How to Install BlogoText CMS on an Ubuntu 16.04 LAMP VPS

BlogoText CMS is a simple, lightweight, free, and open source Content Management System (CMS) as well as a minimalist blog engine. BlogoText CMS features built-in RSS feeds, links sharing, drag, and drop image or file upload, JSON/ZIP/HTML import and export, as well as WordPress import. BlogoText is ideal for bloggers and developers who like to take a more minimalist approach to blog.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to install BlogoText CMS on an Ubuntu 16.04 LAMP VPS using Apache web server, PHP 7.0, and a MariaDB database.

Prerequisites

A clean DreamVPS Ubuntu 16.04 server instance with SSH access

Step 1: Add a Sudo User

Start by adding a new sudo user.
First, log into your server as root.

ssh root@YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS

Add a new user called ‘user1’ (or your preferred username).

adduser user1

Once requested, enter a secure and memorable password. You will also be prompted for your ‘Full Name’ as well as some other details, however, you can simply leave them blank by pressing ‘Enter’.
Now check the ‘/etc/sudoers’ file to make sure that the ‘sudoers’ group is enabled.

visudo

Look for a section like this.

%sudo        ALL=(ALL:ALL)       ALL

This line tells us that users who are members of the ‘sudo’ group can use the ‘sudo’ command to gain root privileges. It will be uncommented by default so you can simply exit the file.
Next you have to add ‘user1’ to the sudo group.

usermod -aG sudo user1

You may confirm the ‘user1’ group membership and check that the ‘usermod’ command worked with the groups command below.

groups user1

You may now use the ‘su’ command to switch to the new sudo user; the ‘user1’ account.

su - user1

The command prompt will update to indicate that you are now logged into the ‘user1’ account. You can verify this with the ‘whoami’ command.

whoami

Now restart the ‘sshd’ service so that you can login via ssh with the new non-root sudo user account you have just created.

sudo systemctl restart sshd

Exit the ‘user1’ account.

exit

Exit the root account (which will disconnect your ssh session).

exit

You can now ssh into the server instance from your local host using the new non-root sudo user; the ‘user1’ account.

ssh user1@YOUR_VULTR_IP_ADDRESS

If you want to execute sudo without having to type a password every time, then open the ‘/etc/sudoers’ file again using visudo.

sudo visudo

Edit the section for the sudo group so that it looks like the below.

%sudo   ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Please note: Disabling the password requirement for the sudo user is not a recommended practice, however, we have included it here as it can make server configuration much more convenient and less frustrating, especially during longer systems administration sessions. If you are concerned about the security implications, you can always revert the configuration change to the original after you finish your administration tasks.
Whenever you want to log into the root user account from within the sudo user account, you can use one of the following commands.

sudo -i
sudo su -

You can exit the root account and return back to your sudo user account any time by simply typing the following.

exit

Step 2: Update Ubuntu 16.04 System

Before installing any packages on the Ubuntu server instance, you must first update the system.
Make sure you are logged in to the server using a non-root sudo user and run the following commands.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Step 3: Install Apache Web Server

Install the Apache web server.

sudo apt-get -y install apache2

Then, use the ‘systemctl’ command to start and enable Apache to execute automatically at boot time.

sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo systemctl start apache2

Check your Apache default site configuration file to ensure that the ‘DocumentRoot’ directive points to the correct directory.

sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

The DocumentRoot configuration option will look like this:
DocumentRoot “/var/www/html”
You now have to enable the ‘mod_rewrite’ Apache module, so make sure that your Apache default site configuration file is still open and add the following Directory Apache directives just before the closing: ‘</VirtualHost>’ tag. This is so that the end of your configuration file looks like the below.

