In this tutorial, we will guide you on how to install BookStack on Linux Mint step-by-step. Before we start, let's take a quick look at what BookStack is and its features.
What is BookStack?
BookStack is an open-source platform for creating and organizing documentation, knowledge bases, and wikis. With BookStack, you can organize your documentation into books and chapters, collaborate with your team, and manage your content effectively.
Features of BookStack
Now that we know what BookStack is and its features, let's get started with the installation.
We need to make sure that all the required dependencies are installed on the Linux Mint system. Open the terminal and run the following command to update and upgrade the system.
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
Next, we need to install the required dependencies, Apache, PHP, and MariaDB using the following command.
sudo apt install apache2 mariadb-server php php-mysql php-gd php-curl php-zip php-json
Download the latest version of BookStack from the official website using the wget command as follows:
cd /tmp && wget https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack/archive/refs/tags/v0.31.8.tar.gz
Extract the downloaded archive file and move the content to the /var/www/html directory using the following commands:
tar -xzf v0.31.8.tar.gz
sudo mv BookStack-0.31.8 /var/www/html/bookstack
In this step, we will create a new database and user for the BookStack application. Run the following commands to log in to the MariaDB server and create the database and user.
sudo mysql -u root
CREATE DATABASE bookstack;
GRANT ALL ON bookstack.* TO 'bookstack'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;
Replace yourpassword with the password you want to use for the bookstack user.
We need to configure some settings in the BookStack configuration file located at /var/www/html/bookstack/.env. Run the following command to open the file in nano text editor.
sudo nano /var/www/html/bookstack/.env
Set the following values in the file:
APP_URL=http://localhost/bookstack
DB_DATABASE=bookstack
DB_USERNAME=bookstack
DB_PASSWORD=yourpassword
Save and close the file by pressing CTRL + X, Y, and ENTER.
We need to set the right permissions on some directories and files that are required by BookStack.
cd /var/www/html/bookstack
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data storage bootstrap/cache public/uploads
sudo chmod -R 755 storage bootstrap/cache public/uploads
Give Apache access to the BookStack directory by running the following command:
sudo chgrp -R www-data /var/www/html/bookstack
sudo chmod -R g+w /var/www/html/bookstack/storage /var/www/html/bookstack/bootstrap/cache
Finally, restart the Apache server to apply the changes.
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Open your web browser and go to http://localhost/bookstack to access BookStack. You should see the BookStack setup page. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed and configured BookStack on Linux Mint Latest.
In this tutorial, we guided you through the installation of BookStack on Linux Mint. Now, you can use BookStack to create and manage your documentation and knowledge base with ease. If you face any issues during the installation, please leave a comment below.
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