How to Install Drupal on Ubuntu Linux with OpenLiteSpeed

This post shows students and new users steps to install Drupal CMS on Ubuntu Linux with OpenLiteSpeed web server. When webmasters think of hosting a Drupal website, most will choose between Apache and Nginx webservers.

Few people have heard of OpenLiteSpeed, not because it’s bad, but because it’s not widely used and not yet popular. There are many good things that have been written about OpenLiteSpeed, and if you want to test it yourself, continue below.

OpenLiteSpeed is an open source web server developed by LiteSpeed Technology. It is designed to be lightweight, and comes with an admin panel to manage the server easily from your favorite web browsers.

If you want to run your Drupal website on OpenLiteSpeed instead of Apache or Nginx, continue below to learn how to install it and run Drupal.

How to install OpenLiteSpeed on Ubuntu Linux

We have written a post about installing OpenLiteSpeed on Ubuntu Linux. Before installing Drupal, click on the link below to install OpenLiteSpeed.

This post below shows you how to install OpenLiteSpeed, the latest PHP version and MariaDB database server. Those three components are required to run Drupal.

How to Install OpenLiteSpeed on Ubuntu Linux – Website for Students

After installing OpenLiteSpeed, continue below.

How to download Drupal on Ubuntu Linux for OpenLiteSpeed

Now that OpenLiteSpeed is installed, go and download package to install. Run the commands below to download the latest version of Drupal.

cd /tmp
wget 
tar -zxvf tar.gz

After extracting the Drupal archive, move the Drupal content into OpenLiteSpeed default VirtualHost directory.

sudo mv /tmp/drupal-* /usr/local/lsws/Example/drupal

Next, run the commands below to change the permissions of the Drupal folder to run on OpenLiteSpeed.

sudo chown -R nobody:nogroup /usr/local/lsws/Example/drupal/
sudo chmod -R 755 /usr/local/lsws/Example/drupal/

How to create Drupal database on Ubuntu

At this point, we’re ready to create 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 password

CREATE USER 'drupaldbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON wpdb.* TO 'drupaldbuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

How to configure OpenLiteSpeed to support Drupal

Next, logon to OpenLiteSpeed admin panel to configure Drupal settings.

Login using the admin login details above.

After logging on, go to the Virtual Hosts ==> General tab and edit the Document Root location section.

Then edit the Document Root to point to the Drupal folder created above.

$VH_ROOT/drupal/

On the same General tab, edit the Index Files section and replace index.html with index.php shown below.

index.php

Next, go to Virtual Hosts ==> Rweire Rules, edit Rewrite Control, then choose Yes to enable rewrite.

Save your change.

Next, under Virtual Hosts ==> Rewrite, edit the Rewrite Rules. Copy and paste the lines below into the rules box, save.

ReWriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
RewriteRule ^/ index.php [L]
<IfModule LiteSpeed>
CacheLookup on
</IfModule>

After making all the changes above, reload OpenLiteSpeed.

Finally, open your web browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address.

A Drupal setup wizard should appear. Follow the wizard to complete the setup.

Select the installation language then click Save and Continue.

Drupal install composer

On the next screen, choose the Standard installation option to include commonly used features that are pre-configured.

This is the most popular options for most website running Drupal CMS.

drupal ubuntu install

Next, type in the database connection info and click Save and continue.

Drupal ubuntu setup

After that, enter the site information, including Site name, Site admin email address, username and password and continue.

Drupal ubuntu install

When you’re done, Drupal should be installed and ready to use. Login as admin and begin configuring your site.

Drupal Install Ubuntu

That should do it!

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to install Drupal on Ubuntu Linux with OpenLiteSpeed web server. If you find any error above or have something to add, please use the comment form below.