In this tutorial, we will go through the steps required to install Flarum, a popular forum software, on Ubuntu Server. Flarum is built using PHP and the Laravel framework, so we will be installing PHP and other dependencies as well.
Before starting with the installation of Flarum, make sure you have the following:
We need to start by updating and upgrading the Ubuntu packages to their latest versions for security and stability reasons. Execute the following command:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
The update process should now start. After it is finished, we will proceed to the next step.
Flarum requires a few dependencies that are not installed on a fresh Ubuntu Server installation. We will install them now. To install Apache, MySQL, PHP, and other required packages, run the following command:
sudo apt install apache2 mysql-server php php-mysql php-curl php-json php-gd php-mbstring php-dom unzip wget -y
The above command installs:
unzip and wget: Required for downloading and unzipping Flarum.After executing the command, wait for the installations to finish.
Secure the MySQL server by running:
sudo mysql_secure_installation
The script will prompt you for answering some questions. Follow the prompts to set the MySQL root password and answer other questions.
Download the latest stable release of Flarum from the official website. You can use wget to do this as shown below:
cd /tmp
wget https://flarum.org/download
The above command will download a compressed file named download in /tmp directory. We now need to extract the contents of the downloaded archive. We will use unzip command to extract the archive:
unzip download -d flarum
The above command will extract the contents of the archive in a new directory named flarum.
We will now move the extracted files to the Apache document root. The Apache document root is the location where the Apache webserver looks for files to serve over the web. Typically, this location is /var/www/html.
sudo mv flarum /var/www/html/
If you go to /var/www/html/, you will see a directory named flarum, which contains all the Flarum files that Apache will serve.
We need to set some file permissions for Flarum. We will change the ownership of the flarum directory recursively to the Apache user, www-data, and set appropriate permissions.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/flarum
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/flarum
Executing the above commands grants Apache the permission to read and write files in the Flarum directory.
In this step, we will create a virtual host in Apache for the Flarum installation. A virtual host is used to separate different websites that are hosted on the same webserver.
First, we will create a new configuration file for the Flarum virtual host.
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/flarum.conf
Add the following content to the file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/flarum/public
<Directory /var/www/html/flarum/public>
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/flarum-error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/flarum-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Save and close the file (Ctrl + X, then Y, then ENTER).
We have now created a new virtual host. We will now enable it and disable the default one.
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
sudo a2ensite flarum.conf
The above commands disable the default virtual host and enable the newly created Flarum virtual host.
We will now restart Apache for changes to take effect.
sudo systemctl restart apache2
We will now install Flarum. Execute the following commands.
cd /var/www/html/flarum
sudo php flarum install
The above command will start the Flarum installation process. You will be prompted with a series of questions. Answer the questions as required.
The installation script will set up the required database tables for Flarum and create an administrator account.
After successfully installing Flarum, you can access it at http://<your-server-IP>/ in your web browser.
You should now see the Flarum forum. Log in with the administrator account you created in the previous step.
In this tutorial, we have demonstrated how to install Flarum on the latest Ubuntu Server. Flarum is a great forum software that is easy to use and set up. You can configure it according to your needs and customize it with extensions and themes.
If you face any issues while following this tutorial, feel free to leave a comment below.
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