Install web server, web hosting and VIMP on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic

In this article we install all server software (Apache, MySQL, php7.2, php-cli, postfix etc.) for VIMP and configure the web hosting.

First we install some basic packages. Already existing packages will be updated or remain untouched:

apt-get update
apt-get install apache2 php7.2 php7.2-gd php7.2-mysql mysql-server mysql-client php7.2-cli php7.2-ldap php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xsl php7.2-curl  php7.2-json libimage-exiftool-perl ffmpeg joe openssl time

As MTA (Mail Transport Agent) we take postfix here. Other MTAs as Sendmail and Exim can of course be used, too. Make sure here that the MTA is configured so that PHP can send emails.

apt-get update
apt-get install postfix

Apache configuration:

We install VIMP in the "default" web hosting whose <VirtualHost> container was already created automatically during the Apache installation. We adapt this for VIMP with an editor (here "joe"):

joe /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        # for VIMP we adapt DocumentRoot:
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html/web
        # for VIMP we add the following two blocks:
        <Directory />
                Options FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/html/web/>
                Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>
        # for VIMP no further adaptions are required

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Now we create the directory to the DocumentRoot and activate the Apache module "rewrite":

# mkdir /var/www/html/web
# a2enmod rewrite

We restart the Apache later so that the new configuration is imported.

Configure PHP

There are two interesting php-ini files for us. One is for the Apach PHP module, the other one for the php-cli (cli=command line interface).

First we edit the php.ini for the Apache module:

joe /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini

and adapt the following lines like this:

upload_max_filesize = 2048M   ; for the maximum upload size
post_max_size = 2048M
register_argc_argv On
memory_limit = 1024M

save and restart the Apache (for bigger uploads change the two 2048M)

# service apache2 restart

We do the same with php.ini for php-cli. A restart of Apache is not necessary afterwards.

joe /etc/php/7.2/cli/php.ini

Finally, we disable the Zend module opcache and enable mcrypt:

# phpdismod opcache
# service apache2 restart

Create database and database user:

# mysql

The MySQL client responds sich with the MariaDB> prompt (MariaDB replaces MySQL in Debian 9 Stretch):

MariaDB> create database DATABASE-NAME default character set utf8 collate utf8_unicode_ci;
MariaDB> grant all privileges on DATABASE.* to 'DATABASE-USER'@'localhost' identified by 'PASSWORD';
MariaDB> flush privileges;
MariaDB> exit;

After the preparation install VIMP

If you install VIMP Light, VIMP Ultimate [Standard], VIMP Corporate Campus or VIMP Corporate Enterprise, you have to install the SourceGuardian PHP extension at this point. Instruction can be found here.

Upload and installation of the VIMP installer is described in this article this.

Basic usage

The installation is now complete. Now access your portal in the browser.

During the installation, three users are created, representing the three user roles:

• "admin" (passwort: "admin") as administrator
• "moderator" (password: "moderator") as moderatr
• "user" (password: "user") as default user

Please change all passwords as soon as possible. If you do not need the users anymore, you can delete them in the admin area.