FluxBB is a free, open source, flat-forum bulletin board software based on phpBB. It enables individuals and webmasters to set up community bulletin boards in minutes to stay in touch with group of people or ideas.
FluxBB is a highly customization with ton of features and designed as a lighter, faster alternative to some of the traditional feature heavy forum applications like the original phpBB platform.
So, if you’re a student or new user looking for a bulletin board software that has the look and feel of phpBB but with many more features, then FluxBB is what you’ll want to install.
This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install and use FluxBB Ubuntu 18.04 | 16.04 with Nginx, MySQL and PHP support.
Some of the features included with FluxBB are:
- phpBB bulletin board and permission system
- CMS features allowing the creation of new pages and blocks
- Clean administration interface
- Many ready to use features: Photo Gallery, Downloads, Knowledge Base, Links, Chat.
- Multi-language and multi-template ready
- Lots of community modifications
- .and many others.
To get started with installing FluxBB, follow the steps below:
Install Nginx
FluxBB 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 MySQL Database Server
MySQL database server is a great place to start when looking at open source database servers to use with FluxBB. To install MySQL run the commands below.
sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
After installing MySQL, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MySQL service to always start up when the server boots.
Run these on Ubuntu
sudo systemctl stop mysql.service sudo systemctl start mymsql.service sudo systemctl enable mysql.service
After that, run the commands below to secure MySQL 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 MySQL is installed, type the commands below to logon to MySQL 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 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 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 FluxBB Database
Now that you’ve install all the packages that are required, continue below to start configuring the servers. First create a FluxBB 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 fluxbb
CREATE DATABASE fluxbb;
Create a database user called fluxbbuser with new password
CREATE USER 'fluxbbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';
Then grant the user full access to the fluxbbuser database.
GRANT ALL ON fluxbb.* TO 'fluxbbuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Finally, save your changes and exit.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
Download FluxBB Latest Release
Next, continue below to download FluxBB 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 unzip fluxbb-1.5.11.zip sudo mv fluxbb-1.5.11 /var/www/fluxbb
Change or modify the directory permission to fit Nginx configuration.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/fluxbb sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/fluxbb
Configure Nginx
Finally, configure Apahce2 site configuration file for FluxBB. This file will control how users access FluxBB content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called fluxbb
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/fluxbb
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/fluxbb;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ @rewriteapp;
}
location /install/ {
try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrite_installapp;
}
location ~ \.php(/|$) {
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;
try_files $uri $uri/ /install/app.php$is_args$args;
}
location @rewrite_installapp {
rewrite ^(.*)$ /install/app.php/$1 last;
}
}
Save the file and exit.
Enable the FluxBB
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/fluxbb /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 FluxBB setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.
Type in the database name, username and password.
At the Administrator section, create a new admin account and password. then click Install
That’s it!
After that, all should be installed and ready to use
Enjoy!
Run the commands below to delete the install directory
sudo rm -rf /var/www/fluxbb/install
Congratulation! You have successfully installed FluxBB bulletin board on Ubuntu 18.04.
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