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, SEO friendly, flexible CSS framework with no installation required.
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 is 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
It would be best to restart the Nginx web server whenever you change the PHP configuration file. 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 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.
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