Install HumHub on an Ubuntu VPS with Nginx and MariaDB

humhubIn this guide we will show you how install HumHub on an Ubuntu VPS with Nginx and MariaDB. HumHub is a flexible open source social network application written in PHP on top of the Yii framework. HumHub has a bunch of great features such sharing documents and files, responsive design, user spaces, activity stream and many more. This should work on other Linux VPS systems as well but was tested and written for Ubuntu 14.04 VPS.

 

Update the system and install necessary packages.

~# apt-get -y update && apt-get -y upgrade
~# apt-get install software-properties-common python-software-properties git curl imagemagick

Install PHP and Nginx

apt-get install nginx php5-fpm php5-cli php5-gd php5-mysql php5-curl php5-ldap php5-memcached memcached

Clone the git repository

Create a root directory for your web site and clone the git repository from github

~# mkdir -p /var/www/yourwebsite.com/{public_html,logs}
~# git clone https://github.com/humhub/humhub.git /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html

Install MariaDB and create a database.

~#  apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 0xcbcb082a1bb943db
~# add-apt-repository 'deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/mariadb/repo/10.0/ubuntu trusty main'
~# apt-get -y update
~# echo -e "Package: *\nPin: origin ftp.osuosl.org\nPin-Priority: 1000" | tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mariadb
~# apt-get install mariadb-server
~# mysql -uroot -p
MariaDB [(none)]> create database humhub;
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON humhub.* TO 'humhub'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'humhubPassword';
MariaDB [(none)]> flush privileges;
MariaDB [(none)]> \q

Configure memcached to listen on localhost (127.0.0.1) and disable UDP:

vi /etc/memcached.conf
-l 127.0.0.1
-U 0

Restart memcached:

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/etc/init.d/memcached restart

Nginx configuration

Create a new Nginx server block with the following content

~# cat <<'EOF' > /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourwebsite.com
server {
    server_name yourwebsite.com;
    listen 80;
    root /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html;
    access_log /var/www/yourwebsite.com/logs/access.log;
    error_log /var/www/yourwebsite.com/logs/error.log;
    index index.php;
 
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }
 
    location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png|ttf|woff)$ {
        access_log off;
        expires 30d;
        add_header Pragma public;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, mustrevalidate, proxy-revalidate";
    }
 
    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(.*)$;
        fastcgi_keep_conn on;
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
 
    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    location /protected {
        deny all;
    } 

    location /uploads/file {
        deny all;
    } 
 
}
EOF

Symlink it and restart the server

~# ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourwebsite.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/yourwebsite.com
~# /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Set the correct permissions

~# chown -R www-data: /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/

Create cron Jobs

30 * * * * /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/yiic cron hourly >/dev/null 2>&1
00 18 * * * /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/yiic cron daily >/dev/null 2>&1

Enable url rewriting

Add the following lines in the /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/protected/config/local/_settings.php file


<?php return array ( 'components'=>
array (
'urlManager' => array(
'urlFormat' => 'path',
'showScriptName' => false,
),
)
);

Finally, open your browser and run the HumHub installation process.

http://yourwebsite.com/

For more information about how to manage your HumHub installation, please refer to the
HumHub website.

Of course you don’t have to do any of this if you use one of our Linux VPS Hosting services, in which case you can simply ask our expert Linux admins to setup this for you. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.
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5 thoughts on “Install HumHub on an Ubuntu VPS with Nginx and MariaDB”

  1. Hello, I have followed your instructions step by step in Ubuntu 15.04. x64
    difference: mariaDB I installed from the official ubuntu repo.
    I noticed that the folder “local” and the file “_setup.php” in /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/protected/config/local/_settings.php is missing.
    The page is: http://192.168.163.30/humhub
    Firefox displayed “404 Not Found nginx/1.6.2 (Ubuntu)”

    What could be missing that nginx can’t access the web directory of humhub?

    best regards

    Reply
    • Please check your nginx configuration file and make sure that the document root is properly set (e.g. ‘/var/www/humhub/public_html’. Also, check the nginx error log for more information on your problem.

      Reply
  2. Hello,
    first of all thank you for your procedure which I followed step by step but when I try http://www.mydomain.com got the welcome page of nginx.
    Any idea how to fix it please?
    Thanks

    Reply
  3. Please update this ASAP, as it is no longer up-to-date, or provide a new setup tutorial, or if one is available please provide a link to this so that others won’t get confused.

    Example;

    /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/protected/config/local/_settings.php not right

    /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/protected/config/common.php is right

    Reply
    • In addition
      Both of these are also wrong;
      30 * * * * /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/yiic cron hourly >/dev/null 2>&1
      00 18 * * * /var/www/yourwebsite.com/public_html/yiic cron daily >/dev/null 2>&1

      They should be this;
      30 * * * * /path/to/humhub/protected/yii cron/hourly >/dev/null 2>&1
      00 18 * * * /path/to/humhub/protected/yii cron/daily >/dev/null 2>&1

      To be safe I would recommend reworking this to fit the upcoming v1.3 release.

      Reply

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