Yellow is an open source content management system for folks who want to build websites and blogs that are easy to install and manage without a need of a database. Just upload the web content files to your server and you’re done!
With Yellow, you can browse your website, make changes and see the result immediately. It’s a great way to update your website.. It offers features that may not be available to other PHP based CMS, like WordPress Joomla or Drupal.
For one, it doesn’t need a database server, call it database-less. It comes all features that you need but is smaller than WordPress, like SEO friendly design, flexible CSS framework and more.
For more about Yellow, please check it homepage.
This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install Yellow on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 LTS / 18.10 with Apache2 and PHP 7.2 support.
Step 1: Install Apache2 HTTP Server
Yellow CMS requires a web server and Apache2 HTTP server is the most popular open source web server available today. To install Apache2 server, run the commands below:
sudo apt update sudo apt install apache2
After installing Apache2, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Apache2 service to always start up with the server boots.
sudo systemctl stop apache2.service sudo systemctl start apache2.service sudo systemctl enable apache2.service
Now that Apache2 is installed. to test whether the web server is working, open your browser and browse to the URL below.
If you see the page above, then Apache2 is successfully installed.
Step 2: Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules
Yellow CMS is a PHP based CMS and PHP is required. However, PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories. To run PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 and previous, you may need to run the commands below:
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2
sudo apt update
Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.
sudo apt install php7.2 libapache2-mod-php7.2 php7.2-common php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-sqlite3 php7.2-soap php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-curl php7.2-zip
After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open PHP default configuration file for Apache2.
sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini
The lines below is a good settings for most PHP based CMS. Update the configuration file with these and save.
file_uploads = On allow_url_fopen = On short_open_tag = On memory_limit = 256M upload_max_filesize = 100M max_execution_time = 360 date.timezone = America/Chicago
Everytime you make changes to PHP configuration file, you should also restart Apache2 web server. To do so, run the commands below:
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
Now that PHP is installed, to test whether it’s functioning, create a test file called phpinfo.php in Apache2 default root directory. ( /var/www/html/)
sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
Then type the content below and save the file.
<?php phpinfo( ); ?>
Next, open your browser and browse to the server’s hostname or IP address followed by phpinfo.php
/phpinfo.php
You should see PHP default test page.
Step 4: Download Yellow Latest Release
To get Yellow latest, run the commands below:
cd /tmp wget unzip master.zip sudo mv yellow-master /var/www/html/yellow
Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for Yellow to adjust the directory permissions.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/yellow/ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/yellow/
Step 5: Configure Apache2 Yellow Site
Finally, configure Apache2 configuration file for Yellow. This file will control how users access Yellow content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called yellow.conf
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/yellow.conf
Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your own domain name and directory root location.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/yellow
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
<Directory /var/www/html/yellow/>
Options FollowSymlinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
<Directory /var/www/html/yellow/>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php [PT,L]
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Save the file and exit.
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below
Step 6: Enable Yellow Site and Rewrite Module
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below, then restart Apache2 server.
sudo a2ensite yellow.conf sudo a2enmod rewrite sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
Next, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see Yellow setup page. create an admin account and save.
After that, Yellow should be installed and ready to use.
Yellow began as a databaseless flat file content management system. It’s structure allowed you to have just the amount of functionality you needed in a flat file CMS solution, adding extensions (blade packs) for further functionality, whilst allowing setup on simple servers with no database.
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