Flarum is a free and open-source PHP forum application that is designed to be fast, user-friendly, and responsive. In this tutorial, you will learn how to install Flarum on EndeavourOS, a rolling release Linux distribution based on Arch Linux.
Before we begin, ensure that you have the following prerequisites:
Assuming that you have already installed a web server and PHP on your system, we can proceed with the installation of Apache and PHP.
sudo pacman -S apache php php-apache php-gd php-intl php-json php-mbstring php-mysql php-pgsql php-sqlite php-xml
Flarum requires a database to store its data. We will use MySQL as the database server. To install MySQL on EndeavourOS, run the following command:
sudo pacman -S mysql
Once the installation is complete, start the MySQL service and enable it to start at boot:
sudo systemctl start mysql
sudo systemctl enable mysql
Then, run the MySQL secure installation script to set a root password and other security-related settings:
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Finally, create a new database and user for Flarum:
sudo mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE flarum_db;
GRANT ALL ON flarum_db.* TO 'flarum_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;
Replace the flarum_user and password with your desired username and password.
The next step is to download and install Flarum. We will use Composer to download and manage the dependencies.
First, install Composer by running the following command:
sudo pacman -S composer
Next, create a new directory for Flarum and navigate to it:
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/flarum
cd /var/www/flarum
Then, run the following command to install Flarum:
sudo composer create-project flarum/flarum .
This will download and install the latest version of Flarum in the current directory.
Next, create the .env file by copying the example file:
cp .env.example .env
And edit the .env file as follows:
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=http://localhost
DB_DATABASE=flarum_db
DB_USERNAME=flarum_user
DB_PASSWORD=password
Again, replace the flarum_db, flarum_user, and password with your own settings.
Finally, set the appropriate permissions for the Flarum directories:
sudo chown -R http:http /var/www/flarum
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/flarum
To access Flarum through your web browser, we need to configure Apache to serve the Flarum files.
Create a new virtual host for Flarum by creating a new file in the /etc/httpd/conf/extra/ directory:
sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/extra/flarum.conf
And add the following configuration:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName forum.example.com
DocumentRoot "/var/www/flarum/public"
<Directory "/var/www/flarum/public">
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Replace the ServerName with your own domain name or IP address. You can also change the document root if you installed Flarum in a different directory.
Finally, enable the virtual host and restart Apache:
sudo a2ensite flarum.conf
sudo systemctl restart httpd
You can now access Flarum by visiting your website's domain name or IP address in your web browser.
Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your Flarum administrator account and configure your forum settings.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Flarum on EndeavourOS.
If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!
Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!
