e107 is an open source content management system released under GNU GPL License v3 which allow us to easily manage and publish content on our website.

Some main features of e107:

• Easy to install
• Easy to use
• Easy to customize
• Time Friendly
• Multimedia Friendly
• Search Engine Friendly
• Ready with Twitter Bootstrap 3

You can learn more about e107 from e107 website.

Objective

In this tutorial we’ll learn how-to install e107 on Ubuntu 14.04. We will also install and configure its prerequisites.

Prerequisites

We will install e107 in fresh installation of Ubuntu Server 14.04. We also need these applications to be able to run e107:

• Apache 2
• MySQL 5
• PHP >= 5

Update Base System

Before we install e107, let’s update the system to the latest update.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Install Apache 2

After applying latest update to our base system, Lets’s start installing Apache 2 and required libraries.

$ sudo apt-get -y install apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-mpm-prefork libaio1 libapache2-mod-php5 libapr1 libaprutil1 libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libhtml-template-perl libmysqlclient18 libterm-readkey-perl libwrap0 ssl-cert tcpd

We can check Apache 2 service status using command below:

sudo service apache2 status
 * apache2 is running

We can also check whether Apache 2 is listening on which port using command below.

 sudo netstat -naptu | grep apache
tcp6       0      0 :::80                   :::*                    LISTEN      14873/apache2

Install MySQL 5.6

We will install and use MySQL 5.6 as database for e107.

We will use MySQL Server 5.6 since MySQL 5.6 is the most up to date version of MySQL shipped with Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.

$ sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server-5.6

We need to setup MySQL root password. Please input password for MySQL root user.

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Verify root password.

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Securing MySQL Installation

We will secure MySQL installation by running mysql_secure_installation.

Enter root password that we set on installation:

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

In order to log into MySQL to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MySQL, 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...

Since we already have the root password set, answer this part with n

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

You already have a root password set, so you can safely answer 'n'.

Change the root password? [Y/n] n
 ... skipping.

Remove the anonymous user to improve security. This will make sure people or application have correct username and password to login to MySQL. Answer with Y.

By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MySQL 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!

We also want remove root login from remote machine. Answer with Y

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!

Previously the test database created automatically by MySQL installation, but MySQL 5.6 does not create test database. We can still choose Y, it will throw error but that’s fine.

By default, MySQL 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...
ERROR 1008 (HY000) at line 1: Can't drop database 'test'; database doesn't exist
 ... Failed!  Not critical, keep moving...
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Last step is to reload MySQL privilege table.

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

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


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

Thanks for using MySQL!


Cleaning up...

Create a Database for e107

Now we have a secure MySQL installation, time to create database and user for e107 itself.

Login to MySQL using root credential.

$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password: 
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 58
Server version: 5.6.30-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 (Ubuntu)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

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

mysql>

Create a new database named e107 using command below:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE e107;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Create a User for e107

The database for e107 is ready, let’s create a username and password and grant privileges to e107 database.

Don’t forget to change the password e107123secret below with a better password.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `e107`.* TO 'e107'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'e107123secret';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

We need to run the FLUSH PRIVILEGES command so that the privileges table will be reloaded by MySQL and we can use the new credential.

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Exit from MySQL console by typing \q.

mysql> \q

Install PHP 5

The last component that we have to install before we can install e107 is PHP 5. We will install PHP 5 and several common PHP libraries.

$ sudo apt-get -y install php5-cli php5-common php5-json php5-mysql php5-readline

Install additional php5 libraries:

$ sudo apt-get install php5-curl php5-gd

Restart Apache 2 process so the changes will be applied:

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Install e107

All prerequisites are already installed. We’re ready to install e107. The latest stable version of e107 is available e107 get started page.

At the time of this writing, the latest stable version is version 2.1.5, let’s download e107 compressed file using wget.

