How to Install MODX Revolution on a FreeBSD 11 FAMP VPS

MODX Revolution is a fast, flexible, scalable, open source, enterprise-grade Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP. It is particularly well-suited to building high-end sites since it features advanced multi-lingual capabilites, and is built from the ground up using secure design principles.

Prerequisites

• A clean Vultr FreeBSD 11 server instance with SSH access.

Step 1: Add a Sudo User

We will start by adding a new sudo user.

First, log into your server as root.

ssh root@YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS

The sudo command is not installed by default in the Vultr FreeBSD 11 server instance, so we will first install sudo.

pkg install sudo

Now add a new user called user1 (or your preferred username).

adduser user1

The adduser command will prompt you for lots of details for the user account, so simply select the defaults for most of them when it makes sense to do so. When you are asked whether to Invite user1 into any other groups?, you should enter wheel to add user1 to the wheel group.

Now check the /etc/sudoers file to make sure that the sudoers group is enabled.

visudo

Look for a section like this.

# %wheel        ALL=(ALL)       ALL

This line tells us that users who are members of the wheel group can use the sudo command to gain root privileges. It will be commented out by default so you will need to uncomment it and then save and exit the file.

We can verify the user1 group membership with the groups command.

groups user1

If user1 is not a member of the wheel group, you can use this command to update the user1 group membership.

pw group mod wheel -m user1

Now use the su command to switch to the new sudo user user1 account.

su - user1

The command prompt will update to indicate that you are now logged into the user1 account. You can verify this with the whoami command.

whoami

Now restart the sshd service so that you can login via ssh with the new non-root sudo user account you have just created.

sudo /etc/rc.d/sshd restart

Exit the user1 account.

exit

Exit the root account (which will disconnect your ssh session).

exit

You can now ssh into the server instance from your local host using the new non-root sudo user user1 account.

ssh user1@YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS

If you want to execute sudo without having to type a password every time, then open the /etc/sudoers file again, using visudo.

sudo visudo

Edit the section for the wheel group so that it looks like this.

%wheel        ALL=(ALL)       NOPASSWD: ALL

Please note: Disabling the password requirement for the sudo user is not a recommended practice, but it is included here as it can make server configuration much more convenient and less frustrating, especially during longer systems administration sessions. If you are concerned about the security implications, you can always revert the configuration change to the original after you finish your administration tasks.

Whenever you want to log into the root user account from within the sudo user account, you can use one of the following commands.

sudo -i
sudo su -

You can exit the root account and return back to your sudo user account at any time.

exit

Step 2: Update FreeBSD 11 System

Before installing any packages on the FreeBSD server instance, we will first update the system.

Make sure you are logged in to the server using a non-root sudo user and run the following commands.

sudo freebsd-update fetch
sudo freebsd-update install
sudo pkg update
sudo pkg upgrade

Step 3: Install Apache

Install the Apache 2.4 web server.

sudo pkg install apache24

Enter “y” when prompted.

Now use the sysrc command to enable the Apache service to execute automatically at boot time.

sudo sysrc apache24_enable=yes

The sysrc command updates the /etc/rc.conf configuration file; so if you want to verify the configuration update manually, you can simply open the /etc/rc.conf file with your favourite terminal editor.

vi /etc/rc.conf

Now start the Apache service.

sudo service apache24 start

You can quickly check that apache is running by visiting the IP address or domain of the server instance in your browser.

http://YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS/

You should see the default FreeBSD Apache page displaying the text.

It works!

Check your Apache default configuration file to ensure that the DocumentRoot directive points to the correct directory.

sudo vi /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf 

The DocumentRoot configuration option should look like this.

DocumentRoot "/usr/local/www/apache24/data"

We now need to enable the mod_rewrite Apache module. We can do this by searching the default Apache configuration file for the term mod_rewrite.

By default, the mod_rewrite Apache module will be commented out (which means it is disabled). The configuration line on a clean Vultr FreeBSD 11 instance will look like this.

#LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache24/mod_rewrite.so

Simply remove the hash symbol to uncomment the line and load the module. This, of course, applies to any other required Apache modules too.

LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache24/mod_rewrite.so

We will restart Apache at the end of this tutorial, but restarting Apache regularly during installation and configuration is certainly a good habit, so let’s do it now.

sudo service apache24 restart

Step 4: Install PHP 7.1

We can now install the latest version of PHP along with all of the necessary PHP modules required by MODX Revolution CMS.

sudo pkg install php71 mod_php71 php71-gd php71-mbstring php71-mysqli php71-xml php71-curl php71-ctype php71-tokenizer php71-simplexml php71-dom php71-session php71-iconv php71-hash php71-json php71-fileinfo php71-pdo php71-pdo_mysql php71-zlib

We need to configure Apache to actually use PHP, so let’s create a new file called php.conf in the Apache “Includes” Directory.

sudo vi /usr/local/etc/apache24/Includes/php.conf

Enter the following text into the newly created file.

