Installing the Webserver, Webhosting and VIMP on Debian 10 "Buster"

This article explains how to install the complete server software (Apache, MySQL, php, php-cli, sendmail etc.) for VIMP and how to configure the webhosting.

First we install some basic packages. Existing packages will be updated or ignored:

apt-get update
apt-get install apache2 mariadb-server libapache2-mod-php7.3 php7.3 php7.3-gd php7.3-mysql php7.3-cli php7.3-xsl php7.3-curl php7.3-json php7.3-mbstring php7.3-zip php7.3-xmlrpc php7.3-ldap php-imagick libimage-exiftool-perl ffmpeg joe openssl time

For the VIMP Corporate editions please also install the following packages:

apt install php7.3-ldap php7.3-sqlite3

We choose postfix as MTA (Mail Transport Agent). Of course you can use another MTA like Sendmail or Exim, too. In any case assure that the MTA is configured correctly, so that php can send mails.

apt-get update
apt-get install postfix

Apache Configuration:

We install VIMP into the "default"-hosting. The corresponding <VirtualHost>-Container was already created with the apache installation and we just customize it with an editor (e.g. joe):

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

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  ServerName your.vimp.domain

  # for VIMP we change the 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 -MultiViews
    AllowOverride all
    <IfVersion < 2.3>
     Order allow,deny
     allow from all
    </IfVersion>
    <IfVersion >= 2.4>
     Require all granted
    </IfVersion>
  </Directory>
  # no further changes for VIMP needed
 
  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
 
</VirtualHost>

Create the new DocumentRoot directory and activate the apache module "rewrite":

mkdir /var/www/html/web
a2enmod rewrite

To reload the new configuration we restart apache2 later.

PHP configuration

There are 2 php.ini files that we have to consider. One for the Apache php module, another for the php-cli (cli=command line interface).

Let's start with the php.ini for the Apache module:

joe /etc/php/7.3/apache2/php.ini

Modify the following lines:

upload_max_filesize = 2048M
post_max_size = 2048M
register_argc_argv On
memory_limit = 1024M
max_execution_time = 60 
max_input_time = 120

Save and restart Apache. (Change both "2048M" for bigger upload size)

service apache2 restart

Then do the same for the php-cli php.ini. Apache doesn't have to be restarted in this case.

joe /etc/php/7.3/cli/php.inii

Create database and database user

mysql -p
[mysql-root enter password,   if set]

The mysql client starts with the MariaDB> prompt

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

Uploading and Installing the VIMP package

Upload and installation of the VIMP installer is described here.

Basic usage

Now the installation is finished. Enter the URL of your portal in your web browser.

During installation three users with the corresponding user roles are created:

• "admin" (Password: "admin") as administrator
• "moderator" (Password: "moderator") as moderator
• "user" (Password: "user") as standard user

Change all passwords as soon as possible after installation. If you don't need a certain user you can delete him in the administration backend.