Installing Pico on OpenBSD

Pico is a lightweight and fast content management system that can be installed on OpenBSD. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Pico on an OpenBSD server.

Prerequisites

Before we start installing Pico, make sure that you have the following:

• A server running OpenBSD
• A user account with sudo privileges

Step 1: Install PHP

First, we need to install PHP and its dependencies. Open the terminal and enter the following commands:

sudo pkg_add php-7.4.16p0
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/php-7.4 /usr/local/bin/php

This will install PHP 7.4 and create a symlink to the binary file.

Step 2: Install Composer

Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. We need to install it before we can install Pico. Enter the following commands:

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

This will download and install Composer and move it to the /usr/local/bin directory.

Step 3: Download and Install Pico

Now we can download and install Pico. Enter the following commands in the terminal:

mkdir -p ~/public_html/
cd ~/public_html/
composer require picocms/pico

This will create a directory called public_html in your home directory and install Pico into it.

Step 4: Configure the Web Server

We need to configure the web server to serve Pico. If you haven't installed a web server yet, you can install OpenBSD's built-in httpd.

Use the following configuration file as a starting point for your web server:

server "localhost" {

    listen on * port 80

    root "/home/$USER/public_html"

    location ".php" {

        fastcgi

        fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $DOCUMENT_ROOT

        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $SCRIPT_FILENAME

        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm.sock

    }

}

Make sure to substitute $USER with your username. This configuration will make Pico accessible on your server's IP address.

Step 5: Start Pico

Now you can start Pico. Enter the following commands in the terminal:

cd ~/public_html/vendor/picocms/pico/
php -S 0.0.0.0:8080

This will start a PHP development server that listens on port 8080.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Pico on OpenBSD. You can now visit your server's IP address on port 8080 to view your Pico website.

If you want to run Pico using OpenBSD's built-in web server, you can use the httpd.conf syntax mentioned in step 4. If you want to use Apache or another web server, you can adapt the configuration to your needs.

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!