Installing Drupal on Alma Linux 8

Hello,
In this week’s feature highlight, we look at How to Install Drupal on Alma Linux 8

Drupal is a Content Management System (CMS) to maintain and publish an internet website. It’s an open-source content management system (CMS) with a large, supportive community. It’s used by millions of people and organizations around the globe to build and maintain their websites.

Update the system.

yum update -y

Install the MariaDB Server

Install the MariaDB Server by running the following command,

dnf -y install @mariadb

Output:

[root@vps ~]# dnf -y install @mariadb
Last metadata expiration check: 0:11:41 ago on Wednesday 24 November 2021 02:16:41 PM EST.
Dependencies resolved.
===================================================================
 Package                 Arch   Version            Repo       Size
===================================================================
Installing group/module packages:
 mariadb-server          x86_64 3:10.3.28-1.module_el8.3.0+757+d382997d
                                                   appstream  16 M
Installing dependencies:
 libaio                  x86_64 0.3.112-1.el8      baseos     33 k
 mariadb                 x86_64 3:10.3.28-1.module_el8.3.0+757+d382997d
                                                   appstream 6.0 M
 mariadb-common          x86_64 3:10.3.28-1.module_el8.3.0+757+d382997d
                                                   appstream  64 k
 mariadb-connector-c     x86_64 3.1.11-2.el8_3     appstream 200 k
 mariadb-connector-c-config
                         noarch 3.1.11-2.el8_3     appstream  15 k
 mariadb-errmsg          x86_64 3:10.3.28-1.module_el8.3.0+757+d382997d
                                                   appstream 234 k

Enable MariaDB using the below command,

systemctl enable --now mariadb

Verify the status of MariaDB using the below command.

systemctl status mariadb

Output:

[root@vps ~]# systemctl status mariadb
● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.3 database server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enable>
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-11-24 14:30:10 EST; 4s >
     Docs: man:mysqld(8)
           https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/systemd/
  Process: 62687 ExecStartPost=/usr/libexec/mysql-check-upgrade (c>
  Process: 62552 ExecStartPre=/usr/libexec/mysql-prepare-db-dir ma>
  Process: 62528 ExecStartPre=/usr/libexec/mysql-check-socket (cod>
 Main PID: 62656 (mysqld)
   Status: "Taking your SQL requests now..."
    Tasks: 30 (limit: 17401)
   Memory: 82.7M
   CGroup: /system.slice/mariadb.service
           └─62656 /usr/libexec/mysqld --basedir=/usr

Secure your database server by setting the root password, disabling root remote logins, and removing test databases.

mysql_secure_installation

Output:

[root@vps ~]# mysql_secure_installation    

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MariaDB, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): 
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n] 
New password: 
Re-enter new password: 
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!

By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!

By default, MariaDB comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
 - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!

Cleaning up...

All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MariaDB
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MariaDB!

Create Database for Drupal

Create a database for Drupal and grant all privileges to the Drupal user.

mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE drupal;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal.* TO ‘drupal’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY "StrongPassword";
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
\q

Output:

[root@vps ~]# mysql -u root -p 
Enter password: 
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 16
Server version: 10.3.28-MariaDB MariaDB Server

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE drupal;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.001 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal.* TO ‘drupal’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY "strongpassword";
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.001 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]>     FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.001 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]>     \q
Bye

Install PHP and Extensions

Install PHP 8.0 as the default version then use the commands below,

dnf module -qy reset  php
dnf -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm
dnf -y install https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm
dnf module install php:remi-8.0 -y
dnf -y install php php-{cli,fpm,gd,mysqlnd,mbstring,json,common,dba,dbg,devel,embedded,enchant,bcmath,gmp,intl,ldap,odbc,pdo,opcache,pear,pgsql,process,snmp,soap,xml,xmlrpc,opcache}

Confirm PHP version,

php -v

Output:

[root@vps ~]# php -v
PHP 8.0.13 (cli) (built: Nov 16 2021 18:07:21) ( NTS gcc x86_64 )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.0.13, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.0.13, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Start php-fpm service on your server using the below command,

systemctl enable php-fpm
systemctl start php-fpm

Install Apache Webserver

Install the Apache Webserver by running the following command,

dnf -y install httpd

Output:

[root@vps ~]# dnf -y install httpd
Last metadata expiration check: 0:17:30 ago on Wednesday 24 November 2021 02:16:41 PM EST.
Dependencies resolved.
===================================================================
 Package            Arch   Version                 Repo       Size
===================================================================
Installing:
 httpd              x86_64 2.4.37-43.module_el8.5.0+1022+b541f3b1
                                                   appstream 1.4 M
Installing dependencies:
 apr                x86_64 1.6.3-12.el8            appstream 129 k
 apr-util           x86_64 1.6.1-6.el8             appstream 105 k
 almalinux-logos-httpd noarch 85.8-2.el8              baseos     75 k
 httpd-filesystem   noarch 2.4.37-43.module_el8.5.0+1022+b541f3b1
                                                   appstream  39 k
 httpd-tools        x86_64 2.4.37-43.module_el8.5.0+1022+b541f3b1
                                                   appstream 107 k

Set PHP Memory limit,

vi /etc/php.ini
memory_limit = 256M

Start PHP and httpd services,

systemctl enable --now httpd php-fpm

If firewalld service running open port for 80,

firewall-cmd --add-service={http,https} --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

Download and Install Drupal

Download and install Drupal by running the following command,

dnf install -y wget 
wget https://www.drupal.org/download-latest/tar.gz -O drupal.tar.gz

Extract downloaded file,

dnf install tar
tar xvf drupal.tar.gz
mv drupal-*/  /var/www/html/drupal

Modify the file permissions to allow Apache to access the files inside /var/www/html/drupal directory,

chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/drupal
chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/

Create additional files for drupal installer,

mkdir /var/www/html/drupal/sites/default/files
cp /var/www/html/drupal/sites/default/default.settings.php /var/www/html/drupal/sites/default/settings.php

If SELinux is Enabled then Fix selinux lables,

dnf install policycoreutils-python-utils
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t "/var/www/html/drupal(/.*)?"
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/drupal/sites/default/settings.php'
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t '/var/www/html/drupal/sites/default/files'
restorecon -Rv /var/www/html/drupal
restorecon -v /var/www/html/drupal/sites/default/settings.php
restorecon -Rv /var/www/html/drupal/sites/default/files
chown -R apache:apache  /var/www/html/drupal

Configure Apache Web Server for Drupal

Configure Drupal VirtualHost file /etc/httpd/conf.d/drupal.conf

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/drupal.conf

Copy the below content and save it into the file.

Replace example.com with your actual domain name.

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerName mysite.com
     ServerAlias www.example.com
     ServerAdmin admin@example.com
     DocumentRoot /var/www/html/drupal/

     <Directory /var/www/html/drupal>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
            RewriteEngine on
            RewriteBase /
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
            RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Restart Apache web server,