<IfModule dir_module>
    DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
    <FilesMatch "/.php$">
        SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
    </FilesMatch>
    <FilesMatch "/.phps$">
        SetHandler application/x-httpd-php-source
    </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

Save the file.

Now, let’s restart Apache again.

sudo service apache24 restart

Step 5: Install MariaDB (MySQL)

FreeBSD 11 defaults to using MariaDB, which is an enhanced, fully open source, community developed, drop-in replacement for MySQL server.

Install the latest version of MariaDB.

sudo pkg install mariadb102-server mariadb102-client

Start and enable MariaDB to execute automatically at boot time.

sudo sysrc mysql_enable="yes"
sudo service mysql-server start

Secure your MariaDB server installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted to create a MariaDB/MySQL root user, select “Y” (for yes) and then enter a secure root password. Simply answer “Y” to all of the other yes/no questions as the default suggestions are the most secure options.

Step 6: Create a Database for MODX Revolution

Log into the MariaDB shell as the MariaDB root user by running the following command.

sudo mysql -u root -p

To access the MariaDB command prompt, simply enter the MySQL root password when prompted.

Run the following queries to create a MySQL database and database user for MODX Revolution.

CREATE DATABASE modx_data CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
CREATE USER 'modx_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'UltraSecurePassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON modx_data.* TO 'modx_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

You can replace the database name modx_data and username modx_user with something more to your liking, if you prefer. Also, make sure that you replace “UltraSecurePassword” with an actually secure password.

Step 7: Install MODX Revolution Files

Change your current working directory to the default web directory.

cd /usr/local/www/apache24/data

Your current working directory should now be: /usr/local/www/apache24/data. You can check this with the pwd (print working directory) command.

pwd

Now use wget to download the MODX Revolution installation zip package.

sudo wget https://modx.com/download/direct?id=modx-2.6.0-pl.zip

Please note: You should definitely check for the most recent version by visiting the MODX Revolution download page.

List the current directory to check that you have successfully downloaded the file.

ls -la

Let’s give the package a simpler name.

sudo mv direct/?id/=modx-2.6.0-pl.zip modx.zip

Now uncompress the zip package.

sudo unzip modx.zip

Move all of the installation files to the web root directory.

sudo mv modx-2.6.0-pl/* /usr/local/www/apache24/data

Change ownership of the web files to avoid any permissions problems.

sudo chown -R www:www *

Restart Apache again.

sudo service apache24 restart

Now we’re ready to move on to the final step.

Step 8: Complete MODX Revolution Installation

It’s time to visit the IP address of your FreeBSD 11 server instance in your browser. Or, if you’ve already configured your Vultr DNS settings (and given it enough time to propagate) you can simply visit your domain instead.

To access the MODX revolution installation page, enter your Vultr instance IP address, followed by /setup into your browser address bar.

http://YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS/setup

Most of the installation options are self explanatory, but here are a few pointers to help you along.

Select your language.

Click the Next button to continue the installation.

Select New Installation and leave the folder permissions at their default values. Click Next when you are ready to move on to the next step.

Set the following database options.

Database type:          mysql
Database host:          localhost
Database login name:    modx_user (or your previously selected name)
Database password:      UltraSecurePassword (or your previously chosen password)
Database name:          modx_data (or your previously selected name)
Table prefix:           modx_

Once you have entered the above database options, click on the link below to Test database server connection and view collations. You will see a message that says: Connecting to database server: Success!. If you get any errors, go back and ensure that all database options are correct.

You can leave the character set and collation options at their default values. They should look like this.

Connection character set:   utf8
Collation:                  utf8_general_ci

When you are satisfied with your selected installation options, you can click on the link below to Create or test selection of your database.

You will be prompted to enter your admin details, which will be used to login to the CMS. Fill them in as shown below and click Next.

Administrator name:         <your_prefered_admin_name>
Administrator email:        <your_admin_email>
Administrator password:     <a_secure_password
Confirm password:           <the_same_secure_password>

You will see an Installation Summary. As long as everything looks okay, you can simply click Install to Install MODX Revolution to your server instance.

You will see a confirmation page that says Core installation was successful. Simply click Next to continue.

You can now login to your MODX Revolution admin panel using the login details you entered earlier during installation.

Please note: During installation and login, you may see some warning messages about directories and files. Simply follow the instructions shown on the warning pages and the warning messages will disappear.

If you haven’t already set up your Vultr DNS, then that should probably be your next step.

Now you can start adding your content and start configuring the look of your site. Be sure to check out the excellent MODX Revolution docs for more guidance on how to build and configure your site.