Install ProcessWire on Ubuntu 17.04 | 17.10 with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP Support

ProcessWire is a flexible, lightweight and simple content management system based on PHP. It is designed for ease of use to allow webmasters and owners create powerful and dynamic content websites.

If you’re looking for a simple and straightforward content management platform to manage your websites or blogs and 100% free, you’ll find ProcessWire to be useful. This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install ProcessWire CMS on Ubuntu 17.04 | 17.10 with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP support.

This post covers installing the latest version of ProcessWire, which at the time of writing was at 3.0.62

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

Step 1: Install Nginx

ProcessWire requires a webserver to function and the second most popular webserver in use today is Nginx. So, go and install Nginx on Ubuntu by running the commands below:

sudo apt install nginx

Next, run the commands below 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

Step 2: Install MariaDB

ProcessWire also requires a database server to function.. and MariaDB database server is a great place to start. To install it run the commands below.

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

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

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.

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

sudo systemctl restart mariadb.service

Step 3: Install PHP-FPM and Related Modules

ProcessWire is based on PHP.. so you’ll need to install it. To install PHP and related modules run the commands below

sudo apt install php-fpm php-common php-mbstring php-xmlrpc php-soap php-gd php-xml php-intl php-mysql php-cli php-mcrypt php-ldap php-zip php-curl php-sqlite3

After install PHP, run the commands below to open PHP-FPM default file.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.1/fpm/php.ini        # Ubuntu 17.10
sudo nano /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini        # Ubuntu 17.04

Then make the change the following lines below in the file and save.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 64M
max_execution_time = 240
max_input_vars = 1500

Step 4: Create ProcessWire Database

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

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

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called processdb

CREATE DATABASE processdb;

Create a database user called processuser with new password

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

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON processdb.* TO 'processuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 5: Download ProcessWire Latest Release

Next, visit ProcessWire site and download the latest version.

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

cd /tmp && wget https://github.com/processwire/processwire/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
sudo mv processwire-master /var/www/html/processwire

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

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

Step 7: Configure Nginx

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

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

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

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?it=$uri&$args;        
    }

  
    location ~ \.php$ {
         try_files $uri =404;
         fastcgi_split_path_info  ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
         fastcgi_index            index.php;
 #       fastcgi_pass             unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;        # for Ubuntu 17.04
         fastcgi_pass             unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock;        # for Ubuntu 17.10
         include                  fastcgi_params;
         fastcgi_param   PATH_INFO       $fastcgi_path_info;
         fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

}

Save the file and exit.