Flarum is a free, open-source forum software built using PHP and MySQL. It is known for its simplicity and ease of use. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Flarum on POP! OS Latest.
Before starting this tutorial, you should have:
Before proceeding with the installation, we need to install Composer. It is a dependency manager for PHP that we will use to download and install Flarum.
To install Composer, open the terminal and run the following command:
sudo apt install composer
Once Composer is installed, we can proceed with the Flarum installation. To download and install Flarum, run the following commands:
composer create-project flarum/flarum --stability=beta
This command will create a new directory named flarum in the current directory and download Flarum in it.
Flarum creates a default configuration file named .env. We need to modify this file to configure Flarum according to our requirements.
To modify the .env file, run the following command:
nano ~/flarum/.env
This command will open the .env file in the nano editor. Modify the following variables according to your requirements:
APP_ENV=production
APP_KEY=
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=http://example.com
DB_DRIVER=mysql
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=flarum
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=
Once you have made the necessary changes, save and exit the editor.
Before we can run Flarum, we need to create a MySQL database and user for Flarum.
To create a new database and user, run the following commands:
sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter your root password when prompted, then run the following commands:
CREATE DATABASE `flarum` CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `flarum`.* TO 'flarum'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
Replace password with the desired password for the Flarum user.
Once you have created the database and user, exit the MySQL shell by running the following command:
exit
Now that we have configured Flarum and created a database and user for it, we can install Flarum.
To install Flarum, run the following command:
cd ~/flarum
php flarum install
This command will run the Flarum installation script and create the necessary tables and data in the database.
By default, Flarum listens on port 8000. To configure our web server to serve Flarum, we need to create a virtual host.
To create a new virtual host, run the following command:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/flarum.conf
Add the following configuration:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/flarum/public
ServerName example.com
<Directory /var/www/flarum/public>
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Replace example.com with your domain name.
Once you have added the configuration, save and exit the file.
To activate the virtual host, run the following command:
sudo a2ensite flarum.conf
Finally, restart the Apache server:
sudo systemctl restart apache2
You have successfully installed Flarum on POP! OS Latest. You can now access your Flarum installation by visiting the domain name you configured in the virtual host configuration.
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!
