How to install Looking Glass on AlmaLinux 9

Looking Glass is a powerful network-related utility written in PHP and Bootstrap 5. It can run network commands directly in the browser. The setup is pretty straightforward if you follow the documentation. However, in this guide, we will install it manually using Apache as the web server and obtain an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt. So, read on to learn how to install Looking Glass on AlmaLinux 9.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Install the required tools

We will install all the required tools and libraries needed for this setup, including PHP and Apache.

dnf install mtr traceroute httpd mod_ssl php-fpm php-posix

Start and enable PHP-FPM and Apache at boot time.

systemctl start httpd
systemctl start php-fpm

systemctl enable httpd
systemctl enable php-fpm

Add firewall rules for HTTP and HTTPS:

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
firewall-cmd --reload

As suggested disable SELINUX.

vim /etc/selinux/config

And set SELINUX=disabled.

Create symlinks for MTR and it’s helpers:

ln -s /usr/sbin/mtr /usr/bin/mtr

ln -s /usr/sbin/mtr-packet /usr/bin/mtr-packet

Download Looking Glass

We will now download the latest version of Looking Glass as an archive and unzip it.

cd /var/www/

wget https://github.com/hybula/lookingglass/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

unzip main.zip

mv lookingglass-main/* /var/www/html

It is advisable to create some dummy files for download and set up the configuration according to our needs.

mv /var/www/html/config.dist.php /var/www/html/config.php

mkdir /var/www/html/files

truncate -s 100M /var/www/html/files/dummy-100M.bin
truncate -s 1G /var/www/html/files/dummy-1G.bin
truncate -s 10G /var/www/html/files/dummy-10G.bin

chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html

iperf3 (optional)

This is not required, but if you want to install it, here you go.

dnf install iperf3 -y

iperf3 -sD -p 5201

To automatically start iperf3 when the system boots up, create a systemd unit file.

vim /etc/systemd/system/iperf3.service

Add the following in it:

[Unit]
Description=iperf3 server
After=syslog.target network.target auditd.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/iperf3 -s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start and enable it:

systemctl start iperf3
systemctl enable iperf3

SSL and Apache virtual host

Add the EPEL repository to the system for the Certbot package.

dnf install epel-release

dnf install certbot

Create a virtual host file based on your domain.

vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/DOMAIN.COM.conf

Add the following in it:

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerName DOMAIN.COM
	ServerAlias DOMAIN.COM

    DocumentRoot /var/www/html

    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/DOMAIN.COM_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/DOMAIN.COM_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Check the configuration and restart Apache.

apachectl configtest
systemctl restart httpd

Once the host is set up, it’s time to get an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.

certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www/html -d DOMAIN.COM

Note down the paths to the certificate files and open the virtual host file to add the port 443 block.

<VirtualHost *:443>
	ServerName DOMAIN.COM

	DocumentRoot /var/www/html

	SSLCipherSuite EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256+EDH:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA:AES128-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:HIGH:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!MD5:!PSK:!RC4
	SSLProtocol All -SSLv2 -SSLv3 -TLSv1 -TLSv1.1
	SSLHonorCipherOrder On

	Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains; preload"
	Header always set X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN"
	Header always set X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff"
	Header always set X-XSS-Protection "0"
	Header always set X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies "none"
	Header always set Referrer-Policy "no-referrer-when-downgrade"
	Header always set Permissions-Policy "camera=(self), geolocation=(self), microphone=(self)"

	Protocols h2 http/1.1

	<Directory "/var/www/html">
		AllowOverride All
		Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
	</Directory>

	ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/DOMAIN.COM_ssl_error.log

	SSLEngine on
	SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/DOMAIN.COM/privkey.pem
	SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/DOMAIN.COM/fullchain.pem
</VirtualHost>

apachectl configtest
systemctl restart httpd

You can test the URL with HTTPS. If it works, we can now add redirection from HTTP to HTTPS in the port 80 block.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

apachectl configtest
systemctl restart httpd

To auto-renew the SSL certificate, add a crontab entry by running crontab -e.

30 04 * * * certbot renew

At this point, reboot the server to test all configurations and settings, such as the iperf3 daemon.
The main configuration file is located at /var/www/html/config.php.