WordPress has their famous 5-minute install. It’s so fast, that it takes more time to read a manual on how to set it up, than to actually set it up. So, let’s see how to install Drupal instead. These two are both content management systems that is much better than managing hundreds of HTML files alone.

1. Install Ubuntu, Apache, MySQL, PHP

Brennen Bearnes has written a nice detailed article on that already. Go check that out.

Once done, let’s make life simpler with the filesystem. it’s so much easier to work without root permission that’s required to access /var/www/. Link up Apache’s default directory to a public_html folder in your home like so

sudo mv /var/www/html /var/www/html.bkp
mkdir ~/public_html
sudo ln -s ~/public_html /var/www/html

You will also need the following modules enabled:

  • PHP modules
sudo apt install php-mysql php-xml php-gd php-json php-curl
  • Apache Rewrite module
a2enmod rewrite
sudo service apache2 restart
  • Allow Apache to use .htaccess files. Change AllowOverride None to read AllowOverride All.
sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>

Save the file with Ctrl+X and then Y. Finally, restart the Apache server to reflect the changes.

2. Download Drupal 8

…from their site. Extract the archive to the public_html directory within your home folder. Also copy sites/default/default.settings.php to sites/default/settings.php.

Give them enough permissions for Apache to work with it. But making sure you can write to it as well. (Replace me with your username.)

sudo chown --recursive me:www-data ~/public_html
sudo chmod --recursive g+w ~/public_html

Open the URL http://localhost on your browser, to start the installation.

3. Create MySQL database

Log into MySQL server console.

mysql -u root -p

Create a databse, and a user for the Drupal website.

CREATE DATABASE drupal;
CREATE USER 'drupal' IDENTIFIED BY 'drupal';
GRANT ALL ON drupal.* TO 'drupal';

You can then use these credentials in the installation setup.

4. Finishing Up

After all the Drupal modules have been installed, you will be asked to enter the site name, email address, admin login, etc.

Hurray!~ You’re done with the basic setup. That was way more than 5 minutes… 😉 You might want to read the next post on how to start theming the site.

​

Thank you for scrolling to the bottom of this page! Do let me know how it was.