How to Install and Configure October CMS 2 on a Ubuntu 20.04 Server

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October CMS 2 is a simple and reliable content management system with features like Twig templating, extendable functionality via Plugins, built-in image cropping and advanced file management. This guide explains how to install October CMS on a Ubuntu 20.04 LAMP server.

Prerequisites

Before starting this guide:

Deploy a new Vultr Ubuntu 20.04 server instance
Create a non-root sudo user
Create a DNS "A" record with a fully-qualified domain name pointed to your server
Purchase an October CMS license key
Install a LAMP stack.

1. Edit Apache Configuration

Edit the Apache default site configuration file to make changes that will allow October CMS to run smoothly on your server.

Edit the file.

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

Find the line:

DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"

Edit the document root entry to include the rules below.

<Directory /var/www/html/>

    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

    AllowOverride All

    Order allow,deny

    allow from all

</Directory>

Save and close the file
Enable the mod_rewrite Apache module.
```
$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
```

Enable and start Apache at boot time.

$ sudo systemctl enable apache2

$ sudo systemctl start apache2

Restart the service to reload the new changes.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
Verify Apache is running.
```
$ sudo systemctl status apache2
```

October CMS 2 requires PHP 7.2.9 or higher and several PHP extensions. To install PHP and all required extensions:

$ sudo apt -y install php php-ctype php-curl php-xml php-fileinfo php-gd php-json php-mbstring php-mysql php-sqlite3 php-zip libapache2-mod-php

2. Create an October CMS Database

Create the October CMS database.

> CREATE DATABASE october_db CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

Create a new database user and assign it a strong password.

> CREATE USER 'october_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YOUR_STRONG_PASSSWORD';

Grant the new user full rights to the October CMS database.

> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON october_db.* TO 'october_user'@'localhost';

Refresh MySQL user privileges and exit.
```
> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

> EXIT;
```
Test that your newly created user has rights to the database.
```
$ mysql -u october_user - p
```
Enter the user password and display databases assigned to the user.
```
> SHOW DATABASES;
```
Enable MySQL server to start at boot time, and restart the service to apply changes.
```
$ sudo systemctl enable mysql

$ sudo systemctl restart mysql   
```

3. Install Composer

October CMS 2 uses Composer to manage its dependencies, the CMS does not have a direct installation candidate, and composer is used to download all necessary CMS files required to create projects.

To install Composer, re-update your system and install the Composer PHP extensions.
```
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install wget php-cli php-zip unzip curl
```

Download Composer

$ curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Move the downloaded file to /usr/local/bin to make it a system wide application on your server.
```
$ sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
```
Verify your installation and see the version.
```
$ composer
```

4. Install October CMS 2

Create a new October CMS project directory named myexample.
```
$ composer create-project october/october myexample
```
Move the new project to Apache's web root.
```
$ sudo mv -R myexample/ /var/www/html/
```

Grant Apache permissions to October CMS.

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data  /var/www/html/myexample/

Change the Apache 2 configuration to point to your October CMS Installation directory.

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

Find this line:

DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/â€

Change it to:

DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/myexample"

Save and exit the file.
Restart Apache.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
Change to the October CMS working directory.
```
$ cd /var/www/html/myexample
```
Run PHP Artisan.
```
$ sudo php artisan october:install
```
Choose your preferred October CMS language, English is the default.
Enter your domain name, then choose a custom access URL.
```
Application URL [http://localhost]:

    > 
```
Select a custom backend URI for administration.
```
Backend URI [/backend]:

    >Â 
```

Select MySQL database server.

Database Engine [SQLite]:

    [0] SQLite

    [1] MySQL

    [2] Postgres

    [3] SQL Server

    >Â

Use the default value of 127.0.0.1 for Database Host.
```
Database Host [127.0.0.1]:

> 
```
Enter 3306 for database port.
```
Database Port [3306] 

>Â 
```

Enter your database name, user, and password.

Database Name [database]:

>Â 

Database Login [root]:

>

Database Password []:

>

Enter your October CMS license key.
```
License Key:

    >
```
Installation will continue.
When finished, migrate the database to initialise the tables.
```
$ sudo php artisan october:migrate
```
Complete your October CMS configuration from a web browser. Connect to the backend URL with your domain name or server's IP address. For example:
```
http://YOUR_SERVER_IP_ADDRESS/backend 

http://YOUR_DOMAIN/backend
```

Next Steps

You must create a user account to access the administration area.
If you receive a connection not secure prompt, install a free Letâ€™s encrypt SSL certificate to access your October CMS Dashboard.
See the October CMS documentation for more information.

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