This tutorial will show you how to install Drupal on Ubuntu 14.04. For those of you who didn’t know, Drupal is an open-source and one of the most popular PHP based content Management System (CMS) platform for building personal blogs or big corporate websites. It has thousands of templates and plugins that are mostly free to download and install. Due to the stability of the base, the adaptability of the platform, and its active community, Drupal remains a popular choice after more than a decade on the scene.
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 Drupal on Ubuntu 14.04.
Install Drupal 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 server and include some PHP extension.
1 | sudoapt-getinstallmysql-servermysql-clientapache2php5php5-mysqlphp5-gdphp5-curllibssh2-php |
Start LAMP service, enable to start on boot:
1 2 | servicemysqlstart serviceapache2start |
Step 3. Configuring MySQL for Drupal.
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 Drupal. 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 Drupal installation:
1 2 3 4 5 | mysql-uroot-p mysql>CREATEDATABASEdrupaldb; mysql>GRANTALLPRIVILEGESONdrupaldb.*TO'drupaluser'@'localhost'IDENTIFIEDBY'your-password'WITHGRANTOPTION; mysql>FLUSHPRIVILEGES; mysql>quit |
Step 4. Install Drupal.
Download the latest stable version of Drupal, At the moment of writing this article it is version 7.37:
1 2 3 | wgethttp://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-7.37.tar.gz tarxzvfdrupal* mv-vdrupal*/*/var/www/html/ |
We will need to change some folders permissions:
1 | chown-Rwww-data:www-data/var/www/html/ |
Step 5. Configuring Apache web sever.
Create a new virtual host directive in Apache. For example, create a new Apache configuration file ‘drupal.conf’:
1 2 | nano/etc/apache2/sites-available/drupal.conf ln-s/etc/apache2/sites-available/drupal.conf/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/drupal.conf |
Then, add the following lines:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 | <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdminadmin@your-domain.com DocumentRoot/var/www/html/drupal/ ServerNameyour-domain.com ServerAliaswww.your-domain.com <Directory/var/www/html/drupal/> OptionsIndexesFollowSymLinksMultiViews AllowOverrideAll Orderallow,deny allowfromall </Directory> ErrorLog/var/log/apache2/your-domain.com-error_log CustomLog/var/log/apache2/your-domain.com-access_logcommon </VirtualHost> |
There are also few tweaks recommended by the Drupal development team that can be implemented. To do that edit your PHP configuration file:
1 | nano/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini |
Set the “expose_php” and the “”allow_url_fopen”” directives to “Off”:
1 2 3 4 5 | ... expose_php=Off ... allow_url_fopen=Off ... |
Restart the Apache service for the changes to take effect:
1 | /etc/init.d/apache2restart |
Step 6. Accessing Drupal.
Drupal will be available on HTTP port 80 by default. Open your favorite browser and navigate to http://yourdomain.com or http://server-ip and complete the required the steps to finish the installation. If you are using a firewall, please open port 80 to enable access to the control panel.
Congratulation’s! You have successfully installed Drupal. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Drupal CMS on Ubuntu 14.04 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Drupal web site.
