For those of you who didn’t know, Elgg is an open-source and powerful social networking engine used to create your own social networking web site. It is a PHP-based application and can easily be installed on a Linux VPS.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple. I will show you through the step by step installation Elgg (Social Networking Platform) on Ubuntu 14.04.
Step 1. First of all make sure that all packages are up to date.
1 2 | apt-getupdate apt-getupgrade |
Step 2. Install LAMP (Apache, PHP and MySQL) on Ubuntu 14.04
1 | apt-getinstallmysql-clientmysql-serverapache2php5php5-mysqlphp5-gdphp5-imapphp5-ldapphp5-odbcphp-pearphp-xml-parserphp5-xmlrpcchkconfigwgetunzip |
Start LAMP service, enable to start on boot:
1 2 | /etc/init.d/apache2start /etc/init.d/mysqlstart |
Step 3. Configuring MySQL for Elgg.
By default, MySQL is not hardened. You can secure MySQL using the mysql_secure_installation script. you should read and below each steps carefully which will set root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MySQL:
1 | mysql_secure_installation |
Next we will need to log in to the MySQL console and create a database for the Elgg. Run the following command:
1 | mysql-uroot-p |
This will prompt you for a password, so enter your MySQL root password and hit Enter. Once you are logged in to your database server you need to create a database for Elgg installation:
1 2 3 | createdatabaseelggdb; flushprivileges; |
Step 4. Configuring Apache web server.
Create a new Apache virtual host for Elgg:
1 | nano/etc/apache2/sites_available/default |
Change “AllowOverride None” to “AllowOverride All”:
1 2 3 4 5 6 | <Directory/var/www/> OptionsIndexesFollowSymLinksMultiViews AllowOverrideAll Orderallow,deny allowfromall </Directory> |
Turn on the Apache “rewrite” module by running the following command:
1 | a2enmodrewrite |
Restart your Apache service for the changes to take effect:
1 | /etc/init.d/apache2restart |
Step 5. Install Elgg.
Download the latest stable version of Elgg, At the moment of writing this article it is version 1.11.1:
1 2 | wgethttps://www.elgg.org/getelgg.php?forward=elgg-1.11.1.zip unzipelgg-1.11.1.zip |
Move the Elgg installation files and directories:
1 2 | mvelgg-1.8.11/var/www/elgg cd/var/www/elgg |
Move to engine directory and cp the settings example file to settings.php:
1 2 | cdengine/ cpsettings.example.phpsettings.php |
Open the settings.php file in your favorite editor:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 | ### nano settings.php /** * The database username * * @global string $CONFIG->dbuser * @name $CONFIG->dbuser */ $CONFIG->dbuser='elgguser'; /** * The database password * * @global string $CONFIG->dbpass */ /** * The database name * * @global string $CONFIG->dbname */ $CONFIG->dbname='elggdb'; /** * The database host. * * For most installations, this is 'localhost' * * @global string $CONFIG->dbhost */ $CONFIG->dbhost='localhost'; /** /** * The database username * * @global string $CONFIG->dbuser * @name $CONFIG->dbuser */ $CONFIG->dbuser='elgguser'; /** * The database password * * @global string $CONFIG->dbpass */ /** * The database name * * @global string $CONFIG->dbname */ $CONFIG->dbname='elggdb'; /** * The database prefix * * This prefix will be appended to all Elgg tables. If you're sharing * a database with other applications, use a database prefix to namespace tables * in order to avoid table name collisions. * * @global string $CONFIG->dbprefix */ $CONFIG->dbprefix='elgg_'; |
Create the upload directory and change its permission:
1 2 | mkdir/upload chmod777/upload |
Step 6. Accessing Elgg.
Elgg will be available on HTTP port 80 by default. Open your favorite browser and navigate to http://yourdomain.com/install.php or http://server-ip/install.php and complete the required the steps to finish the installation. Make sure the web server has permission to write to and create directories in /var/www/html/elgg/. If you are using a firewall, please open port 80 to enable access to the control panel.
Congratulation’s! You have successfully installed Elgg. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Elgg social networking engine on Ubuntu 14.04 system.
