Set Up SproutCMS with Nginx on Ubuntu Simplified

This article explains how to set up SproutCMS with Nginx on Ubuntu Linux.

SproutCMS is an open-source, lightweight, and beautiful web publishing platform (CMS) that you can use to create dynamic websites and blogs. With SproutCMS, you can manage your content from a single backend and publish it across all your sites.

Setting up SproutCMS with Nginx on Ubuntu Linux can help you create dynamic websites and blogs. SproutCMS is an open-source, lightweight, and beautiful web publishing platform (CMS) that allows you to manage your content from a single backend and publish it across all your sites.

On the other hand, Nginx is a popular web server that helps serve content to users. Combining these two technologies can result in a powerful and efficient web publishing platform that can help you easily manage and publish your content.

This tutorial will guide you on how to set up SproutCMS with Nginx on Ubuntu Linux.

Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu

Nginx HTTP Server is probably the second most popular web server, so install it since SproutCMS 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. You should see the Nginx default test page, as shown below. When you see that, then Nginx is working as expected.

http://localhost

Install MariaDB Database Server

MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open-source database servers for SproutCMS. To install MariaDB, run the commands below.

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can stop and start the service and enable it to start 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 18.10 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

Restart MariaDB server

Type the commands below to log on to the MariaDB server to test if MariaDB is installed.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then, type the password you created above to sign on. If successful, you should see a MariaDB welcome message.

Install PHP 7.2-FPM and Related Modules.

PHP 7.2-FPM may not be available in 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 7.2-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-mysql php7.2-sqlite3 php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-mysql 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 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
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
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 Nginx to reload PHP configurations.

To restart Nginx, run the commands below

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Create SproutCMS Database

Once you’ve installed all the packages required for SproutCMS to function, continue below to start configuring the servers. First, run the commands below to create a blank SproutCMS database.

To log on to the MariaDB database server, run the commands below.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then, create a database called sproutcms

CREATE DATABASE sproutcms;

Create a database user called sproutcmsuser with a new password

CREATE USER 'sproutcmsuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then, grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON sproutcms.* TO 'sproutcmsuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download and Install SproutCMS

Run the commands below to download SproutCMS’s latest content. Then, unzip the download file and move the content to the Nginx default root directory.

cd /tmp
sudo apt install git
wget https://github.com/Karmabunny/sprout3/releases/download/v3.0.0/sprout-3.0.0.tar.bz2
tar -xvf sprout-3.0.0.tar.bz2
sudo mv sprout-3.0.0 /var/www/html/sproutcms

Next, create a new file with the highlighted content below:

sudo nano /var/www/html/sproutcms/src/config/database.php

Then copy and paste the content below into the file

<?php
/**
* Database connection settings.
*
* Each array is a separate group, which can be connected to independently.
*
* The standard connection used by {@see Pdb} is the 'default' group, but
* the method {@see Pdb::connect} can be used to connect to other groups
*
* Group Options:
*  connection      Array of connection specific parameters:
*       type       Only supported value is 'mysql'
*       host       Hostname
*       user       Username
*       pass       Password
*       port       If non-empty, specifies a non-standard port
*       database   Database name
*  character_set   Database character set
**/


if (IN_PRODUCTION) {
    // Live server config
    $config['default'] = [
        'connection' => [
            'type' => 'mysql',
            'user' => 'sproutcmsuser',
            'database' => 'sproutcms',
            'host' => 'localhost',
            'port' => FALSE,
        ],
        'character_set' => 'utf8',
    ];

    // Rather than entering the PRODUCTION database password direct in
    // the config (which would then be saved in repo history and could
    // accidently become public), it's much better to include this in
    // a separate file, preferably outside of DOCROOT.
    //
    // Example file content:
      require DOCROOT . './database.config.php';

} else {
    // Test server config
    $config['default'] = [
        'connection' => [
            'type' => 'mysql',
            'user' => '-- username --',
            'pass' => '-- password --',
            'database' => '-- database --',
            'host' => 'localhost',
            'port' => FALSE,
        ],
        'character_set' => 'utf8',
    ];
}

Next, create another file with the database password and save it.

sudo nano /var/www/html/sproutcms/database.config.php

Copy and paste the content below into the file and save.

<?php
/*
* Copyright (C) 2017 Karmabunny Pty Ltd.
*
* This file is a part of SproutCMS.
*
* SproutCMS is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms
* of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either
* version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
*
* For more information, visit <http://getsproutcms.com>.
*/

$config['default']['connection']['pass'] = 'database_user_password_here';

Save the file and close.

When you’re done above, open another config file and remove the lines below:

sudo nano /var/www/html/sproutcms/src/config/config.php

Then, comment out or remove the section entirely.

<?php
// .
// The following code should be found at about lines 40-42;
// make sure these lines don't begin with //
 
/**
* Remove these three lines once SproutCMS has been set up
**/
Sprout\Helpers\Register::modules([
    'Welcome',
]);

Finally, please save the file and close it.

Next, run the commands below to set the correct permissions for SproutCMS to function correctly.

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

Configure the Nginx SproutCMS Site

Finally, configure the Nginx configuration file for SproutCMS. This file will control how users access SproutCMS content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called sproutcms

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

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/sproutcms/src;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

    # The rewrites, etc needed by sprout
      include /var/www/html/sproutcms/nginx_sprout.conf;

    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 SproutCMS Site

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/bolt /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart Nginx

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Next, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address. You should see the SproutCMS setup page.

http://example.com/

You should see the page below with some tasks for you to complete. Task one should be done using the files you created above. Refresh the page, and the color should change to bright green when the task is done.

Do that for each task until you’re done. The steps must be taken in order until they’re all happy, bright green. Once they have been completed, clicking the ‘reload’ button at the bottom will send you to the home page of your new SproutCMS site.

That’s it!

To login to the backend as admin, go to the URL below:

http://example.com/admin