Install Flarum beta-12 on Ubuntu Nginx server

bertaveira

Install Flarum beta-12 on Ubuntu Nginx server

I have done a tutorial like this in the past for beta 8 but as time went by I learned more and some people pointed out problems so here it is a new one but now for beta 12.

I just recently had to migrate content to a new server and fresh install Flarum beta 12. For that reason I have encountered a lot of strange problems and dispersed information.

You might also be interested in checking out @DursunCan script (here) that does all this with a single command. But if it doesn't work or if you need more customization or you want to learn, feel free to follow along. Some of the code here was copied from his script because I felt his code sometime was better and less prone to errors.

I'll post a tutorial doing a clean install + migrating content soon. This way you have a shiny and clean server with the same old information.

What I want?

be able to have multiple websites and apps on the same server
run Flarum smoothly
try not to kill myself trying to make this work

I'll organize this tutorial in sections

Setup the server
Install Flarum
Setup Nginx
Set up Database
Throw a huge party and invite me 😂

1. Server

For this I used a 5€ droplet from DigitalOcean. Create a simple one and access it via ssh.
These are the requirements:
req

This is the server I am using from digitalocean:

digitalocean

Using the root user lets install the Nginx and create a new sudo user (because it is not recommended to do a lot in root... it might break your droplet).

apt-get update
apt-get install nginx
adduser username
usermod -aG sudo username
su - username

(change "username" to the name you want... it will ask you for a password and then information... you can skip the information by typing the key enter in all)

Install mysql

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

Install php

...in my case php 7.4
Search it online... it depends on the version

Example:

sudo apt -y install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt -y install php7.4

Install ALL the php extensions they ask

Now here is where it starts go get tricky. Besides the one they ask you have also to install php-fpm for nginx to work properly.

sudo apt-get install php7.4-fpm php7.4-common php7.4-mysql php7.4-xml php7.4-xmlrpc php7.4-curl php7.4-gd php7.4-cli php7.4-dev php7.4-imap php7.4-mbstring php7.4-opcache php7.4-soap php7.4-zip -y

Tokenizer is already included and the openssl should be as well but you can test it running php -i | grep -i openssl
and it should show amongst other things OpenSSL support => enabled.

I am writing this by memory or by searching online so some things might be miss typed... Correct me if I am wrong.

2. Install Flarum

First install composer

Download composer.phar and then move it to the bin directory like this:

mv /path/to/file/composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Install flarum

So now its time to install Flarum. Since I want to have multiple apps in the same server I have selected the directory /var/www for all my apps. Each will be in its own folder inside that www/ folder. I've created a folder for flarum and install it.

sudo mkdir /var/www/flarum
sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www/flarum
cd /var/www/flarum
composer create-project flarum/flarum . --stability=beta

the last command might take a while... any question see the flarum tutorial: https://flarum.org/docs/install.html#installing

If you get a memory error you need to create some swap memory to compensate for low amount of memory of the server. On digitalocean there is a useful tutorial on how to do this: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-add-swap-space-on-ubuntu-18-04

Also run this to avoid permission errors

sudo chown www-data:www-data -R /var/www/

3. Setup Nginx

Now is where my knowledge goes out of the window and my desire to take my own life begun. It took me 2 days to figure this out and understand how it works.

Nginx is the software that receives the http and https requests and points them to the right directory where the app or website files are located. One of my main goals was being able to have multiple websites and apps on the same server and Nginx can do that. It is called Server Blocks and it is fairly easy to understand but confusing to implement.
You have to create a .conf file in the sites-available/ folder for every website or app (in my case located in /etc/nginx/sites-available). When Nginx receives an http or https request it will search in all of these files for the one that it corresponds to. Each .conf file will represent one app and will have information like the domain expected for the app and location of the files in the server.

