Installing Fork CMS on FreeBSD 12

Fork is an open source CMS written in PHP. Fork's source code is hosted on GitHub. This guide will show you how to install Fork CMS on a fresh FreeBSD 12 Vultr instance using the LEMP stack.

Requirements

• PHP version 7.1 or greater.
• MySQL version 5.0 or greater.
• Nginx

Before you begin

Check the FreeBSD version.

uname -ro
# FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE

Ensure that your FreeBSD system is up to date.

freebsd-update fetch install
pkg update && pkg upgrade -y

Install the necessary packages.

pkg install -y sudo vim unzip curl wget bash socat git

Create a new user account with your preferred username (we will use johndoe).

adduser

# Username: johndoe
# Full name: John Doe
# Uid (Leave empty for default): 
# Login group [johndoe]: 
# Login group is johndoe. Invite johndoe into other groups? []: wheel
# Login class [default]: 
# Shell (sh csh tcsh nologin) [sh]: bash
# Home directory [/home/johndoe]: 
# Home directory permissions (Leave empty for default): 
# Use password-based authentication? [yes]: 
# Use an empty password? (yes/no) [no]: 
# Use a random password? (yes/no) [no]: 
# Enter password: your_secure_password
# Enter password again: your_secure_password
# Lock out the account after creation? [no]: 
# OK? (yes/no): yes
# Add another user? (yes/no): no
# Goodbye!

Run the visudo command and uncomment the %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL line, to allow members of the wheel group to execute any command.

visudo

# Uncomment by removing hash (#) sign
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Now, switch to your newly created user with su.

su - johndoe

NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.

Set up the timezone.

sudo tzsetup

Install PHP

Install PHP, as well as the necessary PHP extensions.

sudo pkg install -y php72 php72-curl php72-mbstring php72-session php72-json php72-ctype php72-dom php72-hash php72-iconv php72-gd php72-openssl php72-simplexml php72-xml php72-zip php72-zlib php72-filter php72-ftp php72-tokenizer php72-calendar php72-phar php72-fileinfo php72-intl php72-pdo_mysql php72-mysqli php72-xmlwriter

Check the version.

php --version
# PHP 7.2.15 (cli) (built: Feb 10 2019 01:13:27) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies

Soft-link php.ini-production to php.ini.

sudo ln -s /usr/local/etc/php.ini-production /usr/local/etc/php.ini

Enable and start PHP-FPM.

sudo sysrc php_fpm_enable=yes
sudo service php-fpm start

Install MariaDB and create a database for Fork CMS

Install MariaDB.

sudo pkg install -y mariadb102-client mariadb102-server

Check the version.

mysql --version
# mysql  Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.2.22-MariaDB, for FreeBSD12.0 (amd64) using readline 5.1

Start and enable MariaDB.

sudo sysrc mysql_enable="yes" 
sudo service mysql-server start

Run the mysql_secure_installation script to improve the security of your 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 and configure Nginx

Install Nginx.

sudo pkg install -y nginx

Check the version.

nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.14.2

Enable and start Nginx.

sudo sysrc nginx_enable=yes
sudo service nginx start

Run sudo vim /usr/local/etc/nginx/fork.conf to configure Nginx for Fork CMS. Paste in the following text.

server {

  listen 80;
  server_name example.com;
  root /usr/local/www/fork;
  index index.php index.html index.htm;

  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ @redirects;
  }
  location @redirects {
    rewrite ^ /index.php;
  }
  location ~ \.php$ {
    try_files $uri =404;
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_read_timeout 60;
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
  }
  location ~* ^/(composer\..*|vendor\/.*|Procfile$|\.git\/.*|src\/Console.*|.*\.gitignore|\.editorconfig|\.travis.yml|autoload\.php|bower\.json|phpunit\.xml\.dist|.*\.md|app\/logs\/.*|app\/config\/.*|src\/Frontend\/Cache\/CompiledTemplates.*|src\/Frontend\/Cache\/Locale\/.*\.php|src\/Frontend\/Cache\/Navigation\/.*\.php|src\/Frontend\/Cache\/Search\/.*|src\/Backend\/Cache\/CompiledTemplates\/.*|src\/Backend\/Cache\/Locale\/.*\.php)$ {
    deny all;
    access_log off;
    log_not_found off;
  }
  location ~ /\. {
    deny all;
    access_log off;
    log_not_found off;
  }
}

Save the file and exit with Colon+W+Q.

Now we need to include the fork.conf file in the main nginx.conf file.

Run sudo vim /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf and add the following line to the http {} block.

include fork.conf;

Test our Nginx configuration changes.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo service nginx reload

Install Composer

Install Composer globally by running the following script in your terminal.

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php -r "if (hash_file('SHA384', 'composer-setup.php') === '48e3236262b34d30969dca3c37281b3b4bbe3221bda826ac6a9a62d6444cdb0dcd0615698a5cbe587c3f0fe57a54d8f5') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
php composer-setup.php
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

NOTE: In the command block listed above, the hash will change with every version of the installer. Visit the Composer download page for the latest Composer installation commands.

Check the version.

composer --version
# Composer version 1.8.4 2019-02-11 10:52:10

Download and setup Fork CMS

Create a document root directory.

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/www/fork

Change ownership of the /usr/local/www/fork directory to johndoe.

sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /usr/local/www/fork

Navigate to the document root directory.

cd /usr/local/www/fork

Download Fork via composer.

composer create-project forkcms/forkcms .

Change ownership of the /usr/local/www/fork directory to www.

sudo chown -R www:www /usr/local/www/fork

Restart PHP-FPM if necessary.

sudo service php-fpm restart

Using your preferred web browser, open your site and follow the Fork CMS installer. After following the installer you will have Fork up and running. To access the Fork admin area just append /private to your site IP or URL.