$ wget -c http://sourceforge.net/projects/e107/files/e107/e107%20v2.1.5/e107_2.1.5_full.tar.gz/download -O e107_2.1.5_full.tar.gz

Extract the e107 archive file:

$ mkdir e107
$ tar xzf e107_2.1.5_full.tar.gz -C e107

Move e107 folder to Apache directory:

$ sudo mv e107 /var/www

Change ownership of e107 directory to www-data user and group.

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/e107

The e107 files are ready, now let’s create Apache Virtual Host configuration to serve e107.

Configure Apache Virtual Host for http Only

Create new apache configuration file on /etc/apache2/sites-available/e107.conf with contents below.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName e107.exampleserver.xyz

    DocumentRoot /var/www/e107

    <Directory /var/www/e107>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/e107.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/e107.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Don’t forget to change e107.exampleserver.xyz above with the domain name that you use for your e107 installation.

Enable the site using a2ensite command.

$ sudo a2ensite e107

Reload the apache2 process so it reads the new virtualhost configuration:

$ sudo service apache2 reload

e107 Setup Wizard

Now point your browser to e107 URL, we will be redirected to e107 setup wizard.

The first step is language selection for installation. We will choose English in this tutorial.

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Input the database credentials that we created before to be used by e107.

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Since we already created the database there will be a warning that the database will be overwritten by the installation process. We can choose Overwrite.

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This step, the installer will check MySQL connection and create required tables.

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PHP version and php library check, we should pass all requirements by now. Click continue

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Set administrator username and password.

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Set website name, choose website themes.

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e107 confirmation that it has all the installation requirements now. Click Continue.

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e107 installed successfully. There is a warning to change the file permission for e107 configuration file. We will do it in the next section.

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When we click continue, we will be redirected to e107 site that we just install.

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Click sign in on top right of our site, we will be redirected to login page.

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After successful login we will be redirected to e107 admin panel.

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Securing e107 Installation

Now our e107 site is ready, we need to secure our e107 installation. We need to change e107 config file permission to 644.

$ sudo chmod 644 /var/www/e107/e107_config.php

Configure https only site for e107

A secure connection is now a requirement for web application. Last step that we will do in this tutorial is changing the connection to only use https. We assume that you already have SSL certificate and private key.

Let’s create new apache virtual host configuration on /etc/apache2/sites-available/e107-ssl.conf with contents below. Don’t forget to change:

• ServerName
• SSLCertificateFile
• SSLCertificateChainFile
• SSLCertificateKeyFile

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName e107.exampleserver.xyz
   Redirect permanent / https://e107.exampleserver.xyz/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

    ServerName e107.exampleserver.xyz

    DocumentRoot /var/www/e107

    <Directory /var/www/e107>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/e107.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/e107.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile      /etc/apache2/ssl/e107.exampleserver.xyz.crt
    SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl/e107.exampleserver.xyz.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile   /etc/apache2/ssl/e107.exampleserver.xyz.key

    # Uncomment the following directive when using client certificate authentication
    #SSLCACertificateFile    /path/to/ca_certs_for_client_authentication


    # HSTS (mod_headers is required) (15768000 seconds = 6 months)
    Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000"

</VirtualHost>

 # intermediate configuration, tweak to your needs
SSLProtocol             all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
SSLCipherSuite          ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS
SSLHonorCipherOrder     on

We will also disable e107 http only virtual host and enable the new virtual host config.

$ sudo a2dissite e107
$ sudo a2ensite e107-ssl

The new virtual host configuration need Apache mod_ssl and mod_headers modules. We need to enable those modules.

$ sudo a2enmod ssl
$ sudo a2enmod headers

Now, restart the Apache 2 service so it will reload its configuration. We need to restart instead of reload since we enable new module.

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Summary

In this tutorial we learned how-to install e107 on Ubuntu 14.04.

We installed all the prerequisites, created a user and database on MySQL for e107 and also configure Apache 2 virtual hosts to be able to serve e107.

We also configured https settings for e107 so we run e107 securely.