This article describes steps one can take to install and sue Fork CMS on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support.
Fork CMS is a user-friendly open-source content management system (CMS) built on the LAMP or LEMP stack. Whether you’re creating a personal or business website, ForkCMS can help you manage great content on every device.
If you currently running your website and content on other CMS like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla and they’re not working right for you, then you may want to give ForkCMS a try. It’s a great alternative to those PHP based content management systems.
For more on ForkCMS, please visit its home page
How to install ForkCMS on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support
As described above, Fork CMS is a user-friendly open-source content management system (CMS) built on the LAMP or LEMP stack.
Below is how to install it on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support.
Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu
Nginx HTTP Server is the second most popular web server in use. so install it, since ForkCMS needs it.
To install Nginx HTTP on Ubuntu server, run the commands below.
sudo apt update sudo apt 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 Magento. 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 16.04 LTS
sudo systemctl stop mysql.service sudo systemctl start mysql.service sudo systemctl enable mysql.service
Run these on Ubuntu 17.10 and 18.04 LTS
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 MariaDB 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 MariaDB welcome message
Install PHP 7.2-FPM and Related Modules
PHP 7.1 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 and related modules.
sudo apt install php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-sqlite php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-mysql php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli 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.
After installing PHP and related modules, all you have to do is restart Nginx to reload PHP configurations.
To restart Nginx, run the commands below
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
Create ForkCMS Database
Now that you’ve installed all the packages that are required for ForkCMS to function, continue below to start configuring the servers.
First run the commands below to create a blank ForkCMS database.
To logon to MariaDB database server, run the commands below.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then create a database called forkcms
CREATE DATABASE forkcms;
Create a database user called forkcmsuser with new password
CREATE USER 'forkcmsuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';
Then grant the user full access to the database.
GRANT ALL ON forkcms.* TO 'forkcmsuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Finally, save your changes and exit.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
Download and Install ForkCMS
Run the commands below to download ForkCMS content.
cd /tmp && wget tar -xvzf forkcms-5.2.3.tar.gz sudo mv forkcms /var/www/html/forkcms
Next, run the commands below to change the root folder permissions.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/forkcms/ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/forkcms/
Configure Nginx ForkCMS Site
Finally, configure Nginx configuration file for ForkCMS. This file will control how users access ForkCMS content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called forkcms
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/forkcms
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/html/forkcms;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
client_max_body_size 100M;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ @redirects;
}
location @redirects {
rewrite ^ /index.php;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
}
Save the file and exit.
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below
Enable the ForkCMS Site and Rewrite Module
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below, then restart Nginx server.
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/forkcms /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
Restart Nginx
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
Next, open your brwoser and go to the URL. and continue with the installation.
Click Next to continue the installation wizard. One of the most remarkable features of Fork CMS is the built-in multilingual support.
In step 2 the languages are chosen for both the front and back end.
The default language you select in this step is shown if the locale module can’t determine the browser’s language.
Type in the database connection info and create an administor account to manage the platform in the backend. and continue
After entering the info above, click Finish installation to install the CMS.
You’ll find the private website configuration system in
That should do it!
