How to Install Thelia 2.3 on Debian 9

Thelia is an open source tool for creating e-business websites and managing online content written in PHP. Thelia source code is hosted on GitHub. This guide will show you how to install Thelia on a fresh Debian 9 Vultr instance.

Requirements

• PHP and required extensions:
  • pdo_mysql
  • openssl
  • intl
  • gd
  • curl
  • dom
• safe_mode off
• memory_limit at least 128M, preferably 256M.
• upload_max_filesize: 2M
• date.timezone must be defined
• Nginx
• MariaDB

Check the Debian version.

lsb_release -ds
# Debian GNU/Linux 9.4 (stretch)

Ensure that your system is up to date.

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Install needed packages.

apt install -y sudo dirmngr wget curl vim unzip zip

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

Install PHP, as well as the required PHP extensions.

sudo apt install -y php php7.0-cli php7.0-fpm php7.0-common php7.0-intl php7.0-mbstring php7.0-xml php7.0-mysql php7.0-dom php7.0-curl php7.0-gd php7.0-zip

Check the version.

php --version

Install MariaDB

Install MariaDB.

sudo apt install -y mariadb-server

Check the version.

mysql --version
# mysql  Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.1.26-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2

Run the mysql_secure_installation script to improve the security of your MariaDB installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Log in to MariaDB as the root user.

mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:

Create a new MariaDB database and user, and remember the credentials.

CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit MariaDB.

exit

Install Nginx

Install Nginx.

sudo apt install -y nginx

Check the version.

sudo nginx -v

Configure Nginx. Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/thelia.conf and populate the file with the following.

server {

  listen 80;
  server_name example.com; # Check this
  root /var/www/thelia/web/; # Check this
  index index.php;

  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ @rewriteapp;
  }

  location @rewriteapp {
    rewrite ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 last;
  }

  location ~ ^/(index|index_dev)/.php(/|$) {
    fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock; # Check this
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+/.php)(/.*)$;
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
  }

  # ##################################
  # After installation remove /install/ location block.
  # and restart Nginx
  # ##################################
  location /install/ {
    alias /var/www/thelia/web/install/; # Check this
    location ~ ^/install/.+/.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|pdf|zip)$ {
      expires 30d;
      access_log off;
      log_not_found off;
    }
    location ~ ^/install/(.+/.php)$ {
      alias /var/www/thelia/web/install/$1; # Check this
      fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock; # Check this
      fastcgi_index index.php;
      fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
      include fastcgi_params;
    }
  }
  # ##################################

}

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

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

Test the configuration.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Install Thelia

Navigate to the /var/www directory.

cd /var/www

Download the latest release of Thelia and unzip it.

sudo wget https://thelia.net/download/thelia.zip
sudo unzip thelia.zip
sudo rm thelia.zip
sudo mv thelia_2.3.4/ thelia

Go to the Thelia directory.

cd /var/www/thelia

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

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/thelia

Run sudo vim /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini and set post_max_size to 20M.

post_max_size = 20M

Restart php-fpm.

sudo systemctl restart php7.0-fpm.service

In your favorite browser, navigate to http://example.com/install and follow the Thelia installation wizard. To access the Thelia administration interface, append /admin to your URL.

After installing Thelia, remove the web/install directory.

sudo rm -rf /var/www/thelia/web/install