How to Install Neos CMS on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• Requirements
• Before you begin
• Install PHP
• Install MySQL and setup the database
• Install and configure Nginx
• Install Composer
• Install Neos CMS using Composer

Neos is a Content Application Platform with a CMS and an application framework at its core. This guide will show you how to install Neos CMS on a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 server.

Requirements

• Nginx
• MySQL version 5.7.7 or greater, MariaDB version 10.2.2 or greater and PostgreSQL version 9.4 or greater
• PHP version 7.1.0 or greater with the following modules:
  • mbstring
  • tokenizer
  • pdo_mysql

Before you begin

Check the Ubuntu version.

lsb_release -ds
# Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Create a new non-root user account with sudo access and switch to it.

adduser johndoe --gecos "John Doe"
usermod -aG sudo johndoe
su - johndoe

NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.

Ensure that your system is up to date.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Set up the timezone.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Install build tools and packages required for finishing this tutorial.

sudo apt install -y curl git unzip apt-transport-https vim

Install PHP

Install PHP 7.2 and required PHP extensions.

sudo apt install -y php7.2 php7.2-cli php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-mysql php7.2-xml php7.2-mbstring php-imagick

Check the version.

php --version
# PHP 7.2.7-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 (cli) (built: Jul  4 2018 16:55:24) ( NTS )

Restart PHP-FPM.

sudo systemctl restart php7.2-fpm.service

Install MySQL and setup the database

Install MySQL.

sudo apt install -y mysql-server

Check the version.

mysql --version && sudo mysqld --version
# mysql  Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.23, for Linux (x86_64) using  EditLine wrapper
# mysqld  Ver 5.7.23-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 for Linux on x86_64 ((Ubuntu))

Run mysql_secure_installation to improve security and set the password for the root user.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Connect to the MySQL shell as the root user.

sudo mysql -u root -p
# Enter password

Create an empty MySQL database and user for Neos CMS, and remember the credentials.

CREATE DATABASE dbname CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

Install and configure Nginx

Neos can work with many popular web servers. In this tutorial we will use Nginx.

Install Nginx.

sudo apt install -y nginx

Check the version.

sudo nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu)

Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/neos.conf and set up Nginx virtual server for Neos CMS.

server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;

  server_name example.com;
  root /var/www/neos/Web;

  index index.php;

  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
  }

  location ~ \.php$ {
    include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_param FLOW_CONTEXT Production;
    fastcgi_param FLOW_REWRITEURLS 1;
  }
}

Save the file and exit.

Activate the new neos.conf configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled directory.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/neos.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Test the configuration.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Install Composer

Install Composer globally by issuing the following commands.

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php -r "if (hash_file('sha384', 'composer-setup.php') === '93b54496392c062774670ac18b134c3b3a95e5a5e5c8f1a9f115f203b75bf9a129d5daa8ba6a13e2cc8a1da0806388a8') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
php composer-setup.php
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Check the version.

composer --version
# Composer version 1.7.1 2018-08-07 09:39:23

Install Neos CMS using Composer

Create a document root directory.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/neos

Change the ownership of the /var/www/neos directory to johndoe.

sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /var/www/neos

Go to your document root directory.

cd /var/www/neos

Install Neos CMS and all of its dependencies.

composer create-project neos/neos-base-distribution .

Change ownership of the /var/www/neos directory to www-data.

sudo ./flow core:setfilepermissions johndoe www-data www-data
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/neos

Go to http://example.com/setup and follow the on-screen instructions.

You will get a confirmation that the setup is completed, and you can enter the frontend or backend of your Neos website. To access Neos admin, append /neos to your website URL.