How to Install WonderCMS on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
This tutorial exists for these OS versions
- Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish)
- Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver)
On this page
WonderCMS is a free and open source flat file CMS, aimed to be extremely small, light and simple. It's built with PHP, jQuery, HTML/CSS and developed since 2008. No initial configuration required. The installation process is pretty straightforward - unzip and upload 5 files. All files can be easily moved, backed up and restored by copy/pasting all files to another location. Moving them to another host does not require any re-configuration. WonderCMS also doesn't require a traditional/relational database like MySQL. The flat file technology enables WonderCMS to save all data to a text file (flat file) called database.js which is structured in JSON format. In this tutorial, we will go through the WonderCMS installation and setup on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system by using Nginx as a web server, and optionally you can secure transport layer by using Acme.sh client and Let's Encrypt certificate authority to add SSL support.
Requirements
Requirements for installing and running WonderCMS are:
- PHP version 7.1 or greater with the curl, mbstring and zip extensions.
- Web server (Apache with
mod_rewrite
module enabled, Nginx, IIS).
Prerequisites
- An Ubuntu 18.04 LTS operating system.
- A non-root user with
sudo
privileges.
Initial steps
Check your Ubuntu version:
lsb_release -ds
# Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Set up the timezone:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
Update your operating system packages (software). This is an important 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 Ubuntu 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
Install PHP, as well as the necessary PHP extensions:
sudo apt install -y php7.2 php7.2-cli php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-curl php7.2-zip php7.2-mbstring
To show PHP compiled in modules, you can run:
php -m
ctype
curl
exif
fileinfo
. . .
. . .
Check the PHP version:
php --version
# PHP 7.2.17-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 (cli) (built: Apr 18 2019 14:12:38) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
# with Zend OPcache v7.2.10-0ubuntu0.18.04.1, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies
PHP-FPM service is automatically started and enabled on reboot on Ubuntu 18.04 system, so there is no need to start and enable it manually. We can move on to the next step, which is the SSL setup.
Step 2 - Install acme.sh client and obtain Let's Encrypt certificate ( optional )
Securing your forum with HTTPS is not necessary, but it is a good practice to secure your site traffic. In order to obtain a TLS certificate from Let's Encrypt we will use acme.sh client. Acme.sh is a pure 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 [email protected]
source ~/.bashrc
cd ~
Check acme.sh version:
acme.sh --version
# v2.8.0
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 /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 back to normal sudo user:
exit
Step 3 - Install and configure NGINX
WonderCMS can work fine with many popular web server software. In this tutorial, we selected NGINX.
Install NGINX:
sudo apt install -y nginx
Check the NGINX version:
sudo nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu)
Next, configure NGINX for WonderCMS. Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/wondercms.conf
and add the following configuration:
server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com;
root /var/www/wondercms;
index index.php;
location / {
if (!-e $request_filename) {
rewrite ^/(.+)$ /index.php?page=$1 last;
}
}
location ~ database.js {
return 403;
}
location ~ \.php(/|$) {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
}
}
Activate the new wondercms.conf
configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled
directory:
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/wondercms.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
Check NGINX configuration for syntax errors:
sudo nginx -t
Reload NGINX service:
sudo systemctl reload nginx.service
Step 4 - Install WonderCMS
Create a document root directory for WonderCMS.
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/wondercms
Change ownership of the /var/www/wondercms
directory to [jour_username]
:
sudo chown -R [your_username]:[your_username] /var/www/wondercms
Navigate to the document root directory:
cd /var/www/wondercms
Download and unzip WonderCMS source:
wget https://github.com/robiso/wondercms/releases/download/2.7.0/WonderCMS-2.7.0.zip
unzip WonderCMS-2.7.0.zip
rm WonderCMS-2.7.0.zip
Move WonderCMS files to document root directory.
mv wondercms/* . && mv wondercms/.*.
rmdir wondercms
Change ownership of the /var/www/wondercms
directory to www-data:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wondercms
Open your site in a web browser and log in with default password admin
and change the default password afterward.