Create the new .conf file:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/flarum.conf

this will open a text editor where you can insert the code.
My .conf file looks like this (and is named flarum.conf). This one is from @DursunCan script because his was better than mine and worked just fine. Feel free to copy and only change your url:

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name www.example.com;
    return 301 http://example.com$request_uri;
}	
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/flarum/public;
    index index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name example.com;
    
    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
    
    location ~ /\. {
        deny all;
    }
    
    location = /favicon.ico {
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
    }
    
    location = /robots.txt {
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
        allow all;
    }
    include /var/www/flarum/.nginx.conf;
}

Change any necessary details like the "example.com" and "root /var/www/flarum;" and include /var/www/flarum/.nginx.conf; if it is in other folder.

To save and exit the editor just do ctrl+x and then type "y" to save and enter.

Now we need to disable the default website of nginx and make our new flarum website enabled:

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/flarum.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

By now the domain should be working.

SSL certificate (optional)

If you want an SSL certificate do the following. This code was also copied from @DursunCan.

Install certbot:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python-certbot-nginx -y

Generate SSL and set everything up (Don't forget to replace the "example.com" with your url and your email):

certbot --nginx --agree-tos --redirect --no-eff-email -m example@gmail.com -d example.com -d www.example.com

4. Create DataBase

Ok so it should be all working but you need a database and a user to give to flarum so it can finish the installation and start looking like a proper website.

For this we need to first create the database.
Switch to the root user and access mysql:

su - root
mysql -u root -p

you might need to type the root password

Then lets create the database, user and assign permissions

CREATE DATABASE flarumdb;
CREATE USER 'newuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON flarumdb.* To 'newuser'@'localhost';
exit

I named the databased flarumdb...
Replace newuser and password with whatever you want but leave the '' there!!!! This user is only for flarum so the password can be a random combination of letters and numbers

Party like there is no tomorrow

Ok by now everything should be working and you have a database and a user with privileges to that database.
Access the domain and finish the setup of Flarum.
When setting up flarum you'll be asked for the databese prefix. It is the same as the name. For example mine is called flarumdb so the prefix is flarumdb as well.

clarkwinkelmann

Great tutorial! Haven't tested it in practice but looking good 👌

bertaveira When setting up flarum you'll be asked for the databese prefix. It is the same as the name. For example mine is called flarumdb so the prefix is flarumdb as well

That's not required. A prefix is only needed if you wanted to install multiple apps inside a single database. I usually create one database per app, and leave the prefix empty. Prefixes are a bit of an old-fashioned thing and made most of their sense in the past when managed hostings were limiting you to a single database.

DursunCan

bertaveira Thank you for the quotes.

ramhesdada

bertaveira path/to/file/

Please tell what path to enter, I am new in LINUX please

bertaveira

clarkwinkelmann Thanks 😃 Just an update on the one I did a long time ago. Had to install flarum about 4 times in the past days because I kept messing it up (migrating database form old beta 7), so it helped me to keep track and might as well try and help others. Just tried line by line and it worked without a problem but lets see how it goes for others.

clarkwinkelmann A prefix is only needed if you wanted to install multiple apps inside a single database.

Didn't know that. Thanks, I am a newbie when it comes to databases. I'm do more Unix, C/C++ and embedded systems development but the web development specially the back end has been an interest of mine for a while. I see you have tutorials on making extensions... might give them a go and try making my own.

fakruzaruret

bertaveira This is great tutorial. On the other hand you can add subdirectory nginx configuration if you want to develop and update.

You can add this line also. Sometşmes this require.
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON flarumdb.* To 'newuser'@'%';

Yalfoosh

Something I realized recently - you should also include the part where you edit the cli/php.ini and client_max_body_size in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf (or flarum.conf).

Without this, you will not be able to upload stuff over 1 MB (nginx' default limit), and flarum doesn't read the php.ini in the fpm folder. This gimped my forum considerably since it's full of images as we would get a non-descriptive error from fof/upload (even though it isn't their fault). Found the issue by chance, doesn't seem anyone else had it (probably most use Apache, and experienced administrators don't consider it important to stress enough).

Other than that, great guide!