Setup HTMLy on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 with Nginx PHP 7.2-FPM

Few days we showed students and new users how to install HTMLy CMS on Ubuntu with Apache2 and PHP 7.2 support. Well, this post shows you how to do it with Nginx HTTP and PHP 7.2-FPM instead.

HTMLy is an open-source, flat-file content management system (CMS) which prioritizes simplicity and speed. 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 also provides native markdown WYSIWYG support, SEO friendly, flexible CSS framework and easily installation and management.

HTMLy uses a unique algorithm to find or list any content based on date, type, category, tag, or author, and the performance will remain fast even if y0u have thousands of posts and hundreds of tags.

For more about HTMLy, please check it homepage.

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install HTMLy CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 LTS with Nginx and PHP 7.2 support.

When you’re ready to get HTMLyworking, continue with the steps below:

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu

Nginx HTTP Server is probably the second most popular web server in use. so install it, since HTMLy needs it.

To install Nginx HTTP on Ubuntu server, run the commands below.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Nginx service to always start up with the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop nginx.service
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

To test Nginx setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see Nginx default test page as shown below. When you see that, then Nginx is working as expected.

Step 2: Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules

PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories for some systems. if you need it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.

Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.2

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-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc 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 config file for Nginx.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

Then make the changes on the following lines below in the file and save. The value below are great settings to apply in your environments.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 100M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

After making the change above, save the file and close out.

Step 3: Restart Nginx

After installing PHP and related modules, all you have to do is restart Nginx to reload PHP configurations.

To restart Nginx, run the commands below

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Step 4: Download HTMLy Latest Release

Next, visit HTMLy site and download the latest package. or run the commands below to download HTMLy pckages from github.

After downloading, run the commands below to extract the downloaded file and move it into a new HTMLy root directory. After that, change into HTMLy root directory to install PHP required packages.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/htmly
cd /var/www/html/htmly
sudo wget 

Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for HTMLy to function properly.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/htmly/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/htmly/

Step 5: Configure Nginx HTMLy Site

Finally, configure Nginx configuration file for HTMLy. This file will control how users access HTMLy content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called htmly

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/htmly

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.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/html/htmly;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

     client_max_body_size 100M;
     
     location ~ /config/ {
       deny all;
     }

    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 SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
               include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below

Step 6: Enable the HTMLy Site

After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below, then restart Nginx server.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/htmly /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Next, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see HTMLy page. enter your blog info and complete the setup.

HTMLy Ubuntu install

You have successfully installed HTMLy CMS on Ubuntu.

HTMLy ubuntu setup

To logon as admin, go to the URL:

Enjoy!

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