Drupal is a free and open-source CMS based on PHP and MySQL that also has many features and thousands of plugins and templates or themes. If you want to create an online website or store, Drupal might be the simplest way to do it, especially if you will need support from users to manage and maintain the site. This tutorial is based on Ubuntu Linux. We’ll be installing the Nginx web server, MariaDB database server, and PHP modules. We’ll also link to another post that will show you how to secure your Drupal website using Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates. For more about Drupal, please check its homepage To get started with installing Drupal on Ubuntu Linux, follow the steps below:
How to install Nginx on Ubuntu Linux
As mentioned above, we’re going to be using the Nginx web server to run Drupal. Drupal requires a web server to function, and Nginx is one of the most popular open-source web servers available today. To install Nginx on Ubuntu, run the commands below: After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Nginx services always to start up every time your server starts up. To test whether Nginx is installed and functioning, open your web browser and browse to the server’s IP address or hostname. http://localhost If you see the above page in your browser, then Nginx is working as expected.
How to install MariaDB on Ubuntu Linux
A database server is required for Drupal to function. Drupal stores its content in a database, and MariaDB is probably the best database server available to run Drupal. MariaDB is fast, secure and the default server for almost all Linux servers. To install MariaDB, run the commands below: After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB services always to start up when the server boots. Next, run the commands below to secure the database server with a root password if you were not prompted to do so during the installation. When prompted, use the guide below to answer: To verify and validate that MariaDB is installed and working, log in to the database console using the commands below: You should automatically be logged in to the database server since we initiated the login request as root. Only the root can log in without a password, and only from the server console. If you see a similar screen as shown above, then the server was successfully installed.
How to install PHP-FPM on Ubuntu Linux
As we also mentioned above, we’re installing PHP on Ubuntu since Drupal requires it. PHP packages are added to Ubuntu repositories. The versions of the repositories might not be the latest. If you need to install the latest versions, you’ll need to add a third-party PPA repository. To a third-party repository with the latest versions of PHP, run the commands below. At the time of this writing, the latest PHP version is 8.0. Next, run the commands below to install PHP 8.0 and related modules. Once PHP is installed, the commands below can be used to start, stop and enable PHP-FPM services to automatically startup when the server boots. Next, you’ll want to change some PHP configuration settings that work great with Drupal. Run the commands below to open the PHP default configuration file. Then change the line settings to be something like the lines below. Save your changes and exit.
How to create a Drupal database on Ubuntu
At this point, we’re ready to create a Drupal database. As mentioned above, Drupal uses databases to store its content. To create a database for Drupal, run the commands below: sudo mysql -u root -p Then create a database called drupaldb CREATE DATABASE drupaldb; Next, create a database user called drupaldbuser and set a password CREATE USER ‘drupaldbuser’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ’new_password_here’; Then grant the user full access to the database. GRANT ALL ON drupaldb.* TO ‘drupaldbuser’@’localhost’ WITH GRANT OPTION; Finally, save your changes and exit.
How to download Drupal
We’re ready to download Drupal and begin configuring it. First, run the commands below to download the latest version of Drupal from its repository. To get Drupal’s latest release you may want to use the GitHub repository. Install Composer, Curl and other dependencies to get started… After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Nginx root directory and download Drupal packages from GitHub. Always replace the branch number with the latest branch. To view Drupal releases, see this page. Then run the command below to allow the www-data user to own the Drupal directory.
How to configure Nginx for Drupal
We have downloaded Drupal content into a new folder we called Drupal. Now, let’s configure Nginx to create a new server block to use with our Drupal website. You can create as many server blocks with Nginx. To do that, run the commands below to create a new configuration file called drupal. conf in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory to host our Drupal server block. In the file, copy and paste the content below into the file and save. Save the file and exit. After saving the file above, run the commands below to enable the new file that contains our Drupal server block. Restart Nginx after that. At this stage, Drupal is ready and can be launched by going to the server’s IP or hostname. However, we want to make sure our server is protected with Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates. So, continue below to learn how to generate a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for websites.
How to setup Let’s Encrypt for Drupal
We have written a great post on how to generate and manage Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates for the Nginx web server. You can use that post, to apply it here for your Drupal website. To read the post on how to generate Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates for a website, click on the link below: How to Setup Let’s Encrypt on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx – Website for Students If you were successful in generating a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, you should then reopen the server block for our Drupal website by running the commands below. The new Drupal server block configurations should look similar to the line below. Take notes of the highlighted lines.
The first server block listens on port 80. It contains a 301 redirect to redirect HTTP to HTTPS. The second server block listens on port 443. It contains a 301 redirect to redirect www to the non-www domain.
Save the file above, then restart Nginx and PHP using the commands below. Finally, if everything went as planned, you should be able to start the Drupal setup wizard by browsing to the server hostname or IP address over HTTPS. A Drupal setup wizard should appear. Follow the wizard to complete the setup. Select the installation language then click Save and Continue. On the next screen, choose the Standard installation option to include commonly used features that are pre-configured. This is the most popular option for most websites running Drupal CMS. Next, type in the database connection info and click Save and continue. After that, enter the site information, including the Site name, Site admin email address, username, and password, and continue. When you’re done, Drupal should be installed and ready to use. Login as admin and begin configuring your site. In the future when you want to upgrade to a newly released version, simply run the commands below to upgrade… That’s it! Conclusion: This post showed you how to install Drupal on Ubuntu Linux with a link to set up Let’s Encrypt. If you find any error above or have something to add, please use the comment form below.
