Install Subrion CMS with LAMP Stack On Ubuntu 20.04

Introduction

Subrion is an open-source Content Management System (CMS) with a powerful modern administrator interface, suitable for building personal websites, blogs, and corporate web portals. Subrion ships with a modern API, professional-looking templates, and plug-ins that allow you to extend its functionalities and change the look of your website depending on your needs. This guide explains how to install Subrion CMS with a LAMP stack on your Ubuntu 20.04 server.

Prerequisites

To complete this tutorial, you require the following:

1. Install Subrion Dependencies and Helper Packages

Connect to your server via SSH and follow the steps below.

Update the package information index.
```
 $ sudo apt update
```
Install libapache2-mod-php to allow Apache to communicate with PHP.
```
 $ sudo apt install -y libapache2-mod-php
```
Enable Apache's mod_rewrite module to allow Subrion CMS to craft user-friendly URLs.
```
 $ sudo a2enmod rewrite
```
Restart your web server to load the new modules.
```
 $ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```
Download and install the unzip package, which you need to unzip Subrion CMS installation files.
```
 $ sudo apt -y install unzip
```

2. Set Up a Database and a User Account

Subrion works with either the MySQL or MariaDB server. Follow the steps below to set up a backend for the CMS.

Enter the root password for your MySQL/MariaDB server and press Enter to proceed. Then, run the appropriate SQL statements depending on the database engine you use. Replace EXAMPLE_PASSWORD with a strong value.

MySQL server:

 mysql> CREATE DATABASE subrion;
        CREATE USER 'subrion_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'EXAMPLE_PASSWORD';
        GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON subrion.* TO 'subrion_user'@'localhost';           
        FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

MariaDB server:

 MariaDB> CREATE DATABASE subrion;
          GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES on subrion.* TO 'subrion_user'@'localhost' identified by 'EXAMPLE_PASSWORD';
          FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Log out from your database server.
```
 mysql> EXIT;
```

3. Download Subrion CMS

You should install Subrion CMS in a separate directory to make maintenance and troubleshooting easier in the future.

Create a new subrion directory under the root of your web server.
```
 $ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/subrion
```
Take ownership of the new /var/www/subrion directory.
```
 $ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/subrion
```
Navigate to the new directory.
```
 $ cd /var/www/subrion
```
Download the latest stable version of the Subrion CMS from the official subrion.org repository.
```
 $ sudo wget https://tools.subrion.org/get/4.1.5.zip
```
Unzip the 4.1.5.zip file to your current directory.
```
 $ sudo unzip 4.1.5.zip
```
Change ownership of the /var/www/subrion directory to the www-data user to allow Apache to read/write to the directory.
```
 $ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/subrion
```

4. Create Virtual Host

The Apache web server reads virtual hosts configurations from the /etc/apache2/sites-available directory. Therefore, you need to set up a separate file for the Subrion CMS.

Disable the default 000-default.conf configuration file.
```
 $ sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
```

Create a new subrion.conf configuration file.

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

Paste the information below into the new file. Replace example.com with your server's public IP address or domain name.

 <VirtualHost *:80>

     ServerName example.com

     DocumentRoot "/var/www/subrion"

     <Directory "/var/www/subrion">
         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.
Add the new subrion.conf to the list of enabled sites.
```
 $ sudo a2ensite subrion.conf
```
Restart the web server to load the new configurations.
```
 $ sudo systemctl restart apache2
```

5. Test Subrion Installation

Visit the address http://example.com in a web browser. Replace example.com with your domain name or public IP address of your server.
Follow the web-based wizard to complete installing Subrion CMS.

Delete the installation script and secure the config.inc.php file for security purposes.

 $ sudo rm /var/www/subrion/install/modules/module.install.php
 $ sudo chmod 400 /var/www/subrion/includes/config.inc.php

Append /panel to your server's public IP address or domain name to access the administration panel. For instance, http://example.com/panel.

Conclusion

In this guide, you've installed the Subrion CMS with LAMP stack on your Ubuntu 20.04 server. For more information on configuring your Subrion CMS, follow the link below.