LinkAce is a self-hosted bookmarks manager that allows you to store and organize links of all kinds. Installing LinkAce is easy and can be done on Ubuntu Server as follows:
Before proceeding with the installation, you need to have the following prerequisites:
The first step is to install the necessary packages for LinkAce to work. You can do this by running the following command:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install curl git unzip -y
sudo apt-get install apache2 php7.4 php7.4-mysql php7.4-curl php7.4-gd php7.4-xml php7.4-mbstring php7.4-json php7.4-zip -y
After installing the packages, it is essential to restart Apache2 or Nginx for changes to take effect, as shown below:
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Now it’s time to download LinkAce. Run the following commands to download the application and extract the files:
cd /var/www/html/
sudo git clone https://github.com/Kovah/LinkAce.git
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/LinkAce/
Since LinkAce requires a database, you need to create a new user account and database from the MySQL or MariaDB console.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter the root user password and then create and grant privileges to the new user account as follows:
CREATE DATABASE linkace_db;
CREATE USER 'linkace_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON linkace_db.* TO 'linkace_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
Make sure to replace linkace_user and password with your desired database username and password.
After creating the database, it’s time to configure LinkAce. Copy the sample configuration file from the root directory of LinkAce and rename it to .env.
cd /var/www/html/LinkAce/config/
sudo cp .env.example .env
Edit the .env file and enter your database details as shown below:
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=linkace_db
DB_USERNAME=linkace_user
DB_PASSWORD=password
LinkAce uses Composer, a dependency manager for PHP, to manage its dependencies. To install Composer, run the following commands:
cd /var/www/html/LinkAce/
sudo curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
With Composer installed, you can now install LinkAce’s dependencies by running the following command:
cd /var/www/html/LinkAce/
sudo composer install
This may take some time as Composer fetches and installs all the required packages. Once done, you will see the output on the screen.
Next, you need to generate an application key using the following command:
cd /var/www/html/LinkAce/
sudo php artisan key:generate
This will generate a unique key for the application and update it in the .env file.
Finally, it’s time to run LinkAce migration and seed the database tables with dummy data. Run the following command:
cd /var/www/html/LinkAce/
sudo php artisan migrate --seed
This may also take some time, depending on your machine and the size of the database. Once completed, your database is ready to use.
Configure your web server to point to the location of LinkAce files, i.e., /var/www/html/LinkAce/public.
If you are using Apache2, create a new VirtualHost configuration file as shown below:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/linkace.conf
Insert the following configuration:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName linkace.example.com
ServerAlias www.linkace.example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/LinkAce/public
<Directory /var/www/html/LinkAce/public>
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/linkace_error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/linkace_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Save the file and enable the configuration:
sudo a2ensite linkace.conf
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Alternatively, if you are using Nginx, create a new server block configuration as shown below:
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/linkace.conf
Insert the following configuration:
server {
listen 80;
server_name linkace.example.com www.linkace.example.com;
root /var/www/html/LinkAce/public;
index index.php;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
error_log /var/log/nginx/linkace_error.log;
access_log /var/log/nginx/linkace_access.log;
}
Save the file and enable the configuration:
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/linkace.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Finally, open your web browser and enter the domain name or IP address of your Ubuntu Server in the address bar. You should see the LinkAce installation page.
Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process.
Congratulations! You have now installed LinkAce on your Ubuntu Server. You can now start managing your bookmarks with ease.
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