Setup MantisBT on Ubuntu 18.04 | 16.04 with Nginx

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install Mantis Bug Tracker (MantisBT) on Ubuntu 18.04 | 16.04 with Nginx HTTP server…

Our previous tutorial showed you how to install MantisBT on Ubuntu with Apache2 web server… This one shows you how to use it with Nginx instead.

MantisBT is an open source issue tracker platform designed to be flexible and user friendly and provides a tool help you collaborate with different teams to resolve bugs and issues and quickly and professionally as possible..

MantisBT comes with a customizable dashboard board with role based access control for users, email notification and workflow to help your company fix issues with ease and care..

If you’re looking for a bug tracker tool for yourself or a business, you may want to take a look at MantisBT.. Mantis also has built-in modules that extend its functionality and the platform is actively being developed…

For more about Mantis, please check its homepage

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

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu

Nginx HTTP Server is the most popular web server in use… so install it since Mantis 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..

http://localhost

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server

Mantis also needs a database server to store its content… and MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open source database servers to use with Mantis…

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

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

Step 3: 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-gmp php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-mysql php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli 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 are great settings to apply in your environments.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
max_input_vars = 1500
date.timezone = America/Chicago

After making the change above, save the file and close out.

Step 4: Create Mantis Database

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

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

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called mantis

CREATE DATABASE mantis;

Create a database user called mantisuser with new password

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

Then grant the user full access to the mantis database.

GRANT ALL ON mantis.* TO 'mantisuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

While still connected to MariaDB database server, use the steps below to allow MariaDB root user to connect from the app to the databases..

You’ll need the root account and password to setup Mantis.. the steps below will disable plugin authentication for the root user..

use mysql;
update user set plugin='' where User='root';
flush privileges;
exit

Restart and run the commands below to set a new password.

sudo systemctl restart mariadb.service

Step 5: 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 6: Download Mantis Latest Release

To download and install Mantis, run the commands below to get the latest as of this writing from this link..
On Ubuntu server, simply run the commands below to get it download… then extract its content into Nginx root directory…

cd /tmp
wget https://excellmedia.dl.sourceforge.net/project/mantisbt/mantis-stable/2.22.1/mantisbt-2.22.1.zip
unzip mantisbt-2.22.1.zip
sudo mv mantisbt-2.22.1 /var/www/mantis

After that, run the commands below to set the correct permissions for Mantis to function.

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

Step 7: Configure Nginx

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

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

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/mantis;
    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 / {
    index index.html index.php;
    try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
      }

    location ~ \.php$ {
         include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
         include fastcgi_params;
         fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

Step 8: Enable the Mantis

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

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

Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see Mantis setup wizard…

http://example.com/

Type in the database name, username and root credentials..

After that, Mantis BT should be installed and ready to use..

Username: administrator
Password: root

Conclusion:

You have learned how to install Mantis bug tracker on Ubuntu with Nginx HTTP server.. If you find any error above, please leave a comment below

Thanks,