended to verify nginx settings:

$ sudo nginx -t

The output should be something like this:

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Otherwise, you should carefully review the settings and correct the errors.

4.4. Restart nginx

sudo systemctl restart nginx

4.5. Check that nginx service is installed and started

sudo systemctl status nginx

The output would be something like this:

* nginx.service - The nginx HTTP and reverse proxy server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sat 2020-01-25 08:22:56 UTC; 8min ago
  Process: 1702 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 1700 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 1699 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/rm -f /run/nginx.pid (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 1704 (nginx)
   CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
           +-1704 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx
           +-1705 nginx: worker process

Here you can find an update guide for Linux.

By default, access to the new server: login - admin@server password - admin