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:
mbstringcurlgdPDOmysqliopensslCheck 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.