How to Install Neos CMS on Debian 9

Neos is a Content Application Platform with a CMS and an application framework at its core. This guide will show you how to install Neos CMS on a fresh Debian 9 server.

Requirements

• Nginx
• MySQL version 5.7.7 or greater, MariaDB version 10.2.2 or greater or PostgreSQL version 9.4 or greater. In this guide we will use MariaDB.
• PHP version 7.1.0 or greater with the following extensions:
  • mbstring
  • tokenizer
  • pdo_mysql

Before you begin

Check the Debian version.

lsb_release -ds
# Debian GNU/Linux 9.5 (stretch)

Ensure that your system is up to date.

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Install packages required for finishing this tutorial.

apt install -y sudo curl git unzip apt-transport-https vim dirmngr

Create a new non-root user account with sudo access and switch to it.

adduser johndoe --gecos "John Doe"
usermod -aG sudo johndoe
su - johndoe

NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.

Set up the timezone.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Install PHP

Add the repository for newer versions of PHP.

sudo wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg
echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list
sudo apt update

Install PHP 7.2 and required PHP extensions.

sudo apt install -y php7.2 php7.2-cli php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-mysql php7.2-xml php7.2-mbstring php-imagick

Check the version.

php --version
# PHP 7.2.8-1+0~20180725124257.2+stretch~1.gbp571e56 (cli) (built: Jul 25 2018 12:43:00) ( NTS )

Restart PHP-FPM.

sudo systemctl restart php7.2-fpm.service

Install MariaDB and setup the database

Install MariaDB.

sudo apt install -y software-properties-common dirmngr
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xF1656F24C74CD1D8
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64,i386,ppc64el] https://mirrors.nxthost.com/mariadb/repo/10.2/debian stretch main'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y mariadb-server

Check the version.

mysql --version && sudo mysqld --version
# mysql  Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.2.16-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2
# mysqld  Ver 10.2.16-MariaDB-10.2.16+maria~stretch-log for debian-linux-gnu on x86_64 (mariadb.org binary distribution)

Run mysql_secure_installation to improve security and set the password for the root user.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Connect to the MariaDB shell as the root user.

sudo mysql -u root -p
# Enter password

Create an empty MariaDB database and user for Neos CMS, and remember the credentials.

CREATE DATABASE dbname CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

Install and configure Nginx

Neos can work with many popular web servers. In this tutorial we will use Nginx.

Install Nginx.

sudo apt install -y nginx

Check the version.

sudo nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.10.3

Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/neos.conf and set up Nginx virtual server for Neos CMS.

server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;

  server_name example.com; # Check this
  root /var/www/neos/Web; # Check this

  index index.php;

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

  location ~ /.php$ {
    include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock; # Check this
    fastcgi_param FLOW_CONTEXT Production;
    fastcgi_param FLOW_REWRITEURLS 1;
  }
}

Save the file and exit.

Activate the new neos.conf configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled directory.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/neos.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Test the configuration.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Install Composer

Install Composer globally by issuing the following commands.

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php -r "if (hash_file('sha384', 'composer-setup.php') === '93b54496392c062774670ac18b134c3b3a95e5a5e5c8f1a9f115f203b75bf9a129d5daa8ba6a13e2cc8a1da0806388a8') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
php composer-setup.php
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Check the version.

composer --version
# Composer version 1.7.1 2018-08-07 09:39:23

Install Neos CMS using Composer

Create a document root directory.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/neos

Change the ownership of the /var/www/neos directory to johndoe.

sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /var/www/neos

Go to your document root directory.

cd /var/www/neos

Install Neos CMS and all of its dependencies.

composer create-project --no-dev neos/neos-base-distribution .

Change ownership of the /var/www/neos directory to www-data.

sudo ./flow core:setfilepermissions johndoe www-data www-data
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/neos

Go to http://example.com/setup and follow the on-screen instructions.

You will get a confirmation that the setup has been completed, and that you can enter the front-end or back-end of your Neos website. To access Neos admin, append /neos to your website URL.