Setup DokuWiki on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 | 18.10 with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2-FPM

If you want to get DokuWiki installed on Ubuntu with Nginx and PHP 7.2-FPM support, the steps below should be a great place to start.

DokuWiki is an open source, flat-file wiki software that doesn’t require a database. It helps you create personal or business websites in minutes just by uploading its content to your server.. DokuWiki wiki software offers features that may not be available to other PHP based CMS, like WordPress Joomla or Drupal.

For one, it doesn’t need a database server, all its data is simply stored in the file system (file-based, flat file CMS). It also provides native mark down WYSIWYG support, SEO friendly, flexible CSS framework with no installation required.

With its built-in access controls and authentication connectors make DokuWiki especially useful in the enterprise and for personal use as well.

For more about DokuWiki, please check it homepage.

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install DokuWiki on Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.10 / 18.04 LTS with Nginx and PHP 7.2-FPM support.

When you’re ready to get DokuWiki working, continue with the steps below:

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server

Nginx HTTP Server is probably the second most popular web server in use. so install it, since DokuWiki 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.

nginx default home page test

Step 2: Install PHP 7.2-FPM and Related Modules

PHP 7.2-FPM may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories for some systems. if you need 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-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-sqlite3 php7.2-soap php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-tidy php7.2-intl php7.2-json php7.2-curl 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 is great settings to apply in your environments.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = 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.

Step 3: Restart Nginx

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

Step 4: Download DokuWiki Latest Release

Next, visit DokuWiki site and download the latest package. or run the commands below to download DokuWiki packages from github.

After downloading, run the commands below to extract the downloaded file and move it into a new DokuWiki root directory. After that, change into DokuWiki root directory to install PHP required packages.

Take notes of the branch number. if there are newer branch number, replace the one below with it.

cd /var/www/html/
sudo apt install git
sudo git clone --branch stable 

Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for DokuWiki to function properly.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/dokuwiki/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/dokuwiki/

Step 5: Configure Nginx DokuWiki Site

Finally, configure Nginx configuration file for DokuWiki. This file will control how users access DokuWiki content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called dokuwiki

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

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/dokuwiki;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 100M;

    location / { 
      try_files $uri $uri/ @dokuwiki;
	  }

    location @dokuwiki {
        rewrite ^/_media/(.*) /lib/exe/fetch.php?media=$1 last;
        rewrite ^/_detail/(.*) /lib/exe/detail.php?media=$1 last;
        rewrite ^/_export/([^/]+)/(.*) /doku.php?do=export_$1&id=$2 last;
        rewrite ^/(.*) /doku.php?id=$1&$args last;
    }

    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

Step 6: Enable the DokuWiki 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/dokuwiki /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart Nginx

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Next, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see DokuWiki page setup page.

DokuWiki Ubuntu Install

DokuWiki is a databaseless flat file content management system. It’s structure allowed you to have just the amount of functionality you needed in a flat file CMS solution, adding extensions (blade packs) for further functionality, whilst allowing setup on simple servers with no database.

You should be able to logon with the username and password you created.

DokuWiki ubuntu install

Enjoy!

Conclusion:

You have successfully installed DokuWiki CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 and 18.10. For more tutorials on Ubuntu please search our site.

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