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Subrion 4.1 CMS is a powerful and flexible open source Content Management System (CMS) that brings an intuitive and clear content management workflow to your web publishing projects. Subrion 4.1 CMS features a plentiful supply of free plugins and templates, a powerful user privileges system, an advanced framework API which allows developers to quickly build custom platform extensions, and integrated Smarty templating and WYSIWYG editors for flexible semantic HTML content generation.
In this tutorial we are going to install Subrion 4.1 CMS on a CentOS 7 LAMP VPS using Apache web server, PHP 7.1, and a MariaDB database.
Prerequisites
- A clean Vultr CentOS 7 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
Add a new user called user1
(or your preferred username):
useradd user1
Next, set the password for the user1
user:
passwd user1
When prompted, enter a secure and memorable password.
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 should be uncommented by default so you can simply exit the file.
Next we need to add user1
to the wheel
group:
usermod -aG wheel user1
We can verify the user1
group membership and check that the usermod
command worked with the groups
command:
groups 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 systemctl restart sshd
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 any time by simply typing:
exit
Step 2: Update CentOS 7 System
Before installing any packages on the CentOS 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 command:
sudo yum -y update
Step 3: Install Apache Web Server
Install the Apache web server:
sudo yum -y install httpd
Then use the systemctl
command to start and enable Apache to execute automatically at boot time:
sudo systemctl enable httpd
sudo systemctl start httpd
Check your Apache configuration file to ensure that the DocumentRoot
directive points to the correct directory:
sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
The DocumentRoot
configuration option will look like this:
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
Now, let’s make sure that the mod_rewrite
Apache module is loaded. We can do this by searching the Apache base modules configuration file for the term “mod_rewrite
“.
Open the file:
sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/00-base.conf
Search for the term mod_rewrite
.
If the mod_rewrite
Apache module is loaded, you will find a configuration line looking like this:
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
If the above line starts with a semi-colon, you will need to remove the semi-colon to uncomment the line and load the module. This, of course, applies to any other required Apache modules too.
We now need to edit Apache’s default configuration file so that mod_rewrite
will work correctly with Subrion CMS.
Open the file:
sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Then find the section that starts with <Directory "/var/www/html">
and change AllowOverride none
to AllowOverride All
. The end result (with all comments removed) will look something like this:
<Directory "/var/www/html">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
Now save and close the Apache configuration file.
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 systemctl restart httpd
Step 4: Open Web Firewall Ports
We now need to open the default HTTP
and HTTPS
ports as they will be blocked by firewalld
by default.
Open the firewall ports:
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=80/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=443/tcp
Reload the firewall to apply the changes:
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
You will see the word success
displayed in your terminal after each successful firewall configuration command.
We can quickly verify that the Apache HTTP
port is open by visiting the IP address or domain of the server instance in a browser:
http://YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS/
You will see the default Apache web page in your browser.
Step 5: Disable SELinux (if enabled)
SELinux stands for “Security Enhanced Linux”. It is a security enhancement to Linux which allows users and administrators more control over access control. It is disabled by default on Vultr CentOS 7 instances, but we will cover the steps to disable it, just in case you are not starting from a clean install and it was previously enabled.
To avoid file permission problems with Subrion CMS we need to ensure that SELinux is disabled.
First, let’s check whether SELinux is enabled or disabled with the sestatus
command:
sudo sestatus
If you see something like: SELinux status: disabled
then it is definitely disabled and you can skip straight to Step 6. If you see any other message, then you will need to complete this section.
Open the SELinux configuration file with your favourite terminal editor:
sudo vi /etc/selinux/config
Change SELINUX=enforcing
to SELINUX=disabled
and then save the file.
To apply the configuration change, SELinux requires a server reboot, so you can either restart the server using the Vultr control panel or you can simply use the shutdown
command:
sudo shutdown -r now
When the server reboots, your SSH session will get disconnected and you may see a message informing you about a 'broken pipe'
or 'Connection closed by remote host'
. This is nothing to worry about, simply wait for 20 seconds or so and then SSH back in again (with your own username and domain):
ssh user1@YOUR_DOMAIN
Or (with your own username and IP address):
ssh user1@YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS
Once you have logged back in, you should check the status of SELinux again with the sestatus
command to make sure it is properly disabled:
sudo sestatus
You should see a message saying SELinux status: disabled
. If you see a message saying SELinux status: enabled
(or something similar) you will need to repeat the above steps and ensure that you properly restart your server.
