This article describes the steps to install and use Flarum on Ubuntu Linux with Apache support.
Flarum is a new, next-generation open-source forum software based on PHP. It’s simple to set up and use and makes online discussions fun. Individuals and web admins can use Flarum to set up communities in minutes to stay in touch with groups of people or ideas.
If you’re looking for a feature-rich, efficient, and free community forum platform, then you may want to consider Flarum.
How to install Flarum on Ubuntu Linux with Apache support
As mentioned above, Flarum is a new, next-generation open-source forum software based on PHP. It’s simple to set up and use and makes online discussions fun.
Below is how to install it on Ubuntu Linux with Apache support.
Install Apache
Apache2 HTTP Server is the most popular web server in use. Install it since Flarum needs it.
To install Apache2 HTTP on the Ubuntu server, run the commands below.
sudo apt update sudo apt install apache2
After installing Apache2, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable the Apache2 service to always start up with the server boots.
sudo systemctl stop apache2.service sudo systemctl start apache2.service sudo systemctl enable apache2.service
To test the Apache2 setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address, and you should see the Apache2 default test page as shown below. When you see that, then Apache2 is working as expected.
http://localhost
Install MariaDB
MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open-source database servers for Magento. To install MariaDB run the commands below.
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client
After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable the MariaDB service always to start up when the server boots.
Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
sudo systemctl stop mysql.service sudo systemctl start mysql.service sudo systemctl enable mysql.service
Run these on Ubuntu 17.10 and 18.04 LTS
sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service sudo systemctl start mariadb.service sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
After that, run the commands below to secure the MariaDB server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.
- Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
- Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
- New password: Enter password
- Re-enter new password: Repeat password
- Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
- Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
- Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
- Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y
To test if MariaDB is installed, type the commands below to logon to the MariaDB server.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then type the password you created above to sign on. If successful, you should see MariaDB welcome message.
Install PHP 7.1 and Related Modules
PHP 7.1 may not be available on Ubuntu default repositories. To install it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.
Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.1
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.1
sudo apt update
Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.
sudo apt install php7.1 libapache2-mod-php7.1 php7.1-common php7.1-mbstring php7.1-xmlrpc php7.1-soap php7.1-mysql php7.1-gd php7.1-xml php7.1-cli php7.1-zip
After installing PHP 7.1, run the commands below to open the PHP default config file for Apache2.
sudo nano /etc/php/7.1/apache2/php.ini
Then save the changes on the following lines below in the file. The value below is an ideal setting to apply in your environment.
file_uploads = On allow_url_fopen = On memory_limit = 256M upload_max_filesize = 100M max_execution_time = 360 date.timezone = America/Chicago
After making the change above, please save the file and close it.
After installing PHP and related modules, you must restart Apache2 to reload PHP configurations.
To restart Apache2, run the commands below.
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
To test PHP 7.2 settings with Apache2, create a phpinfo.php file in the Apache2 root directory by running the commands below.
sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
Then type the content below and save the file.
<?php phpinfo( ); ?>
Save the file. Then browse to your server hostname followed by /phpinfo.php
http://localhost/phpinfo.php
You should see the PHP default test page.
Create a Flarum database.
Now that you’ve installed all the packages required for Flarum to function, continue below to start configuring the servers.
First, run the commands below to create a blank Flarum database.
To log on to the MariaDB database server, run the commands below.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then create a database called Flarum
CREATE DATABASE flarum;
Create a database user called flarumuser with a new password
CREATE USER 'flarumuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';
Then grant the user full access to the database.
GRANT ALL ON flarum.* TO 'flarumuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Finally, save your changes and exit.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
Download Flarum Files
Flarum utilizes Composer to manage its dependencies and extensions. So, before installing Flarum, you must install Composer on your machine.
