Lesson 49: Installing Joomla CMS on Ubuntu Servers

Student lesson 49 assignment: How do you install Joomla Content Management System (CMS) on Ubuntu servers?

Lesson 49 tutorial shows students and new users steps to install Joomla on Ubuntu server easily.

We’ve discussed WordPress, Drupal on this site. Another CMS that’s almost as popular as Drupal is Joomla. Joomla helps webmasters and users build powerful websites and blogs.

For those who have tried WordPress and Drupal and still feel that’s something missing can try Joomla. They might just fine what’s missing in this powerful content management system.

Step 1: Prerequisites

Before you can install Joomla on Ubuntu server, you must first install the LAMP stack. The LAMP or LEMP stack is a collection of opensource software that powers majority of the websites and blogs online today.

More about LAMP can be found from the link below:

Lesson 9 : How to Install the LAMP Stack on Ubuntu Systems

After installing the LAMP stack, continue below to configure the rest.

Step 2: Creating Joomla database and user account

To configure Joomla CMS, you’ll need a database and database user. To create a database and user, run the commands below to logon to MySQL database server.

mysql -u root -p

Next, run the commands below to create Joomla’s MySQL database called joomladb.

CREATE DATABASE joomladb;

Then run the commands below to create Joomla’s MySQL database user called joomlauser and create a new password for the user.

CREATE USER joomlauser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Joomla MySQL user will need full access to manage the database created above. To give full access to the user, run the commands below.

GRANT ALL ON joomladb.* TO joomlauser@localhost;

Run this command to flush the permission to disk and apply the changes made above.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit MySQL

exit

Step 3: Downloading Joomla’s Content

Now that LAMP is installed, a database and user are created, your next step is to go and download Joomla’s content from online. To do that, run the commands below.

cd /tmp && wget https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/releases/download/3.6.2/Joomla_3.6.2-Stable-Full_Package.zip

Remember to replace the highlighted version number to the most current.

After downloading the content, run the commands below to extract it to the default root directory for Apache2 at /var/www/html.

sudo unzip -q Joomla*.zip -d /var/www/html

After that, run the commands below to update the root directory permission appropriately.

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

Don’t forget to delete Apache2 default test html file from the root directory.

sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/index.html

Step 4: Installing additional PHP modules to support Joomla

Although PHP and some modules are installed, these may come in handy. Run the commands below to install these modules to support Joomla.

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php php-mysql php-curl php-gd php-pear php-imagick php-imap php-mcrypt php-pspell php-tidy php-xmlrpc php-xml

After that, run the commands below to restart Apache2 web server.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

When you’re done, browse to the server hostname or IP address and you’ll be met with Drupal default installation page.

Type the website name, admin email address along with username and password. When done, click Next to continue.

On the database setup page, type the database name, user and password and click Next to continue.

Finally verify all the pre-installation checks and if you want, install with sample data and other configurations. When you’re ready, click Install.

After the installation, click the button to remove the installation folder. This is required.

That’s it! You’re done.

Enjoy! This is how you install Joomla.