Installing the Webserver, Webhosting and VIMP on Debian 9 "Stretch"

This article explains how to install the complete server software (Apache, MySQL, php5, php-cli, sendmail etc.) for VIMP and how to configure the webhosting.

If you´re using Debian 8 "Jessie", please check this article

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

apt-get update
apt-get install apache2 php7.0 php7.0-gd php7.0-mysql mysql-server mysql-client php7.0-cli php7.0-mbstring php7.0-ldap php7.0-mcrypt php7.0-xsl php7.0-curl  php7.0-json  libimage-exiftool-perl ffmpeg joe openssl time

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

        # for VIMP we change DocumentRoot:
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html/web
        # for VIMP we add the following 2 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 changes are 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/7.0/apache2/php.ini

Modify the following lines:

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

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/7.0/cli/php.inii

Finally we deactivate the Zend-php-module opcache and activate mcrypt:

phpdismod opcache
phpenmod mcrypt
service apache2 restart

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.