BookStack is an open-source platform to create documentation and wiki content in a simple and easy-to-use interface. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install BookStack on Debian latest.
Before installing any new package, it is recommended to update and upgrade existing packages to their latest available versions.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
BookStack is a PHP and Apache based application, so we need to install them along with some required extensions.
sudo apt install apache2 php libapache2-mod-php php-common php-mbstring php-xmlrpc php-soap php-gd php-xml php-intl php-mysql php-cli php-ldap php-zip php-curl
BookStack requires some external dependencies to work properly, run the following command to install them.
sudo apt install git curl libxrender1 libxext6 libfontconfig1 libjpeg62-turbo-dev libpng-dev libfreetype6-dev libzip-dev
MariaDB is a drop-in replacement for MySQL, which can be used to store data. Install and setup MariaDB by running the following command.
sudo apt install mariadb-server
sudo mysql_secure_installation
During the installation, you will be asked a few questions, such as setting the root password and removing anonymous users.
Create a new database and user for BookStack and grant all the necessary permissions.
sudo mysql -u root -p
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE bookstack;
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL ON bookstack.* TO 'bsuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-password';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> exit;
Composer is a dependency manager for PHP, used to manage dependencies of PHP applications like BookStack. Install Composer using the following command.
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
We will clone the latest version of BookStack from the official git repository in the /var/www directory.
sudo git clone https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack.git /var/www/BookStack
Navigate to the cloned directory.
cd /var/www/BookStack
Install the required dependencies using Composer.
sudo composer install --no-dev
Copy the environment file and generate the application key.
sudo cp .env.example .env
sudo php artisan key:generate
Update the .env file with the required database configuration.
sudo nano .env
DB_DATABASE=bookstack
DB_USERNAME=bsuser
DB_PASSWORD=your-password
Run the following command to migrate the database.
sudo php artisan migrate --seed
Create a new virtual host configuration file for BookStack.
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/bookstack.conf
Add the following content to the file.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName yourbookstack.local #Replace with your domain
DocumentRoot /var/www/BookStack/public
<Directory /var/www/BookStack/public>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/bookstack_error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/bookstack_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Enable rewrite and headers Apache modules, used by BookStack.
sudo a2enmod rewrite headers
Set the appropriate ownership and permission for the BookStack directory.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/BookStack
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/BookStack
Finally, restart the Apache service and open your browser to test the BookStack installation.
sudo systemctl restart apache2
http://yourbookstack.local/ #Replace with your domain
You should now see BookStack login page. To log in, use the following credentials:
Email: admin@admin.com
Password: password
In this tutorial, we have learned how to install BookStack on Debian Latest. You can now use BookStack to create beautiful and easy-to-use documentation.
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