Elgg is a powerful open-source social networking platform that is written in PHP. It is free to download and easy to install on various operating systems including NetBSD. In this tutorial, we will show you step-by-step how to install Elgg on NetBSD.
Before we begin, ensure that you have the following:
Begin installing the required packages by updating the package repository and installing PHP, MariaDB or MySQL, and Apache with the following command:
sudo pkgin update
sudo pkgin install apache php php-mysqli php-gd php-mbstring php-curl php-xml mariadb-server mariadb-client
Once you have installed the required packages, you need to create a database for Elgg to use. First, log in to MariaDB or MySQL server as root with the following command:
sudo mysql -u root
Next, create a new database with the following command:
CREATE DATABASE elgg;
Create a new user and grant privileges to the user on the elgg database as follows:
CREATE USER 'elgg'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password_here';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON elgg.* TO 'elgg'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Exit MariaDB:
exit
Clone the Elgg repository from Github with the following command:
sudo git clone https://github.com/Elgg/Elgg.git /var/www/html/elgg
Copy the htaccess_dist file in the Elgg directory to .htaccess with the following command:
sudo cp /var/www/html/elgg/.htaccess_dist /var/www/html/elgg/.htaccess
Change ownership of the elgg directory to the webserver user www with the following command:
sudo chown -R www:www /var/www/html/elgg
Navigate to /var/www/html/elgg/ directory and copy the htaccess_dist file to .htaccess:
sudo cp .htaccess_dist .htaccess
Open .htaccess in a text editor:
sudo nano .htaccess
Find the line RewriteBase /elgg/ and replace it with RewriteBase / or RewriteBase /path/to/elgg/ if you have installed Elgg in a subdirectory.
Save and exit the file.
Next, create a new configuration file for Elgg by copying the engine/settings.example.php file to engine/settings.php:
sudo cp engine/settings.example.php engine/settings.php
Open the settings.php file in your text editor:
sudo nano engine/settings.php
Edit the database settings section to match the details of the database you created earlier:
$CONFIG->dbuser = 'elgg';
$CONFIG->dbpass = 'your_password_here';
$CONFIG->dbname = 'elgg';
$CONFIG->dbhost = 'localhost';
$CONFIG->dbprefix = 'elgg_';
In the site registration section, set $CONFIG->allow_registration to true to enable user registration:
$CONFIG->allow_registration = true;
Save and exit the file.
Navigate to http://your_server_IP/elgg/install.php or http://your_hostname/elgg/install.php if you have a hostname set up. Follow the prompts to complete the installation of Elgg.
Once you have completed the installation, you should remove the install folder to prevent unauthorized access with the following command:
sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/elgg/install/
You have successfully installed Elgg on NetBSD. You can now create a new user account and start creating your social network.
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