To do that, run the commands below
sudo apt install curl git curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
Then follow up with the commands below to download Flarum files
sudo mkdir /var/www/html/flarum cd /var/www/html/flarum sudo composer create-project flarum/flarum . --stability=beta
Next, run the commands below to change the root folder permissions.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/flarum/ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/flarum/
Configure Apache2 Flarum Site
Finally, configure the Apache2 configuration file for Flarum. This file will control how users access Flarum content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called flarum.conf
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/flarum.conf
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.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/flarum/
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
<Directory /var/www/html/flarum/>
Options FollowSymlinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Save the file and exit.
After configuring the VirtualHost above, please enable it by running the commands below.
Enable the Flarum Site
After configuring the VirtualHost above, please enable it by running the commands below, then restart the Apache2 server.
sudo a2ensite flarum.conf sudo a2enmod rewrite sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
Install Let’s Encrypt Client
You should first install its client to get Let’s Encrypt free SSL/TLS certificates on your Ubuntu machine. The client helps automate the process for you. To install it, run the commands below.
sudo apt-get install python-certbot-apache
If python-certbot-Nginx isn’t installed, you may have to add its PPA repository and install the package.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install python-certbot-apache
Obtaining your free SSL/TLS Certificates
After installing the Let’s Encrypt Certbot client module for Apache2, run the commands below to obtain your free Let’s Encrypt SSL/TLS certificate in the domain specified. Make sure to replace example.com with your domain.
sudo certbot --apache -m admin@example.com -d example.com -d www.example.com
After running the above commands, you should get prompted to accept the licensing terms. If everything is checked, the client should automatically install the free SSL/TLS certificate and configure the Apache2 site to use the certs.
Please read the Terms of Service at
https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.2-November-15-2017.pdf. You must
agree in order to register with the ACME server at
https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(A)gree/(C)ancel: A
Choose Yes ( Y ) to share your email address.
Would you be willing to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a founding partner of the Let's Encrypt project and the non-profit
organization that develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about EFF and
our work to encrypt the web, protect its users and defend digital rights.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Y)es/(N)o: Y
This is how easy it is to obtain your free SSL/TLS certificate for your Apache2-powered website.
Please choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, removing HTTP access. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1: No redirect - Make no further changes to the webserver configuration. 2: Redirect - Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access. Choose this for new sites, or if you're confident your site works on HTTPS. You can undo this change by editing your web server's configuration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Select the appropriate number [1-2] then [enter] (press 'c' to cancel): 2
Pick option 2 to redirect all traffic over HTTPS. This is important!
After that, the SSL client should install the cert and configure your website to redirect all traffic over HTTPS.
Congratulations! You have successfully enabled https://example.com and https://www.example.com You should test your configuration at: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=example.com https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.example.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT NOTES: - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem Your key file has been saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem Your cert will expire on 2018-02-24. To obtain a new or tweaked version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot again with the "certonly" option. To non-interactively renew *all* of your certificates, run "certbot renew" - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by: Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/donate Donating to EFF: https://eff.org/donate-le
The highlighted code block should automatically be added to your Apache2 Flarum configuration file by Let’s Encrypt certbot. Your Flarum site is ready to be used over HTTPS.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/flarum/
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
<Directory /var/www/html/flarum/>
Options FollowSymlinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =example.com [OR]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =www.example.com
RewriteRule ^ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [END,NE,R=permanent]
</VirtualHost>
A new configuration file for the domain should also be created named /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com-le-SSL.conf. This is an Apache2 SSL module configuration file and should contain the defined certificate definitions.
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerAdmin admin@example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/flarum/
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
<Directory /var/www/html/flarum/>
Options FollowSymlinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem
Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>
You’ll have to renew the certificates manually. You’ll get an email reminder to reset when the certificates are about to expire. To test the renewal process, run the commands below.
sudo certbot renew --dry-run
To set up a process to automatically renew the certificates, add a cron job to execute the renewal process.
sudo crontab -e
Then add the line below and save.
0 1 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew & > /dev/null
The cron job will attempt to renew 30 days before expiring
After that, open your browser and browse your domain name to launch the Flarum configuration wizard.
You should see the Flarum setup wizard complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.
https://example.com
You should see the Flarum setup wizard. Follow the wizard until Flarum is fully installed.
Enjoy!
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