    <Directory /var/www/html/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

The most important directive shown above is ‘AllowOverride All’.
Now save and exit the file, and enable the ‘mod_rewrite’ Apache module.

sudo a2enmod rewrite

You should restart Apache at the end of this tutorial but restarting Apache regularly during installation and configuration is certainly a good habit, so let’s do it now.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 4: Install PHP 7.0

You may now install PHP 7.0 along with all of the needed PHP modules required by BlogoText CMS.

sudo apt-get -y install php php-gd php-mbstring php-common php-mysql php-imagick php-xml libapache2-mod-php php-curl php-tidy php-zip php-intl

Step 5: Install MySQL Server

Install MySQL database server.

sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server

During the MySQL server installation, make sure you enter a secure password for the MySQL root user. This root user is different to the root user in Ubuntu as it is only used for connecting to your database server with full privileges.
Start and then enable MySQL server to execute automatically at boot time.

sudo systemctl enable mysql
sudo systemctl start mysql

Secure your MySQL server installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, enter the password you created for the MYSQL root user during installation. Simply answer ‘Y’ to all of the other yes/no questions as the default suggestions are the most secure options.

Step 6: Create Database for BlogoText CMS

Log into the MySQL shell as the MySQL root user by running the following command.

sudo mysql -u root -p

To access the MySQL command prompt, simply enter the MySQL root password when prompted.
Run the following queries to create a MySQL database and database user for BlogoText CMS.

CREATE DATABASE blogo_db CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
CREATE USER 'blogo_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'UltraSecurePassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON blogo_db.* TO 'blogo_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

If you prefer, you can replace the database name ‘blogo_db’ and username ‘blogo_user’ with something more to your liking. Also, make sure that you replace ‘UltraSecurePassword’ with an actually secure password.

Step 7: Install BlogoText CMS Files

Change your current working directory to the default web directory.

cd /var/www/html/

If you receive an error message saying something like ‘No such file or directory’ then try the following command.

cd /var/www/ ; sudo mkdir html ; cd html

Your current working directory will now be: ‘/var/www/html/’. You can check this with the ‘pwd’ (print working directory) command.

pwd

Now use ‘wget’ to download the BlogoText CMS installation package.

sudo wget https://github.com/BlogoText/blogotext/archive/3.7.6.zip

Please note: You should definitely check for the most recent version by visiting the BlogoText CMS download page.
List the current directory to check that you have successfully downloaded the file.

ls -la

Remove ‘index.html’.

sudo rm index.html

Install unzip so you can unzip the file.

sudo apt-get -y install unzip

Now uncompress the zip archive.

sudo unzip 3.7.6.zip

Move all of the installation files to the web root directory.

sudo mv blogotext-3.7.6/* /var/www/html

Change ownership of the web files to avoid any permissions problems.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data * ./

Restart Apache again.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Now you are ready to move on to the final step.

Step 8: Complete BlogoText CMS Installation

It’s time to visit the IP address of your server instance in your browser, or if you’ve already configured your DreamVPS DNS settings (and given it enough time to propagate) you can simply visit your domain instead.
To access the BlogoText CMS installation page, enter your DreamVPS instance IP address into your browser address bar, followed by ‘/admin/install.php’.
http://YOUR_DREAMVPS_IP_ADDRESS/admin/install.php

Most of the installation options are self explanatory, however, here are a few pointers to help you along:

Select your language and click on the ‘OK’
Enter the following Administrator and Site details:
Username: admin
Password: <admin password>
Blog’s URL: <your URL>

Click OK to continue.

Select MySQL as the DBMS and then enter the following database values:
MySQL User: blogo_user
MySQL Password: UltraSecurePassword
MySQL Database: blogo_db
MySQL Host: localhost

Click OK to continue.

You will be automatically redirected to the admin section so simply enter your username and password and click on the Connection button to log in. You can also enter the admin address manually by entering the following URL.
http://YOUR_DreamVPS_IP_ADDRESS/admin
For added security, you can change the name of your ‘/admin/‘ folder.

sudo mv -i ./admin ./top_secret_name

You are now ready to start adding your content and configuring the look and feel of your site. Make sure you check out the BlogoText CMS wiki page for more information about how to build and configure your site.

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Updated on December 23, 2018

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