Can’t Get Install Working on NameCheap

BrodyStone21

Hey guys, first time I’ve ever tried to set up something with NameCheap that wasn’t Wordpress. I am semi-comfortable with Linux and the command line, and I followed all the instructions provided at the below link.

https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/9981/2182/how-to-install-flarum/

The problem is I navigate to mydomain.com/flarum/public and nothing appears. I did try to the .htaccess file within the flarum folder and added

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^public
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]

I’m not sure if I was even supposed to add that, but I tried both with and without and neither are working. My domain still shows the NameCheap default landing page.

EDIT: I also tried uninstalling and using this the official docs but I can’t get it working. What does set web root mean? Like physically navigate there in my browser, or what? The docs are not very clear. I am quite experienced with self hosting and stuff and believe the installation tutorial could be clarified a bit.

clarkwinkelmann

BrodyStone21 that namecheap guide is giving unsafe instructions. The public folder should be dealt with before using the web wizard.

I am not familiar with NameCheap hosting. Usually in a managed hosting there's a setting in the management panel to configure a path as the "Document Root" or "Web Root". You usually set the absolute filesystem path to the public folder there, then Flarum will be accessible at https://<domain name>/ without any subfolder.

If the webroot cannot be customized, then these instructions should be used https://docs.flarum.org/install#customizing-paths , not the .htaccess hack suggested by the guide.

Flarum also offers ZIP downloads nowadays, you can pick one from the download page https://docs.flarum.org/install#installing If you cannot customize the webroot, pick the ZIP with "Public Path: No" and it will work like WordPress.

BrodyStone21

clarkwinkelmann The public folder should be dealt with before using the web wizard.

Can you elaborate on what exactly you mean by this? Sorry, I'm just really not following.

clarkwinkelmann

BrodyStone21 if you see /public in the browser address bar, something is not configured correctly.

The NameCheap guide suggests going ahead even if that's the case, but my recommendation is to not proceed until you see the installation page at the intended URL without public in it. Fixing the wrong URL involves more steps if the web installation wizard has already been used.

If you don't know what this is about, you can just use the ZIP no public download and you shouldn't run into any of this.

BrodyStone21

clarkwinkelmann okay I'm not sure if NameCheap supports changing the web root or not and I can't find anything online. I'm just going to try your way with no public.

I ran wget in order to pull the zip, then I ran unzip to unzip it. flarum resides at /home/user/flarum on my server

The installation instructions don't say what to do after downloading the zip and unpacking it. I presume I need to do something like ./flarum install which works, so I think I'm good up to here.

I'm running into issues with connecting to the database. Here are the parameters I'm using.

Base URL: https://localhost
Database host: localhost
Database name: flarum
Database user: flarum
Database password: Password123
Prefix: username_ # I also tried username with no _

I'm getting the following error:

In Pipeline.php line 85:

  Step failed


In Exception.php line 18:

  SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user 'flarum'@'localhost' (using password: YES)


In PDOConnection.php line 40:

  SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user 'flarum'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

I have created a DB called flarum and a user called flarum. What I presume is referred to as a prefix is username_

Are there no other docs for installation other than docs.flarum.org/install? I feel like the installation steps are incredibly lacking. If I wasn't already familar with running ./ to execute a program and working with databases in the past, I wouldn't even have made it this far. If there are no other docs, I'm happy to contribute when I get this set up and running.

EDIT: Someone please let me know in the comments why this is stuck waiting on approval, but my other comments are going through just fine. I'm trying to get this set up ASAP lol

I also tried connecting with the actual username of my server user and received the error SQLSTATE[HY000] [1044] Access denied for user 'metaqymo'@'localhost' to database 'flarum'

Any help in troubleshooting this is greatly appreciated. I'm used to doing this kind of stuff in Docker and have never attempted anything on someone else's server.

EDIT 2: Leaving prefix blank was the solution. I mean absolutely no disrespect, I appreciate everything you guys have done, but the documentation is really lacking.

