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:
PHP version 7.2 or greater, with the following extensions:
mbstring
curl
gd
PDO
mysqli
openssl.
MySQL version 5.7 or greater; alternatively the equivalent Percona or MariaDB. This guide will use MariaDB.
Web server software such as Nginx or Apache. This guide will use Nginx.
SSL encryption.
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.