How to Setup Parvula CMS with Nginx on Ubuntu Linux

Parvula is an open-source, simple, flat-file content management system (CMS) that’s extensible and does not require a database. It helps you create personal or business websites in minutes just by uploading their content to your web server.

Parvula CMS 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; all its data is stored in the file system (file-based, flat file CMS). It also provides native markdown WYSIWYG support and a friendly, flexible CSS framework without installation.

For more about Parvula, please check its homepage.

To get started with installing Parvula, follow the steps below:

Install Nginx HTTP Server

Parvula CMS requires a web server, and the Nginx HTTP server is probably the second most popular open-source web server available today. To install the Nginx 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

Now that Nginx has been installed browse your browser to the URL below to test whether the web server works.

http://localhost

If you see the page above, then Nginx is successfully installed.

Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules

Parvula CMS is a PHP-based CMS, and PHP is required. However, PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu’s default repositories. To run PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 and previous, you may need to run the commands below:

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2

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-gmp php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-zip

After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open Nginx’s PHP default configuration file.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/nginx/php.ini

The lines below are a good setting for most PHP-based CMS. Update the configuration file with these and save.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

Restarting the Nginx web server whenever you change the PHP configuration file would be best. To do so, run the commands below:

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Once PHP is installed, create a test file called phpinfo.php in the Nginx default root directory. ( /var/www/html/)

sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php

Then, type the content below and save the file.

<?php phpinfo( ); ?>

Next, open your browser and browse to the server’s hostname or IP address, followed by phpinfo.php

http://localhost/phpinfo.php

You should see the PHP default test page.

Download Parvula’s Latest Release

To get Parvula’s latest release, you may want to get it from GitHub. Use Composer and Git to download the newest version.

sudo apt install curl git
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Nginx root directory and download Parvula packages from GitHub…

cd /var/www/html
sudo composer create-project bafs/parvula parvula
cd /var/www/html/parvula/
sudo composer install

Then, run the commands below to set the correct permissions for the Parvula root directory and give Nginx control.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/parvula/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/parvula/

Configure Nginx

Finally, configure the Apahce2 site configuration file for Parvula. This file will control how users access Parvula content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called parvula

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/parvula

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/parvula;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

     client_max_body_size 100M;

     autoindex off;

     location / {
        try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
          }

    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.

Enable the Parvula and Rewrite Module

After configuring the VirtualHost above, please enable it by running the commands below.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/parvula /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see the Parvula setup wizard complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.

http://example.com/

You should then see Parvula’s default home page.

To login to the backend portal, type:

http://example.com/admin

The username and password can be found in this file.

cat /var/www/html/parvula/data/users/users.php

Congratulation! You have successfully installed Parvula CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 and 18.10.