How To Install ImpressCMS 1.0 Final On Debian Etch

Version 1.0
Author: Oliver Meyer <o [dot] meyer [at] projektfarm [dot] de>
Last edited 03/12/2008

This document describes how to set up ImpressCMS 1.0 Final On Debian Etch. Taken from the ImpressCMS page: "ImpressCMS is a community developed Content Management System for easily building and maintaining a dynamic web site. Keep your web site up to date with this easy to use, secure and flexible system."

This howto is a practical guide without any warranty - it doesn't cover the theoretical backgrounds. There are many ways to set up such a system - this is the way I chose.

1 Preliminary Note

I used a minimal Debian Etch system (network install) for this howto. The attached VM is configured as follows:

Hostname: server1.example.com
IP: 192.168.0.100
Gateway: 192.168.0.2
All passwords: howtoforge

2 Needed Packages

Let's install some needed package for this setup.

apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mysql mysql-server mysql-client

3 MySQL Configuration

3.1 Bind Address

In order that the MySQL server will listen on all available interfaces, we have to adjust its configuration.

vi /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Search this line ...

bind-address = 127.0.0.1

... and comment it so that it looks like this:

# bind-address = 127.0.0.1

Afterwards restart the MySQL server.

/etc/init.d/mysql restart

3.2 MySQL Root User

First we have to set a password for the MySQL root user.

mysqladmin -u root password %sql_root_password%
mysqladmin -h server1.example.com -u root password %sql_root_password%

3.3 ImpressCMS Database & Database User

Next we create a database for ImpressCMS.

mysqladmin -u root -p create impresscms

After that we create a user for this database.

mysql -u root -p

GRANT CREATE, ALTER, INDEX, DROP, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON impresscms.* TO 'impresscms_admin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '%impresscms_admin_password%';
GRANT CREATE, ALTER, INDEX, DROP, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON impresscms.* TO 'impresscms_admin'@'localhost.localdomain' IDENTIFIED BY '%impresscms_admin_password%';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

quit;

4 ImpressCMS Vhost

Create the document root for ImpressCMS ...

mkdir /var/www/impresscms/

... and the ImpressCMS trust directory.

mkdir /var/www/impresscms_trust/

Now we create the vhost configuration file.

vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/impresscms

It could look like this:

NameVirtualHost 192.168.0.100:80
<VirtualHost 192.168.0.100:80>
    ServerName server1.example.com
    ServerAdmin admin@example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/impresscms/
    LogLevel warn
    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/impresscms_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/impresscms_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

After that enable the new vhost ...

a2ensite impresscms

... and restart Apache to take the changes effect.

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

5 Get ImpressCMS

Please take a look at http://www.impresscms.org/modules/mastop_publish/?tac=Download to find out which is the latest version. When I was writing this howto it was version 1.0 .

cd /tmp/
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/impresscms/impresscms_1.0_final.tar.gz
tar xvfz impresscms_1.0_final.tar.gz

Afterwards copy the content of the extracted folder "htdocs" to the vhost document root ...

cp -R /tmp/htdocs/* /var/www/impresscms/

... and change the permissions.

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/impresscms/ /var/www/impresscms_trust/
chmod -R 755 /var/www/impresscms/uploads/ /var/www/impresscms/cache/ /var/www/impresscms/templates_c/ /var/www/impresscms/mainfile.php