How to Setup Kanban Project Management Platform on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx

Kanboard is an open source, self-hosted project management platform based on the LAMP / LEMP stack that helps users create and manage project workflow using the Kanban methodology.

Whether you’re creating a personal or company setting up a self-hosted project management platform, Kanboard can help you build and manage your content on every device with its intuitive and powerful user and admin dashboard.

This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install Kanboard project management software with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2 support on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 LTS.

Some features of this platform includes:

• Visualize your work
• Limit your work in progress to focus on your goal
• Drag and drop tasks to manage your project
• Self-hosted
• Super simple installation

When you’re ready, follow the steps below:

Install Nginx

Nginx HTTP Server is probably the second most popular web server in use today. since Kanboard needs it go and install it on Ubuntu.

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 Kanboard. 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 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 7.2-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-zip

After installing PHP 7.2-FPM, 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

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 Kanboard Database

Now that you’ve installed all the packages that are required for Kanboard to function, continue below to start configuring the servers. First run the commands below to create a blank Kanboard database.

To logon to MariaDB database server, run the commands below.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called kanboard

CREATE DATABASE kanboard;

Create a database user called kanboarduser with new password

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

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON kanboard.* TO 'kanboarduser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download and Install Kanboard

To get Kanboard latest release you may want to use Github repository… Install Composer, Curl and other dependencies to get started…

sudo apt install curl git
curl -sS  | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

After installing curl and Composer above, change into the /tmp directory. download and extract, then move Kanboard content to Nginx root directory… then install from there.

After that, use composer to install its dependencies.

cd /tmp
git clone 
sudo mv kanboard /var/www/kanboard
cd /var/www/kanboard
sudo mv config.default.php config.php
sudo composer install

After that, run the commands below to open its configuration file.

sudo nano /var/www/kanboard/config.php

Then make the highlighted changes below:

// Run automatically database migrations
// If set to false, you will have to run manually the SQL migrations from the CLI during the next Kanboard upgrade
// Do not run the migrations from multiple processes at the same time (example: web page + background worker)
define('DB_RUN_MIGRATIONS', true);

// Database driver: sqlite, mysql or postgres (sqlite by default)
define('DB_DRIVER', 'mysql');

// Mysql/Postgres username
define('DB_USERNAME', 'kanboarduser');

// Mysql/Postgres password
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'database_user_password_here');

// Mysql/Postgres hostname
define('DB_HOSTNAME', 'localhost');

// Mysql/Postgres database name
define('DB_NAME', 'kanboard');

// Mysql/Postgres custom port (null = default port)
define('DB_PORT', null);

// Mysql SSL key
define('DB_SSL_KEY', null);

// Mysql SSL certificate
define('DB_SSL_CERT', null);

Next, run the commands below to change the root folder permissions.

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

Configure Kanboard Site

Next, configure Nginx configuration file for Kanboard. This file will control how users access Kanboard content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called kanboard

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

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;

    server_name  example.com www.example.com;
    root   /var/www/kanboard;
    index  index.php;
    
    access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.error.log;

    client_max_body_size 100M;
  
    autoindex off;

    location / {
        try_files try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    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;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

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

Enable the Kanboard Site

After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below, then restart Nginx server.

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

Next, open your browser and go to the URL.

You should see Kanboard backend logon page

Login with username: admin and password: admin

Congratulations! you have learned how to install Kanboard Project Management Platform on Ubuntu 18.04 | 16.04 LTS

Enjoy!

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