How to Install Elgg Social Network on Ubuntu 22.04

This tutorial exists for these OS versions

Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish)
Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver)

Elgg is a free, open-source, highly customizable web framework and CMS for building an online social environment. It is written in PHP and uses MySQL as a database backend. It offers a simple, user-friendly, and customizable web UI that helps beginner users to create and manage content via a web browser. Elgg enables schools, colleges, and universities to create their social environment on campus. It is one of the most popular social networking engines that offers a robust framework on which you can build all kinds of social environments.

This post will show you how to install Elgg with Nginx and Let's Encrypt SSL on Ubuntu 22.04.

Prerequisites

A server running Ubuntu 22.04.
A valid domain name pointed with your server IP.
A root password is configured on the server.

Getting Started

Before starting, updating the system packages to the updated version is a good idea. You can update all packages by running the following command:

apt-get update -y

After updating all packages, you can proceed to the next step.

Install Nginx, PHP, and MariaDB

First, you will need to make sure Nginx, MariaDB, PHP and other PHP extensions are installed in your system. If not installed you can install them with the following command:

apt-get install nginx mariadb-server php php-cli php-fpm php-json php-pdo php-mysql php-zip php-gd php-mbstring php-curl php-xml php-pear php-bcmath unzip curl -y

Once all the packages are installed, edit the php.ini file and modify some default settings:

nano /etc/php/8.1/fpm/php.ini

Change the following settings as per your requirements:

memory_limit = 256M
post_max_size = 64M
upload_max_filesize = 32M
date.timezone = UTC

Save and close the file, then restart the PHP-FPM service to apply the changes:

systemctl restart php8.1-fpm

Configure MariaDB Database

Next, you will need to create a database and user for Elgg. To do so, log in to MySQL with the following command:

mysql

Once you are logged in, create a database and user with the following command:

CREATE DATABASE elggdb;
CREATE USER elgguser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'securepassword';

Next, grant all the privileges to the Elgg database with the following command:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON elggdb.* TO elgguser@localhost;

Next, flush the privileges and exit from the MySQL with the following command:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

At this point, the MariaDB database and user are created for Elgg. You can now proceed to the next step.

Install Elgg Ubuntu 22.04

Next, you will need to download the latest version of Elgg from the Github website. You can download it with the following command:

wget https://github.com/Elgg/Elgg/releases/download/4.2.3/elgg-4.2.3.zip

Once the download is completed, extract the downloaded file with the following command:

unzip elgg-*.zip

Next, move the extracted directory to the Nginx web root directory with the following command:

mv elgg-4.2.3 /var/www/html/elgg

Next, create a data directory for Elgg and set proper ownership to the data directory and elgg directory:

mkdir /var/www/html/data
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/elgg/
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/data
chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/elgg

At this point, Elgg is downloaded to the Nginx web root directory. You can now proceed to the next step.

Create an Nginx Virtual Host for Elgg

Next, you will need to create an Nginx virtual host configuration file to host Elgg on the internet. You can create it with the following command:

nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/elgg.conf

Add the following lines:

server {
  listen 80;

  server_name elgg.example.com;
  root /var/www/html/elgg;

  index index.php;
  
  access_log /var/log/nginx/elgg_access.log;
  error_log /var/log/nginx/elgg_error.log;

  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
  }

  location ~ \.php$ {
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(.*)$;
    fastcgi_keep_conn on;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
    include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
  }
}

Save and close the file, then verify the Nginx for any syntax error:

nginx -t

You should see the following output:

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

Next, restart the Nginx service using the following command:

systemctl restart nginx

You can check the status of the Nginx service with the following command:

systemctl status nginx

You should see the following output:

? nginx.service - A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2022-07-18 05:53:15 UTC; 6s ago
       Docs: man:nginx(8)
    Process: 18028 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 18029 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on; (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 18031 (nginx)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 4579)
     Memory: 3.3M
        CPU: 53ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/nginx.service
             ??18031 "nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -g daemon on; master_process on;"
             ??18032 "nginx: worker process" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" ""
             ??18033 "nginx: worker process" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" ""

Jul 18 05:53:15 ubuntu2204 systemd[1]: Starting A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server...
Jul 18 05:53:15 ubuntu2204 systemd[1]: Started A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server.

Access Elgg Web Interface

At this point, Elgg is installed and configured with Nginx. Now, open your web browser and access the Elgg web interface using the URL http://elgg.example.com. You will be redirected to the Elgg welcome page:

Click on the Next button. You should see the PHP requirements check page:

Ensure all the requirements are installed, then click on the Next button. You should see the database configuration page:

Provide your database information, data directory, site URL, and click on the Next button. You should see the site configuration page:

Provide your site information and click on the Next button. You should see the Elgg admin user creation page:

Provide your admin username, email, password and click on the Next button. Once the installation has been completed successfully, you should see the following page:

Click on the Go to site. You should see the Elgg dashboard on the following page:

Enable Let's Encrypt SSL on Elgg

It is always a good idea to secure your website with Let's Encrypt SSL. First, install the Certbot Let's Encrypt client on your server with the following command:

apt-get install python3-certbot-nginx -y

Once Certbot is installed, secure your website with Let's Encrypt SSL by running the following command:

certbot --nginx -d elgg.example.com

You will be asked to provide a valid email address and accept the term of service as shown below:

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
Plugins selected: Authenticator nginx, Installer nginx
Enter email address (used for urgent renewal and security notices) (Enter 'c' to
cancel): [email protected]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Please read the Terms of Service at
https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.2-November-15-2017.pdf. You must
agree in order to register with the ACME server at
https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(A)gree/(C)ancel: A

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Would you be willing to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a founding partner of the Let's Encrypt project and the non-profit
organization that develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about our work
encrypting the web, EFF news, campaigns, and ways to support digital freedom.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(Y)es/(N)o: Y
Obtaining a new certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for elgg.example.com
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges
Deploying Certificate to VirtualHost /etc/nginx/conf.d/elgg.conf

Next, choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS as shown bellow:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1: No redirect - Make no further changes to the webserver configuration.
2: Redirect - Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access. Choose this for
new sites, or if you're confident your site works on HTTPS. You can undo this
change by editing your web server's configuration.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Select the appropriate number [1-2] then [enter] (press 'c' to cancel): 2

Type 2 and hit Enter to finish the installation. You should see the following output:

Redirecting all traffic on port 80 to ssl in /etc/nginx/conf.d/elgg.conf

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Congratulations! You have successfully enabled https://elgg.example.com

You should test your configuration at:
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=elgg.example.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/elgg.example.com/fullchain.pem
   Your key file has been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/elgg.example.com/privkey.pem
   Your cert will expire on 2022-10-19. To obtain a new or tweaked
   version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot again
   with the "certonly" option. To non-interactively renew *all* of
   your certificates, run "certbot renew"
 - Your account credentials have been saved in your Certbot
   configuration directory at /etc/letsencrypt. You should make a
   secure backup of this folder now. This configuration directory will
   also contain certificates and private keys obtained by Certbot so
   making regular backups of this folder is ideal.
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le

 - We were unable to subscribe you the EFF mailing list because your
   e-mail address appears to be invalid. You can try again later by
   visiting https://act.eff.org.

Conclusion

Congratulations! you have successfully installed Elgg with Nginx and Let's Encrypt SSL on Ubuntu 22.04. You can now install Elgg in your school, college, or university and create your own social networking platform. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.

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