Step 6: Install PHP 7.1
CentOS 7 requires us to add an external repo in order to install PHP 7.1, so run the following command:
sudo rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm
We can now install PHP 7.1 along with all of the necessary PHP modules required by Subrion CMS:
sudo yum -y install php71w php71w-gd php71w-mbstring php71w-mysql php71w-xml php71w-common php71w-pdo php71w-mysqlnd
Step 7: Install MariaDB (MySQL) Server
CentOS 7 defaults to using MariaDB database server, which is an enhanced, fully open source, community developed, drop-in replacement for MySQL server.
Install MariaDB database server:
sudo yum -y install mariadb-server
Start and enable MariaDB server to execute automatically at boot time:
sudo systemctl enable mariadb
sudo systemctl start mariadb
Secure your MariaDB server installation:
sudo mysql_secure_installation
The root
password will be blank, so simply hit enter when prompted for the root
password.
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 8: Create Database for Subrion CMS
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 MariaDB root
password when prompted.
Run the following queries to create a MariaDB database and database user for Subrion CMS:
CREATE DATABASE subrion_db CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
CREATE USER 'subrion_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'UltraSecurePassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON subrion_db.* TO 'subrion_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
You can replace the database name subrion_db
and username subrion_user
with something more to your liking, if you prefer. (Please note that the default maximum length for usernames in MariaDB on CentOS 7 is 16 characters). Also, make sure that you replace “UltraSecurePassword” with an actually secure password.
Step 9: Install Subrion CMS Files
Change your current working directory to the default web directory:
cd /var/www/html/
If you get an error message saying something like 'No such file or directory'
then try the following command:
cd /var/www/ ; sudo mkdir html ; cd html
Your current working directory will now be: /var/www/html/
. You can check this with the pwd
(print working directory) command:
pwd
Now use wget
to download the Subrion CMS installation package:
sudo wget https://tools.subrion.org/get/latest.zip
List the current directory to check that you have successfully downloaded the file:
ls -la
Let’s quickly install unzip
so we can unzip the file:
sudo yum -y install unzip
Now uncompress the zip archive:
sudo unzip latest.zip
Change ownership of the web files to avoid any permissions problems:
sudo chown -R apache:apache * ./
Restart Apache again:
sudo systemctl restart httpd
Now we’re ready to move on to the final step.
Step 10: Complete Subrion CMS Installation
It’s time to visit the IP address of your 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 Subrion CMS installation page, enter your Vultr instance IP address into your browser address bar, followed by /index.php
:
http://YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS/index.php
Most of the installation options are self explanatory, but here are a few pointers to help you along:
-
The first page is a
Pre-Installation Check
so simply make sure that everything looks good and then clickNext
. -
Click
Next
to accept the Subrion License. -
You can leave the
General
options on theConfiguration
page at their default values. -
Enter the following database details in the
Database
section of theConfiguration
page:DB Hostname: localhost DB Username: subrion_user DB Password: UltraSecurePassword DB Name: subrion_db DB Port: 3306 Table Prefix: sb_
-
Enter the following details in the
Administrator Configuration
section:Username: admin Password: <admin password> Confirm Password: <same admin passwword> Email: <admin email address>
-
Click the
Install
button to finalise the Subrion CMS installation.
You will be redirected to a confirmation page informing you that installation was successful
.
For security purposes, we now need to delete the installation script /install/modules/module.install.php
:
sudo rm /var/www/html/install/modules/module.install.php
While we’re here, we’ll also secure the config file:
sudo chmod 400 /var/www/html/includes/config.inc.php
To access the admin section simply click on the to Admin panel
button and then enter your username and password. If you aren’t redirected to the admin login page, you can enter the admin address manually:
http://YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS/panel/
You are now ready to start adding your content and configuring the look and feel of your site. Make sure you check out the excellent Subrion CMS documentation for more information about how to build and configure your site.
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