Anyway, now that that is set up and installed, I have no idea what to do. Navigating to my domain shows nothing. I did try moving everything to /public_html/. I also double checked that all files have been edited correctly (didn't have to actually change anything), and I tried changing the url field within config.php from https://localhost to https://mydomain.com

luceos

BrodyStone21 Anyway, now that that is set up and installed, I have no idea what to do. Navigating to my domain shows nothing.

I can only assume you installed flarum in the users home directory. Not the docroot of the domain (check this cpanel article: https://support.cpanel.net/hc/en-us/articles/1500004206502-How-to-find-the-document-root-of-a-domain).

Look, I'm sorry that the documentation is insufficient to guide you through this painlessly, here are some reasons why our documentation is this way:

we are an open source project with a very small team relying on the spare time of volunteers to code, translate, document, test and do many other tasks
we would need someone to contribute the missing information to our documentation and find the willingness in the core team to maintain that information going forward
considering this is one control panel of many, these kind of installation instructions are best authored underResources for future reference than including them in the documentation where they will eventually contain incorrect, outdated information
documentation is usually the last thing on our priorities, we're a small team with a massive backlog of things to improve or work towards

Feel free to DM me on Discord and I can look for some spare time to do the installation for you, in case you get stuck.

BrodyStone21

luceos I understand these reasons, which is why I'm wanting to contribute the steps I was required to take after I get it working.

I unfortunately can not follow the link you shared, as I don't have root privileges, though I know the web root of NameCheap is www/

I just tried install directly to www/ by unzipping flarum to the directory and running the installation script there. It installed, but still nothing on my domain. My domain still shows the NameCheap landing page stating the domain was recently purchased. Do you think the default NameCheap configuration is affecting the install? Maybe some kind of HTTP server is running somewhere? Does Flarum have built in logs? I can check if you tell me how. I normal use journalctl but it's not installed on my server.

luceos

BrodyStone21 unfortunately can not follow the link you shared, as I don't have root privileges

You should be able to find the right path following these instructions:

BrodyStone21

luceos I had already trying installing to /public_html (which is the web root, I was wrong, apologies), and the same thing is happening after attempting to install again. Nothing happens when I go to the domain. NameCheap still displays the default landing page.

I have completely deleted on files and the database between installations.

All the files from the Flarum .zip file are directly inside of /public_html.

[username@server263 public_html]$ pwd
/home/username/public_html
[username@server263 public_html]$ ls
CHANGELOG.md  README.md  composer.json  config.php  flarum     site.php  vendor
LICENSE       assets     composer.lock  extend.php  index.php  storage   web.config

GreXXL

BrodyStone21 pretty sure there is a index.html provided my namecheap that needs to be deleted. You need to install into an empty directory.

BrodyStone21

BrodyStone21 okay, quick update, there was a caching mistake happening. I had set my Cloudflare to dev mode, but I think my local Unbound/Pi-hole stack was caching things. Using my phones data, I was able to navigate to the domain where I see “Forum Title” and “Something went wrong while trying to load the full version of the site. Try hard-refreshing this page to fix the error.”

And finally “All Discussions.”

Clicking “Forum Title” takes me to localhost

I’m now going to try editing config.php and setting the url to the actual URL. I will report back.

GreXXL I did ensure public_html/ was empty before installing.

BrodyStone21

Thank you to everyone, especially @luceos, for your help. I’m probably going to create a write up of how to do this for people with less experience, along with a YouTube tutorial.

clarkwinkelmann

If you need to install it again in the future, I want to point out there is both a CLI installer and a web installer. It seems like you successfully used the CLI installer over SSH, but Flarum also has a web installer like WordPress and that's how most people install Flarum. When using the web installer, it will automatically pick the correct domain name (or at least, the one used during installation). On the CLI this information needs to be provided separately or updated afterwards in config.php as you have found out.