PixelFed is an open-source, federated image-sharing platform that allows users to upload, share, and follow photos and videos from other PixelFed instances. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install PixelFed on Manjaro, a popular Arch-based Linux distribution.
Before getting started, you need to have the following prerequisites:
Here are the steps to install PixelFed on Manjaro Linux.
Firstly, ensure that your system is up-to-date by running the following command:
sudo pacman -Syu
Once the system is updated, install the required packages for PixelFed as follows:
sudo pacman -S nginx certbot php php-fpm php-intl php-gd php-imagick php-pgsql postgresql imagemagick git composer
Next, create a new user and a database for PixelFed:
sudo -u postgres createuser pixelfed --createdb
sudo -u postgres createdb -O pixelfed pixelfed
Next, clone the PixelFed Git repository to your system:
sudo git clone https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed.git /var/www/pixelfed
Navigate to the cloned directory and install the required dependencies using Composer:
sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www/pixelfed/storage /var/www/pixelfed/bootstrap/cache
cd /var/www/pixelfed
sudo composer install --no-dev
Create a new virtual host for PixelFed using Nginx by creating a new configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/pixelfed.conf
Add the following configuration to the file:
server {
listen 80;
server_name your-domain.example.com www.your-domain.example.com;
return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl http2;
server_name your-domain.example.com www.your-domain.example.com;
root /var/www/pixelfed/public;
index index.php;
charset utf-8;
gzip on;
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
autoindex off;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN";
add_header X-Powered-By "PixelFed";
ssl_certificate "/etc/letsencrypt/live/your-domain.example.com/fullchain.pem";
ssl_certificate_key "/etc/letsencrypt/live/your-domain.example.com/privkey.pem";
ssl_protocols TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
ssl_ciphers "EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:AES256+EECDH:AES256+EDH";
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
ssl_session_timeout 1h;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED $document_root$fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $server_name;
fastcgi_param HTTPS on;
fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
fastcgi_param PHP_ADMIN_VALUE "open_basedir=$document_root:/tmp:/usr/share/pear:/usr/share/php:/var/www/pixelfed:/var/www/pixelfed/vendor/bin:/var/www/pixelfed/vendor/autoload.php";
}
location = /favicon.ico {
return 204;
access_log off;
log_not_found off;
}
location = /robots.txt {
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}
location ~ /\.(?!well-known).*$ {
deny all;
}
}
Save and exit the file.
PixelFed requires TLS/SSL certificates for secure communication between the server and the client. To obtain a free Let's Encrypt TLS/SSL certificate, install Cerbot:
sudo pacman -S certbot
Then, run the following command to obtain the Let's Encrypt TLS/SSL certificate:
sudo certbot certonly --webroot -w /var/www/pixelfed/public -d your-domain.example.com -d www.your-domain.example.com
Next, configure Pixelfed by copying the example configuration file:
cd /var/www/pixelfed
sudo cp .env.example .env
sudo nano .env
Update the following variables in the .env file:
APP_NAME = "PixelFed"
APP_ENV = production
APP_DEBUG = false
APP_URL = https://your-domain.example.com
DB_CONNECTION = pgsql
DB_HOST = 127.0.0.1
DB_PORT = 5432
DB_DATABASE = pixelfed
DB_USERNAME = pixelfed
DB_PASSWORD = your-secret-password
MAIL_DRIVER = smtp
MAIL_HOST = smtp.gmail.com
MAIL_PORT = 465
MAIL_USERNAME = your-email-address
MAIL_PASSWORD = your-email-password
MAIL_ENCRYPTION = ssl
REDIS_HOST = 127.0.0.1
REDIS_PORT = 6379
REDIS_PASSWORD = your-secret-redis-password
SESSION_DRIVER = redis
SESSION_LIFETIME = 120
BROADCAST_DRIVER = log
IMGPROXY_URL = https://pixelfed.example.com/proxy
Save and exit the file.
Run the following command to run the database migration:
sudo php artisan migrate
Start the required services by running the following command:
sudo systemctl start nginx php-fpm postgresql redis
Enable the services to run on system boot:
sudo systemctl enable nginx php-fpm postgresql redis certbot-renew.timer
That's it! You can now access PixelFed by navigating to https://your-domain.example.com in your web browser.
In this tutorial, you have learned how to install PixelFed on Manjaro Linux. If you face any issues during the installation, post your queries in the comment section below!
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