This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install and configure MenaPro CMS on Ubuntu 18.04 | 16.04 with the Nginx HTTP server.
MenaPro is an open-source, advanced content management system (CMS) that gives you powerful tools to build and manage a content website.
This CMS is also a hundred times faster than most content management platforms available.
With its intuitive and powerful backend, you’ll be able to put together a website with ease. You also get a powerful search tool, backend analytics, drag n drop media panel, and more.
This CMS platform is designed for ease of use to allow webmasters to collaborate and automate engaging experiences with users across multiple devices, including mobile.
For more about MenaPro, please check their Homepage
To get started with installing MenaPro, follow the steps below:
Install Nginx HTTP Server
You will need a web server to run MenaPro and Nginx HTTP server is probably the second most popular open-source web server available today. So go and get it for MenaPro.
To install the Nginx server, run the commands below:
sudo apt update sudo apt install nginx
After installing the Nginx web server, 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, open your browser and browse to the URL below to test whether the web server is working.
http://localhost

If you see the page above, then Nginx is successfully installed.
Install MariaDB Database Server
MenaPro also needs a database server to store its content. and MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open-source database servers to use with MenaPro.
To install MariaDB run the commands below.
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client
After installing MariaDB, the commands below can stop, start and enable the MariaDB service to start up when the server boots.
Run these on Ubuntu
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
To test if MariaDB is installed, type the commands below to logon into 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 7.2-Fpm and Related Modules
MenaPro is a PHP-based CMS and PHP is required. However, PHP 7.2-FPM may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories. To run PHP 7.2-FPM 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-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-sqlite3 php7.2-mysql php7.2-gmp php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-gd php7.2-bcmath php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-zip
After installing PHP 7.2-FPM, run the commands below to open Nginx’s PHP default configuration file.
sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/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
You should restart the Nginx web server whenever you make changes to the PHP configuration file. To do so, run the commands below:
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
Create MenaPro Database
Now that you’ve installed all the packages that are required, continue below to start configuring the servers. First, create a MenaPro database.
Run the commands below to log on to MariaDB. When prompted for a password, type the root password you created above.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then create a database called menapro
CREATE DATABASE menapro;
Create a database user called menaprouser with a new password
CREATE USER 'menaprouser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';
Then grant the user full access to the menapro database.
GRANT ALL ON menapro.* TO 'menaprouser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Finally, save your changes and exit.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
Download MenaPro Latest Release
After installing the server and packages above, get the latest copy of MenaPro from its download site.
After downloading, use the commands below to extract the archived content into the Nginx root directory.
cd /tmp wget http://menapro.com/menapro.zip unzip menapro.zip sudo mv menapro /var/www/menapro
Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for the MenaPro root directory and give Nginx control.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/menapro/ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/menapro/
Configure Nginx
Finally, configure the Apahce2 site configuration file for MenaPro. This file will control how users access MenaPro content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called menapro
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/menapro
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;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
root /var/www/menapro;
index index.php;
access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.error.log;
client_max_body_size 100M;
autoindex off;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$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.
Enable the MenaPro and Rewrite Module
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/menapro /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see the MenaPro setup wizard complete.
http://example.com/
Type in the site information and continue.
Next, type in the database username and password. and click Install
After setting up, you should be able to log in and begin setting up your site.
Enjoy~
Congratulation! You have successfully installed MenaPro on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04
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