This article is outdated and may not work correctly for current operating systems or software.
Vanilla is a simple discussion forum written in PHP. Vanilla source code is publicly hosted on Github. This guide will walk you through the Vanilla installation process on a fresh Debian 9 Vultr server instance using PHP, MariaDB as a database, and Nginx as a web server.
Vanilla Forum recommended software stack:
PHP version 7.2 or greater with the following extensions:
mbstring
curl
gd
PDO
mysqli
openssl
MySQL version 5.7 or greater, or MariaDB equivalent. This guide will use MariaDB 10.2.x.
Web server software such as Nginx or Apache. This guide will use Nginx.
SSL encryption
Check the Debian version.
lsb_release -ds
# Debian GNU/Linux 9.7 (stretch)
Ensure that your system is up to date.
apt update && apt upgrade -y
Install some basic system administration packages if they are not installed.
apt install -y vim sudo curl wget git unzip bash-completion apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates 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 7.2 and PHP extensions.
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg
echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y php7.2 php7.2-cli php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-mbstring php7.2-curl php7.2-gd php7.2-mysql php7.2-json
Check the version.
php -v
# PHP 7.2.14-1+0~20190113100742.14+stretch~1.gbpd83c69 (cli) (built: Jan 13 2019 10:07:43) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
# with Zend OPcache v7.2.14-1+0~20190113100742.14+stretch~1.gbpd83c69, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies
Check installed PHP extensions.
php -m
# mbstring
# curl
# gd
# PDO
# mysqli
# openssl
# . . .
Install MariaDB 10.2.
sudo apt install -y software-properties-common dirmngr
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xF1656F24C74CD1D8
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64,i386,ppc64el] https://mirrors.nxthost.com/mariadb/repo/10.2/debian stretch main'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y mariadb-server
Check the version.
mysql --version
# mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.2.21-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2
Run the mysql_secure_installation script to improve the security of your installation.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Log into MariaDB as the root user.
sudo mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:
Create a new database and user 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
Configure Nginx for use with Vanilla forum.
sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/vanilla.conf
Populate the file with the following.
server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com;
root /var/www/vanilla;
index index.php;
location ~* /\.git { deny all; return 403; }
location /build/ { deny all; return 403; }
location /cache/ { deny all; return 403; }
location /cgi-bin/ { deny all; return 403; }
location /uploads/import/ { deny all; return 403; }
location /conf/ { deny all; return 403; }
location /tests/ { deny all; return 403; }
location /vendor/ { deny all; return 403; }
location ~* ^/index\.php(/|$) {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME /index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root/index.php;
fastcgi_param X_REWRITE 1;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
}
location ~* \.php(/|$) {
rewrite ^ /index.php$uri last;
}
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ @vanilla;
}
location @vanilla {
rewrite ^ /index.php$uri last;
}
}
Activate the new vanilla.conf configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled directory.
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/vanilla.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
Test the configuration.
sudo nginx -t
Reload Nginx.
sudo systemctl reload nginx.service
Create a document root directory.
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/vanilla
Change ownership of the /var/www/vanilla directory to johndoe.
sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /var/www/vanilla
Navigate to the document root directory.
cd /var/www/vanilla
Download the latest Vanilla forum.
wget https://open.vanillaforums.com/get/vanilla-core-2.6.4.zip
Unzip it and remove the zip archive.
unzip vanilla-core-2.6.4.zip
rm vanilla-core-2.6.4.zip
Provide the appropriate ownership.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/vanilla
Navigate to the folder where you uploaded Vanilla in your web browser and follow the instructions on the screen to complete the setup.