Are you looking to install ProcessWire CMS on your AlmaLinux 8 server? Look no further! In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the step-by-step process of installing ProcessWire CMS with a LEMP stack on AlmaLinux 8. By the end of this article, you will have a fully functional ProcessWire CMS installation up and running.

Once you have the prerequisites in place, we can proceed with the installation and configuration of ProcessWire CMS.

Step 1: Create a Database

To begin, let’s create a database and a user that will interact with the database. Open your terminal and run the following commands:

mysql -u root
CREATE DATABASE shapehost;
CREATE USER 'shapehost'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON shapehost.* TO 'shapehost'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
quit

Replace 'YOUR-PASSWORD-HERE' with a strong and secure password. These commands will give the user shapehost complete access to the database.

Step 2: Configure Nginx Reverse Proxy

Next, we need to configure Nginx as a reverse proxy for ProcessWire CMS. Open the Nginx configuration file using the following command:

nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Replace the contents of the file 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.

Create a new Nginx configuration file for your domain with the following command:

vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/shapehost.conf

Replace shapehost with your domain name and update the SSL path according to your SSL configuration. Also, replace the root path /var/www/html/processwire with the actual path where you want to store your website’s data.

Add the following codes to the shapehost.conf file:

server {
listen 80;
server_name shapehost;
root /var/www/html/processwire;
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/shapehost/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/shapehost/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
}

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

For systems with SELinux enabled, run the following command to allow Nginx to connect to the network:

setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect1

Now, restart Nginx to apply the changes:

systemctl restart nginx
systemctl status nginx

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

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

Step 4: Download and Install ProcessWire CMS

Now it’s time to download and install ProcessWire CMS. Start by navigating to the desired directory:

cd /var/www/html

Download the latest version of ProcessWire CMS from the official website using the following command:

wget https://github.com/processwire/processwire/archive/master.zip

Unzip the downloaded file and move the extracted folder to a more appropriate location:

unzip master.zip
mv processwire-master processwire
rm master.zip

Change the ownership and permissions of the ProcessWire CMS files:

chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/processwire
chmod -R 777 /var/www/html/processwire/site
chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/html/processwire
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_rw_t /var/www/html/processwire

Restart Nginx to apply the changes:

systemctl restart nginx
systemctl status nginx

Step 5: Configure ProcessWire CMS

Open your web browser and enter the IP address or domain name associated with your server. This will redirect you to the ProcessWire CMS installation page.

Follow the on-screen instructions to configure the final parts of the installation. When prompted, enter the database details you created earlier.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed ProcessWire CMS with a LEMP stack on AlmaLinux 8.

Conclusion

In this article, we walked you through the step-by-step process of installing ProcessWire CMS on AlmaLinux 8 using a LEMP stack. We covered the prerequisites, database setup, Nginx configuration, firewall settings, and the installation of ProcessWire CMS itself. By following these instructions, you now have a fully functional ProcessWire CMS installation ready to be customized and used to build your website.

If you’re looking for reliable and scalable hosting solutions for your ProcessWire CMS, check out Shape.host. They offer Linux SSD VPS hosting with exceptional performance and 24/7 customer support.

Christian Wells