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 Fedora 29 Vultr server instance using PHP, MariaDB as a database, and Nginx as a web server.
Vanilla Forum recommended software stack:
mbstringcurlgdPDOmysqliopenssl.Check the Fedora version.
cat /etc/fedora-release
# Fedora release 29 (Twenty Nine)
Create a new non-root user account with sudo access and switch to it.
useradd -c "John Doe" johndoe && passwd johndoe
usermod -aG wheel johndoe
su - johndoe
NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.
Set up the timezone.
timedatectl list-timezones
sudo timedatectl set-timezone 'Region/City'
Ensure that your system is up to date.
sudo dnf check-update; sudo dnf update -y
Install some basic system administration packages if they are not installed.
sudo dnf install -y vim curl wget git unzip bash-completion
For simplicity, disable SELinux and Firewall.
sudo setenforce 0;sudo systemctl stop firewalld;sudo systemctl disable firewalld
Install PHP 7.2 and PHP extensions.
sudo dnf install -y php-cli php-fpm php-common php-mbstring php-curl php-gd php-pdo php-mysqlnd php-json
Check the version.
php --version
# PHP 7.2.14 (cli) (built: Jan 8 2019 09:59:17) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
Check installed PHP extensions.
php -m
# mbstring
# curl
# gd
# PDO
# mysqli
# openssl
# . . .
Start and enable PHP-FPM.
sudo systemctl start php-fpm.service
sudo systemctl enable php-fpm.service
Install MariaDB.
sudo dnf install -y mariadb-server
Check the version.
mysql --version
# mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.3.11-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1
Start and enable MariaDB.
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
Run the mysql_secure_installation script to improve the security of your MariaDB installation.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Log into MariaDB as the root user.
mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:
Create a new database and user. Remember the credentials for this new user.
CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;
Install Nginx.
sudo dnf install -y nginx
Check the version.
nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.14.1
Start and enable Nginx.
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service
Configure Nginx for Vanilla forum.
sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/vanilla.conf
Populate the file with the following configuration.
server {
listen 80;
server_name forum.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 default.d/php.conf;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME /index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root/index.php;
fastcgi_param X_REWRITE 1;
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
}
location ~* \.php(/|$) {
rewrite ^ /index.php$uri last;
}
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ @vanilla;
}
location @vanilla {
rewrite ^ /index.php$uri last;
}
}
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 nginx:nginx /var/www/vanilla
Run sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf and set the user and group to nginx. Initially, it will be set to apache.
sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
# user = nginx
# group = nginx
Restart PHP-FPM.
sudo systemctl restart php-fpm.service
Navigate to the folder where you uploaded Vanilla in your web browser and follow the instructions on the screen to complete the setup.