Setup DVWA on arch linux (recommended to tried this in isolated environment, like QEMU)

technical pre-requisite:

basic understanding on php programming language
understand how to talk to sql database through php code (atleast know how to code koneksi.php)

install necessary arch package:

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pacman -S php php-fpm php-gd mariadb apache

configure mariadb

initialize mariadb:

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mariadb-install-db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql

set mariadb database, user and password

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CREATE USER 'dvwa'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'p@ssw0rd';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'dvwa'@'localhost';
CREATE DATABASE dvwa;

optionally, ensure the DB and user is created, or change password:

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SHOW DATABASES;
SELECT user FROM mysql.user;
ALTER USER 'dvwa'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'NewPassword';

configure apache, php-fpm and php

enable proxy modules by un-comment line that contain LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so, proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so and proxy_fcgi_module modules/mod_proxy_fcgi.so in file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

create file /etc/httpd/conf/extra/php-fpm.conf with the following content:

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DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
<FilesMatch \.php$>
    SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost/"
</FilesMatch>

and include it by append Include conf/extra/php-fpm.conf at the bottom of file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

configure /etc/php/php.ini:

to enable mysqli, gd, and pdo_mysql module extension (and re-start php-fpm services if necessary):
and to turn on certain php function such as allow_url_fopen, allow_url_include, display_errors, and display_startup_errors

run systemd services and clone the DVWA project

start necessary systemd services:

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systemctl enable mariadb php-fpm httpd --now

clone the git repository to /srv/http: git clone https://github.com/digininja/DVWA copy config/config.inc.php.dist to config/config.inc.php and adjust the config if necessary

if on QEMU, create a ssh tunnel first to access the http service, for example: ssh -N -C -L 8080:127.0.0.1:80 user@qemu-machine -p 4444, it will forward localhost:8080 to the guest's port 80, in the example the ssh's port is listening on 4444

optionally, set the files permission (only owner have full permission, rwx, the rest only rx) with chmod: chmod -R 755 DVWA

also, make sure the hackable/uploads/ and config directory is writable for httpd process.

finally, check if everything configured properly by visit the web page on http://localhost:80/DVWA/setup.php.

click the create / reset database button to initialize database's tables and contents, and you're ready to explore ^^