Introduction

Fuel CMS is an open-source content management system written in PHP that can be used to develop websites and blogs. It is built upon the popular PHP web framework CodeIgniter and plays nicely with your existing installations.

This article will explain how to install and configure the Fuel CMS with the help of the LAMP stack on Ubuntu 20.04 OS.

Prerequisites

The following packages are required to install Fuel CMS on Ubuntu.

LAMP Stack
Database
PHP

Installation of LAMP Stack

Update the package index and upgrade the system.
```
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade
```
Install Apache webserver.
```
$ sudo apt install -y apache2
```
After successfully installing the Apache web server, verify the installation by opening the browser and entering the public IP address of your server or domain name.

Output

Install a Database Server

Fuel CMS requires a database to store the data. So we will be installing the MariaDB server.

Installing the MariaDB server, run the below command.
```
$ sudo apt install -y mariadb-server mariadb-client
```
For secure it. Run the below command and provide the root credentials when prompted.
```
$ sudo mysql_secure_installation
```
Output
Once secure installation is complete, login to the RDMS as a root user.
```
$ sudo mysql -u root -p
```
Once after logged in as root user, create a new database with the nametest_fuelcms.
```
CREATE database test_fuelcms;
```
Output
List the databases in the server by running theSHOW DATABASEScommand.
```
SHOW DATABASES;
```
Output

Create a new idrive_compute_test_user and assign ALL privileges to it. Also, replacetest passwordwith an appropriate password of your choice.

CREATE USER 'idrive_compute_test_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'test password';

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON test_fuelcms.* TO 'idrive_compute_test_user'@'localhost';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Installing PHP

Installing the PHP package.
```
$ sudo apt install -y php
```

Install the below PHP extensions which are required.

$ sudo apt install -y php-{common,mysql,xml,xmlrpc,curl,gd,imagick,cli,dev,imap,mbstring,opcache,soap,zip,intl}

Restart the Apache webserver for reloading PHP packages.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
Verify the PHP is running by create a info.php file in the root directory.
```
$ sudo nano /var/www/html/info.php
```
Add the following code to the info.php file.
```
<?php
phpinfo();
```
Save and close the file. Verify the PHP installation by opening the browser and entering the public IP address of your server or domain name, followed by /info.php.
Examples:
a. <IPV4_address>/info.php
b. test.com/info.php
Connect PHP to thetest_fuelcmsdatabase that was created earlier. Create a new test_fuelcms_database.php file.
```
$ sudo nano /var/www/html/test_fuelcms_database.php
```
Add the following code to thetest_fuelcms_database.phpfile.
```
<?php
$conn = new mysqli('localhost', 'idrive_compute_test_user', 'test password', 'test_fuelcms');
if ($conn->connect_error) {
die("Database connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
echo "Database connection was successful";
```
Save and close the file. Enter your server's public IP address in the browser, followed by /test_fuelcms_database.php to verify the database connection.
Example:
<IPV4_address>/test_fuelcms_database.php
Output
```
"Database connection was successful";
```

Configure Apache and Install Dependencies

After completing the installation of the LAMP stack. Now it's time to configure the apache server and its dependencies to run the Fuel CMS.

Restart the Apache webserver for enabling the rewrite module.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
Enable the Apache mod_rewritemodule.
```
$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
```

Install the libapache2-mod-php dependency.

$ sudo apt install -y libapache2-mod-php

For reloading the new configuration, you need to restart the apache.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
Install unzip package for extracting the archives.
```
$ sudo apt install unzip
```

Install Fuel CMS

Under your web server's root directory, create the fuel_cms directory.
```
$ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/fuel_cms
```

Change the ownership of the directory.

$ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/fuel_cms

Navigate to the new directory.
```
$ cd /var/www/fuel_cms
```
Install Fuel CMS from the GitHub repository by executing the below command.
```
$ sudo wget https://github.com/daylightstudio/FUEL-CMS/archive/master.zip
```
Unzip the master.zip installation archive.
```
$ unzip master.zip
```
Move the extracted file from the current location to/var/www/fuel_cms/.
```
$ mv /var/www/fuel_cms/FUEL-CMS-master/* /var/www/fuel_cms/
```

Configure Fuel CMS

Edit thedatabase.phpconfiguration file.

$ sudo nano /var/www/fuel_cms/fuel/application/config/database.php

Search the$db['default']section by using CTRL+W from the keyboard and edit the username, password, and database values as shown below.
(Note: Use the password which is created at the time of database creation).
```
$db['default'] = array(
'dsn' => '',
'hostname' => 'localhost',
'username' => 'idrive_compute_test_user',
'password' => 'test password',
'database' => 'test_fuelcms',
'dbdriver' => 'mysqli',
);
```
Save and close the file. After adding the above values in respective fields.
Initialize the test_fuelcmsdatabase.
```
mysql -u idrive_compute_test_user -p test_fuelcms < /var/www/fuel_cms/fuel/install/fuel_schema.sql
```
Theidrive_compute_test_useraccount password needs to be entered when prompted.
Generate an encryption key for Fuel CMS that is strong and random.
```
$ openssl rand -base64 20
```
Output
```
rrBD9mxcLTatOqdn8LA+zZRcvYY=
```

Edit the Fuel CMS configuration file.

$ sudo nano /var/www/fuel_cms/fuel/application/config/config.php

Search the$config['encryption_key']section by using CTRL+W from the keyboard and adding the random encryption which was generated at the earlier step.
```
$config['encryption_key'] = 'rrBD9mxcLTatOqdn8LA+zZRcvYY=';
```
Save and close the file.
Edit theMY_fuel.phpfile.
```
$ sudo nano /var/www/fuel_cms/fuel/application/config/MY_fuel.php
```
Search the$config['admin_enabled']section by using CTRL+W from the keyboard and change the value fromFALSEtoTRUEas shown below.
```
$ config['admin_enabled'] = TRUE;
```

Create a new .htaccess file in the/var/www/fuel_cms/fuel/directory.

$ sudo nano /var/www/fuel_cms/fuel/.htaccess

Add the following settings to make URLs shorter.

<IfModule
mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule .* index.php/$0 [L]
</IfModule>

Save and close the file.

Change thewww-dataownership of the fuel_cms directory.
```
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/fuel_cms
```

Creating a Virtual Host for Fuel CMS

For reloading the new configuration, you need to restart the apache server.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
Disable the default Apache virtual host.
```
$ sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
```
Save and close the file.

Create a newfuel_cms.confApache configuration file under sites-available the directory.

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/fuel_cms.conf

Add the following code by replacing test.com with the public IP address of your server or domain name.

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName test.com
DocumentRoot "/var/www/fuel_cms"
<Directory "/var/www/fuel_cms">
Require all granted
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Save and close the file.

For reloading the new configuration, you need to restart the apache.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
Enabling the new configuration file.
```
$ sudo a2ensite fuel_cms.conf
```
Restart Apache to reload the new virtual host.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```

Verify the installation

Open the browser and enter the public IP address of your server or domain name.
To access the administration page, append/fuelto the URL.
Enter the default username and password (i.e. admin) to view the Fuel CMS Dashboard page.

Now, You have successfully installed the Fuel CMS and all the operations can be performed as deemed.

Introduction

Prerequisites

Installation of LAMP Stack

Output

Install a Database Server

Output

Installing PHP

Output

Configure Apache and Install Dependencies

Install Fuel CMS

Configure Fuel CMS

Output

Creating a Virtual Host for Fuel CMS

Verify the installation