How to Setup ElkArte Forum Software on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how install and configure ElkArte Forum software on Ubuntu 18.04 with Nginx HTTP Server.

ElkArte is a modern, community building forum software based on Simple Machine Forum (SMF), but with improved code and new features that may not be available on SMF.

If you don’t already know about Simple Machine Forum (SMF), it is a lightweight and simple forum platform based on PHP that allows anyone to create and own their online forum community.

Many other forum software are based on SMF, including ElkArte. SMF is designed for ease of use to allow webmasters create forum communities with all the features needed from a bulletin board with less resources.

If you’re looking for a simple and straightforward forum platform that’s free to use and easy to customize, you’ll find ElkArte to be useful.

For more about ElkArte Forum software, please visit its homepage.

To get started with installing ElkArte, follow the steps below:

Install Apache

ElkArte is PHP-based and requires a webserver. The most popular open source web server in use today is Nginx. To install Nginx, run the commands below:

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Nginx service to always start up with the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop nginx.service
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

To test Nginx setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see Nginx default test page as shown below. When you see that, then Nginx is working as expected.

Install MariaDB Database Server

MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open source database servers to use with ElkArte. To install MariaDB run the commands below.

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots.

Run these on Ubuntu

sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

After that, run the commands below to secure MariaDB server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
New password: Enter password
Re-enter new password: Repeat password
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y

Restart MySQL server

To test if MariaDB is installed, type the commands below to logon to MariaDB server

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then type the password you created above to sign on. if successful, you should see MySQL welcome message

Install PHP 7.2-FPM and Related Modules

PHP 7.2-FPM may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories. in order to install it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.

Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.2-FPM

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2-FPM

sudo apt update

Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2-FPM and related modules.

sudo apt install php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-mysql php7.2-gd php7.2-pgsql php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-imagick php7.2-bcmath php7.2-gmp php7.2-zip

After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open PHP default config file for Nginx.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

Then make the changes on the following lines below in the file and save. The value below are great settings to apply in your environments.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

After making the change above, save the file and close out.

To restart Nginx, run the commands below

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

To test PHP 7.2 settings with Nginx, create a phpinfo.php file in Nginx root directory by running the commands below

sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php

Then type the content below and save the file.

<?php phpinfo( ); ?>

Save the file. then browse to your server hostname followed by /phpinfo.php

/phpinfo.php

You should see PHP default test page.

Create ElkArte Database

Now that you’ve install all the packages that are required, continue below to start configuring the servers. First create a ElkArte database.

Run the commands below to logon to MySQL. When prompted for a password, type the root password you created above.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called elkarte

CREATE DATABASE elkarte;

Create a database user called elkarteuser with new password

CREATE USER 'elkarteuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the elkarteuser database.

GRANT ALL ON elkarte.* TO 'elkarteuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download ElkArte Latest Release

Next, continue below to download ElkArte package. To download, go to the link below and download the latest version.

After downloading, run the commands below to extract the downloaded file into Nginx root directory.

wget 
sudo mkdir /var/www/elkarte
sudo unzip ElkArte_v1-1-6_install.zip -d /var/www/elkarte

Change or modify the directory permission to fit Nginx configuration.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/elkarte
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/elkarte

Configure Nginx

Finally, configure Apahce2 site configuration file for ElkArte. This file will control how users access ElkArte content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called elkarte

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/elkarte

Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your own domain name and directory root location.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/icyphoenix;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

    location / {
	 index index.php index.html index.htm;
	 try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrites;
            }
    location @rewrites {
	 rewrite ^ /index.php last;
          }

    location ~ \.php(/|$) {
    fastcgi_split_path_info  ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
    fastcgi_index            index.php;
    fastcgi_pass             unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
    include                  fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param   PATH_INFO       $fastcgi_path_info;
    fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $realpath_root;
    }

}

Save the file and exit.

Enable the ElkArte and Rewrite Module

After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/elkarte /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name followed by install. You should see ElkArte setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.

Confirm settings are ok and continue