Our previous post showed you how to set it up with Apache2 and PHP 7.2. however, this post shows you how to do it with Nginx and PHP 7.2-FPM instead.;
Automad is a fast, responsive, flat content management system (CMS) and template engine written in PHP. All its content is stored in text files instead of a database. It offers features that may not be available to other PHP-based CMS, like WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal.
For one, it doesn’t need a database server; call it database-less CMS. Its browser-based dashboard offers an intuitive way of managing your sites. Configure system settings, upload images or write a blog post using a clean and responsive user interface.
For more about Automad, please check its homepage.
This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install Automad on Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.10 / 18.04 LTS with Nginx and PHP 7.2-FPM support.
When you’re ready to get Automad working, continue with the steps below:
Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu
Nginx HTTP Server is the most popular web server in use. Install it since Automad needs it.
To install Nginx HTTP on the Ubuntu server, run the commands below.
sudo apt update sudo apt install nginx
After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable the Nginx service to always start up with the server boots.
sudo systemctl stop nginx.service sudo systemctl start nginx.service sudo systemctl enable nginx.service
To test the Nginx setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address, and you should see the Nginx default test page as shown below. When you see that, then Nginx is working as expected.
http://localhost

Install PHP 7.2-FPM and Related Modules
PHP 7.2-FPM may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories for some systems. So you will have to get it from third-party repositories if you need it.
Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.2-FPM
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2-FPM
sudo apt update
Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.
sudo apt install php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-sqlite3 php7.2-soap php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-curl php7.2-zip
After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open Nginx’s PHP default config file.
sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini
Then save the changes on the following lines below in the file. The value below is an excellent setting to apply in your environment.
file_uploads = On allow_url_fopen = On memory_limit = 256M upload_max_filesize = 100M cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0 max_execution_time = 360 date.timezone = America/Chicago
After making the change above, please save the file and close it out.
After installing PHP and related modules, you must restart Nginx to reload PHP configurations.
To restart Nginx, run the commands below
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
Download Automad Latest Release
Next, visit the Automad site and download the latest package. Or run the commands below to download Automad packages from GitHub.
After downloading, run the commands below to extract the downloaded file and move it into a new Automad root directory. After that, change into Automad root directory to install PHP required packages.
cd /tmp/ https://bitbucket.org/marcantondahmen/automad/get/b218af08c7ce.zip unzip b218af08c7ce.zip sudo mv marcantondahmen-automad-b218af08c7ce /var/www/html/automad
Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for Automad to function correctly.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/automad/ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/automad/
Configure Nginx Automad Site
Finally, configure the Nginx configuration file for Automad. This file will control how users access Automad content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called automad
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/automad
Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your domain name and directory root location.
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/html/automad;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
client_max_body_size 100M;
autoindex off;
location / {
try_files $uri /index.php?$query_string;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
}
Save the file and exit.
After configuring the VirtualHost above, please enable it by running the commands below.
Enable the Automad Site and Rewrite Module
After configuring the VirtualHost above, please enable it by running the commands below, then restart the Nginx server.
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/automad /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
Restart Nginx
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
Next, open your browser and browse the server hostname or IP address, and you should see the Automad page. Login and change your password.
http://example.com

Automad is a databases flat file content management system. Its structure allowed you to have just the amount of functionality needed in a flat file CMS solution, adding extensions (blade packs) for additional functionality while allowing setup on simple servers with no database.
Create the admin account username and password. Next, you must download the file to your local server.

Create User Account
Before you can make use of the Automad dashboard, you have to register the first user by following these steps:
- Create a user account using the form below and download the created file to your computer.
- Move the downloaded file to the “/config” directory within your Automad installation.
(via a file browser, FTP, or SSH)
After completing these steps, the dashboard should be ready to use. Other users can be added later via the system preferences.
Copy the downloaded file to your /config directory.
sudo cp accounts.php /var/www/html/automad/config/
Enjoy!

Now you can log in to the dashboard:
http://example.com/dashboard
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