‍Craft CMS is a versatile and extensible content management system that allows you to create custom digital experiences. In this step-by-step guide, we will walk you through the process of installing Craft CMS on AlmaLinux 8. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a fully functioning Craft CMS installation on your AlmaLinux 8 server.

Step 1: Create Database

First, let’s create a database and a user for Craft CMS. We will also grant the necessary privileges to the user so that it can interact with the database. Open a terminal and log in to your AlmaLinux 8 server with root access.

mysql -u root

Once you are logged in to the MySQL shell, execute the following commands to create the database and user:

CREATE DATABASE craft;
CREATE USER 'craftuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON craft.* TO 'craftuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
quit;

Make sure to replace ‘YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE’ with a strong and secure password for the Craft CMS database user.

Step 2: Configure Nginx Reverse Proxy

Next, we need to configure Nginx as a reverse proxy for Craft CMS. Open the Nginx configuration file with your preferred text editor:

nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Replace the contents of nginx.conf with the following configuration:

# For more information on configuration, see:
# * Official English Documentation: http://nginx.org/en/docs/
# * Official Russian Documentation: http://nginx.org/ru/docs/

user nginx;
worker_processes auto;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
pid /run/nginx.pid;

# Load dynamic modules. See /usr/share/doc/nginx/README.dynamic.
include /usr/share/nginx/modules/*.conf;

events {
 worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
 log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
 '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
 '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

 access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log main;

 sendfile on;
 tcp_nopush on;
 tcp_nodelay on;
 keepalive_timeout 65;
 types_hash_max_size 2048;

 include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
 default_type application/octet-stream;

 # Load modular configuration files from the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory.
 # See http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#include
 # for more information.
 include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}

Save and exit the file by pressing Ctrl+O and then Ctrl+X. This configuration sets up the basic Nginx settings.

Now, let’s create a new Nginx configuration file for your Craft CMS domain:

vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/craft.conf

Add the following code to the craft.conf file:

server {
listen 80;
server_name your-domain.com;
root /var/www/html/craft;
index index.php index.html index.htm;

location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}

location = /favicon.ico {
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}

location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {
expires max;
log_not_found off;
}

location = /robots.txt {
allow all;
log_not_found off;
access_log off;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/www.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}

listen 443 http2 ssl; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/your-domain.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/your-domain.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot
}

Make sure to replace your-domain.com with your actual domain name. Also, update the SSL certificate paths accordingly.

Save and exit the file by pressing Esc, then typing :wq!, and finally pressing Enter.

If you have SELinux enabled, run the following command to allow Nginx to make network connections:

setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect1

Now, let’s restart Nginx to apply the changes:

systemctl restart nginx

To verify that Nginx is running without any errors, you can check its status:

systemctl status nginx

Step 3: Enable HTTP and HTTPS (Ports 80 and 443)

To enable HTTP and HTTPS connections through the firewall, run the following commands:

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
firewall-cmd --reload

This will allow incoming traffic on ports 80 and 443, which are used for HTTP and HTTPS respectively.

Step 4: Download and Install Craft CMS

Now, let’s download and install Craft CMS on your AlmaLinux 8 server. Navigate to the /var/www/html directory:

cd /var/www/html

Create a new directory for your Craft CMS installation:

mkdir craft

Navigate into the craft directory:

cd craft

Download the latest version of Craft CMS from the official website:

wget https://craftcms.com/latest-v3.zip

Unzip the downloaded file:

unzip latest-v3.zip

Remove the downloaded ZIP file:

rm latest-v3.zip

Step 5: Configure Craft CMS

Before we can access the Craft CMS installation, we need to configure it with the database details. Open the .env file in your preferred text editor:

nano /var/www/html/craft/.env

Update the following lines with your MySQL database information:

DB_DRIVER=mysql
DB_SERVER=localhost
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=craft
DB_USER=craftuser
DB_PASSWORD=YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE

Save and exit the file.

Next, let’s set the correct file permissions for Craft CMS. Run the following commands to make the necessary folders readable:

chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/craft
chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/html/craft
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_rw_t /var/www/html/craft

Now, restart Nginx to apply the changes:

systemctl restart nginx

To verify that Nginx is running without any errors, you can check its status:

systemctl status nginx

Step 6: Access Craft CMS

You can now access your Craft CMS installation by navigating to your server’s IP address or domain name in your web browser:

https://your-domain.com

Replace your-domain.com with your actual domain name or IP address.

Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the Craft CMS installation. You will be prompted to enter the database details that we configured earlier.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Craft CMS with LEMP stack on your AlmaLinux 8 server.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to install Craft CMS on AlmaLinux 8 using the LEMP stack. We covered the step-by-step process of creating a database, configuring Nginx as a reverse proxy, downloading and installing Craft CMS, and configuring it with the necessary database details. Now you can start building your custom digital experiences with Craft CMS on AlmaLinux 8.

If you want a hassle-free Craft CMS hosting experience, consider checking out Shape.host. Shape.host offers reliable Linux SSD VPS hosting with excellent performance and top-notch customer support.

Christian Wells