Elxis is a free, open source and feature rich content management system written in PHP language. It is simple, powerful and easy to use web based application software.

Elxis is a powerful and rich CMS having many of the features you will need for your site built-in. Some of them are listed below:

1. Small footprint and multi-sites support.
2. Supports SSL/TLS, encryption and other security related features.
3. Support multiple languages.
4. Notify via email on security alerts.
5. Easy and powerful internal linking system and search engine friendly URLs.

Here, we will explain how to install Elxis CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 server.

Requirements

• A server running Ubuntu 16.04 server.
• A non root user with sudo privileges setup on your server.

Update the System

Before installing any packages, it is recommended to update your system with the latest version. You can do this by running the following command:

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

Once your system is up to date, you can proceed to the next step.

Install Apache Web Server

First, you will need to install the Apache web server on your server. You can install it by just running the following command:

sudo yum install apache2 -y

Once Apache is installed, start the web server and set it to start automatically on system start up with the following command:

sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl enable apache2

Install PHP

Elxis is written in PHP language, so you will need to install PHP and other require modules on your system. You can install all of them with the following command:

sudo apt-get install php7.0 php7.0-mysql php7.0-common php7.0-gd php7.0-xml php7.0-xmlrpc php7.0-mcrypt php7.0-mbstring -y

Once installation is completed, you can proceed to install MariaDB server.

Install and Configure MariaDB Server

Elxis stores it’s content in a database, so you will need to install MariaDB on your server. You can install it with the following command:

sudo apt-get install mariadb -y

Once the installation is completed start the database server and set it to start on start up

sudo systemctl start mariadb
sudo systemctl enable mariadb

By default, MariaDB is not secured, so you will also need to secure it first. You can secure it by running the mysql_secure_installation script:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Answer all the questions as below:

Set root password? [Y/n] n
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Once MariaDB is secured, log in to the MariaDB console with the following command:

mysql -u root -p

Enter your root password when prompt, then create a database for Elxis with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]>CREATE DATABASE elxisdb;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Next, create a username and password for Elxis with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]>CREATE USER 'elxisuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Next, grant privileges to the Elxis database with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]>GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON elxisdb.* TO 'elxisuser'@'localhost';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Next, you will need to run the FLUSH PRIVILEGES command so that the privileges table will be reloaded by MariaDB and we can use new credential:

MariaDB [(none)]>FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Next, exit from the MariaDB console with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]>\q

Once you are done, you can proceed to the next step.

Install Elxis

Before starting, you will need to download the latest stable version of the Elxis from their official website. Once the download is completed extract the downloaded file with the following command:

sudo mkdir /var/www/html/elxis/
sudo unzip elxis_4.5_typhon_rev1909.zip -d /var/www/html/elxis/

Next, you will also need to make some permission changes. You can do this with the following command:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/elxis
sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www/html/elxis

Once you are done, you can proceed to the next step.

Configure Apache for Elxis

Next, you will need to create a apache virtual host directive for Elxis. You can do this by creating elxis.conf file inside /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/elxis.conf

Add the following lines:

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@yourdomain.com
DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/elxis"
ServerName yourdomain.com
ServerAlias www.yourdomain.com
ErrorLog "/var/log/apache2/elxis-error_log"
CustomLog "/var/log/apache2/elxis-access_log" combined

<Directory "/var/www/html/elxis/">
DirectoryIndex index.php
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Save the file once you are finished and restart the Apache web server for the changes to take effect.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Once you are done, you can proceed to access Elxis web interface.

Access Elxis Web Interface

Before accessing the Elxis Web Interface, you will need to allow the HTTP service through UFW firewall.

By default UFW is disabled on your system, so you need to enable it first. You can enable it with the following command:

sudo ufw enable

Once UFW firewall is enabled, you can allow HTTP service by running the following command:

sudo ufw allow http

You can now check the status of UFW firewall by running the following command:

sudo ufw status

Finally, open your web browser and type the URL http://yourdomain.com/, you should see the following installation page :

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Here, click on Continue button, you should see the following licence agreement page:

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Here, accept the licence agreement and click on the Continue button, you should see the following page:

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Provide your site name, site IP address, Database name, Username, Password, etc. Once you have done. Click on the Submit button, you should see the following page:

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Provide your new admin user details like, first name, last name, email address, username and password, then click on the Submit button, you should see the following page:

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Now, click on Visit your new web site, you should see the Elxis default home page as shown in below image:

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Next, click on administration button, you should see the Elxis login screen as shown in the following image:

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Provide your admin username and password then click on Login button, you should see the Elxis control panel in following image:

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Conclusion

I hope you can easily create your own website using Elxis control panel.