How to Install Microweber Website Builder on Debian 10

Microweber is a drag and drop website builder and a powerful next-generation CMS. It's based on the PHP Laravel Framework. You can use Microweber to make any kind of website, online store, and blog. The drag and drop technology allows you to build your website without any technical knowledge.

The core idea of the software is to let you create your own website, online shop or blog. From this moment of creation, your journey towards success begins. Supporting you along the way will be different modules, customizations, and features of the CMS. Many of them are specifically tailored for e-commerce enthusiasts and bloggers.

The most important thing you need to know is that Microweber pairs the latest drag and drop technology, with a revolutionary Real-Time Text Writing and Editing feature. This pair of features deliver improved user experience, easier and quicker content management, a visually appealing environment, and flexibility.

This tutorial will show you how to install Microweber on a fresh Debian 10 (buster) system with Nginx as a web server and MariaDB as a database engine.

Requirements

Requirements for installing and running Microweber are as follows:

• PHP version 5.4 or higher with the following PHP extensions: gd2, mcrypt, xml, dom, json
• Web server software like Nginx or Apache.
• MySQL version 5.0 or higher or MariaDB equivalent.
• Composer.

Prerequisites

• A Debian 10 (buster) operating system.
• A non-root user with sudo privileges.

Initial steps

Check your Debian version:

lsb_release -ds
# Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)

Set up the timezone:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Update your operating system packages (software). That is an essential first step because it ensures you have the latest updates and security fixes for your operating system's default software packages:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install some essential packages that are necessary for basic administration of the Debian operating system:

sudo apt install -y curl wget vim git unzip socat bash-completion apt-transport-https

Step 1 - Install PHP and necessary PHP extensions

Microweber web application requires PHP version 5.4 or higher. We can easily install newer PHP by using apt package manager on Debian 10.

Install PHP, as well as the required PHP extensions:

sudo apt install -y php php-cli php-fpm php-common php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-mysql php-pgsql php-sqlite3 php-zip php-soap php-xmlrpc

To show PHP compiled in modules, you can run:

php -m

ctype
curl
exif
fileinfo
. . .
. . .

Check the PHP version:

php --version

# PHP 7.3.9-1 (cli) (built: Apr 13 2019 19:05:48) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.3.4, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
# with Zend OPcache v7.3.4-2, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies

PHP-FPM service is automatically started and enabled on reboot on the Debian 10 system, so there is no need to start and enable it manually. We can move on to the next step where we will install acme.sh client and obtain SSL certs.

Step 2 - Install acme.sh client and obtain Let's Encrypt certificate ( optional )

Securing your site with HTTPS is not necessary, but it is a good practice to secure your site traffic. To obtain a TLS certificate from Let's Encrypt we will use acme.sh client. Acme.sh is a simple UNIX shell software for obtaining TLS certificates from Let's Encrypt with zero dependencies.

Download and install acme.sh:

sudo su - root
git clone https://github.com/Neilpang/acme.sh.git
cd acme.sh 
./acme.sh --install --accountemail your_email@example.com
source ~/.bashrc
cd ~

Check acme.sh version:

acme.sh --version
# v2.8.2

Obtain RSA and ECC/ECDSA certificates for your domain/hostname:


# RSA 2048
acme.sh --issue --standalone -d example.com --keylength 2048
# ECDSA
acme.sh --issue --standalone -d example.com --keylength ec-256

If you want fake certificates for testing, you can add --staging flag to the above commands.

After running the above commands, your certificates and keys will be in:

• For RSA: /home/username/example.com directory.
• For ECC/ECDSA: /home/username/example.com_ecc directory.

To list your issued certs you can run:

acme.sh --list

Create a directory to store your certs. We will use the /etc/letsencrypt directory.

mkdir -p /etc/letsecnrypt/example.com
sudo mkdir -p /etc/letsencrypt/example.com_ecc

Install/copy certificates to /etc/letsencrypt directory.

# RSA
acme.sh --install-cert -d example.com --cert-file /etc/letsencrypt/example.com/cert.pem --key-file /etc/letsencrypt/example.com/private.key --fullchain-file /etc/letsencrypt/example.com/fullchain.pem --reloadcmd "sudo systemctl reload nginx.service"
# ECC/ECDSA
acme.sh --install-cert -d example.com --ecc --cert-file /etc/letsencrypt/example.com_ecc/cert.pem --key-file /etc/letsencrypt/example.com_ecc/private.key --fullchain-file /etc/letsencrypt/example.com_ecc/fullchain.pem --reloadcmd "sudo systemctl reload nginx.service"

All the certificates will be automatically renewed every 60 days.

After obtaining certs exit from root user and return to regular sudo user:

exit

Step 3 - Install MariaDB and create a database

Install MariaDB:

sudo apt install -y mariadb-server

Check the MariaDB version:

mysql --version
# mysql  Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.3.17-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2

Run mysql_secure installation script to improve MariaDB security and set the password for MariaDB root user:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Answer each of the questions:

Would you like to setup VALIDATE PASSWORD plugin? N
New password: your_secure_password
Re-enter new password: your_secure_password
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y

Connect to MariaDB shell as the root user:

sudo mysql -u root -p
# Enter password

Create an empty MariaDB database and user for Microweber and remember the credentials:

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

Replace the word mypassword with a secure password of your choice. Exit from MariaDB:

mariadb> exit

Replace dbname, username and mypassword with your own names.

Step 4 - Install and configure NGINX

Download and install NGINX from the Debian repository:

sudo apt install -y nginx

Check the NGINX version:

sudo nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.14.2

Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/microweber.conf and populate the file with the following configuration:

server {

  listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
  listen 443 ssl http2;
  listen [::]:80;
  listen 80;

  server_name example.com;

  root /var/www/microweber;
  index index.php;

  client_max_body_size 100M;

  # RSA
  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/example.com/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/example.com/private.key;
  # ECC
  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/example.com_ecc/fullchain.pem;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/example.com_ecc/private.key;

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

  location ~ \.php$ {
    try_files $uri =404;
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
  }

}

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

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

Check NGINX configuration for syntax errors:

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx:

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Step 5 - Install Microweber

Create a document root directory where Microweber should reside in:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/microweber

Navigate to the document root directory:

cd /var/www/microweber

Download the latest version of Microweber CMS and unzip it:

sudo wget https://download.microweberapi.com/ready/core/microweber-latest.zip
sudo unzip microweber-latest.zip
sudo rm microweber-latest.zip

Change ownership of the /var/www/microweber directory to www-data:

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

Open your domain name (http://example.com/) in your web browser and follow the instructions. After installation, your admin panel URL will be at http://example.com/admin.

Step 6 - Finish the Microweber installation

Open your web browser and type the URL http://example.com. You will be redirected to the following page where you will need to choose database engine of your choice. This tutorial uses MySQL/MariaDB. You can select SQLite like the screenshot below shows:

You can select the MySQL database engine:

Or PostgreSQL if you prefer it:

After entering the requested details Microweber installation is completed. To access Microweber admin append /admin to your website URL.

After login, here is how the Microweber dashboard will look like:

And here is the Microweber frontend......todo:

Links

• https://microweber.com/
• https://github.com/microweber/microweber