Setup flatCore CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2-FPM

flatCore, a flat-file CMS is able to run on Apache2 efficiently… however, if you rather have Nginx HTTP server with PHP 7.2-FPM running flatCore, then the steps below should get you there…

flatCore is an open source, flat-file content management system (CMS) based on PHP and PDO/SQLite that can be used to build beautiful websites and apps with control over everything, including all your own HTML…..

If you are looking for a solution to edit your website live and with ease, then flatCore is a good place to start… It is built on an open source core with support for open standards, which might be very useful in helping you run your digital content…

This CMS platform is designed for ease of use to allow webmasters to collaborate and automate engaging experiences with users across multiple devices, including mobile…

For more about flatCore, please check their Homepage

This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install flatCore CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.10 and 18.04 LTS…

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

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server

flatCore requires a web server and Nginx HTTP server is probably the second most popular open source web server available today… To install Nginx 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

Now that Nginx is installed…. to test whether the web server is working, open your browser and browse to the URL below…

http://localhost

If you see the page above, then Nginx is successfully installed…

Step 2: Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules

flatCore is a PHP based CMS and PHP is required… However, PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories… To run PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 and previous, you may need to run the commands below:

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2

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-sqlite3 php7.2-mysql php7.2-gmp php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-gd php7.2-bcmath php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-zip

After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open PHP default configuration file for Nginx…

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

The lines below is a good settings for most PHP based CMS… Update the configuration file with these and save….

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

Everytime you make changes to PHP configuration file, you should also restart Nginx web server… To do so, run the commands below:

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Now that PHP is installed, to test whether it’s functioning, create a test file called phpinfo.php in Nginx default root directory…. ( /var/www/html/)

sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php

Then type the content below and save the file.

<?php phpinfo( ); ?>

Next, open your browser and browse to the server’s hostname or IP address followed by phpinfo.php

http://localhost/phpinfo.php

You should see PHP default test page…

Step 3: Download flatCore Latest Release

To get flatCore latest release you may want to use Github repository… Install git tool to download flatCore packages…..

sudo apt install git

After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Nginx root directory and download flatCore packages from Github…

cd /var/www/html
sudo git clone https://github.com/flatCore/flatCore-CMS.git flatcore

Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for flatCore root directory and give Nginx control….

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

Step 4: Configure Nginx

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

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

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

    client_max_body_size 100M;

    location / {
         try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
     }

    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.

Step 5: Enable the flatCore and Rewrite Module

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

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

Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see flatCore setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.

http://example.com/install/index.php

Then follow the on-screen instruction… Choose the installation language and continue…

Next, validate that all required packages are installed… and continue.

After that, create an admin account for the site and click Start installation…

After that, the site should be created and ready to use..

Don’t forget to delete the install folder…

sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/flatcore/install/

Enjoy~

Congratulation! You have successfully installed flatCore CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 and 18.10….