LimeSurvey is an open source survey software written in PHP. LimeSurvey source code is hosted on GitHub. This guide will show you how to install LimeSurvey Community Edition (CE) on a fresh Debian 9 Vultr instance.
Check the Debian version.
lsb_release -ds
# Debian GNU/Linux 9.4 (stretch)
Ensure that your system is up to date.
apt update && apt upgrade -y
Install the necessary packages.
apt install -y sudo unzip apt-transport-https curl wget dirmngr
Create a new non-root
user account with sudo
access and switch to it.
adduser johndoe --gecos "John Doe"
usermod -aG sudo johndoe
su - johndoe
NOTE: Replace johndoe
with your username.
Set up the timezone.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
Install PHP 7.0 and the required PHP extensions.
sudo apt install -y php7.0 php7.0-cli php7.0-fpm php7.0-common php7.0-mbstring php7.0-xml php7.0-mysql php7.0-gd php7.0-zip php7.0-ldap php7.0-imap
Check the version.
php --version
# PHP 7.0.27-0+deb9u1 (cli) (built: Jan 5 2018 13:51:52) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.0.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies
# with Zend OPcache v7.0.27-0+deb9u1, Copyright (c) 1999-2017, by Zend Technologies
Install MariaDB.
sudo apt install -y mysql-server
Check the version.
mysql --version && sudo mysqld --version
# mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.1.26-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2
# mysqld Ver 10.1.26-MariaDB-0+deb9u1 for debian-linux-gnu on x86_64 (Debian 9.1)
Run mysql_secure_installation
to improve MariaDB security and set the password for the MySQL root
user.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Connect to the MariaDB shell as the root user.
sudo mysql -u root -p
# Enter password
Create an empty MariaDB database and user for LimeSurvey, and remember the credentials.
CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
Install Nginx.
sudo apt install -y nginx
Check the version.
sudo nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.10.3
Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/limesurvey.conf
and configure Nginx for LimeSurvey.
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name example.com;
root /var/www/limesurvey;
index index.php;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
}
}
Save the file and exit.
Activate the new limesurvey.conf
configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled
directory.
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/limesurvey.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
Test the configuration.
sudo nginx -t
Reload Nginx.
sudo systemctl reload nginx.service
Navigate to /var/www
.
cd /var/www
Download the latest stable LimeSurvey CE ZIP package and unpack it.
sudo wget https://download.limesurvey.org/latest-stable-release/limesurvey3.11.0+180612.zip
sudo unzip limesurvey3.11.0+180612.zip
sudo rm limesurvey3.11.0+180612.zip
Navigate to the document root folder.
cd /var/www/limesurvey
Change ownership of the /var/www/limesurvey
folder to the user www-data
.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/limesurvey
Open your site in a web browser and follow the LimeSurvey web installer.