Kanboard is made for people who want to manage their projects efficiently and simply.
We can use Kanboard to easily visualize our work, limit work in progress (WIP) to make our work more efficient and also customize board to match business activities.
We can also use Kanboard on multiple projects. Moving task status between process status is really easy using drag and drop.
Kanboard also has reports and analytics features, support plugins and integration with external services. Kanboard is a free and open source software released under MIT License.
You can learn more about Kanboard from Kanboard website or Kanboard project on GitHub.
Objective
In this tutorial we’ll learn how to install Kanboard on Ubuntu 14.04. We will also install and configure its prerequisites.
Prerequisites
We need to fullfil these requirements before we can install Kanboard:
- Fresh install of Ubuntu Server 14.04.
- Apache 2 with
mod_rewriteandopensslsupport. - MySQL >= 5.5
- PHP >= 5.3.9
Update the Base System
Before we install Kanboard and its prerequisites 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 Apach2 and its 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 listen on which port using command below.
sudo netstat -naptu | grep apache
tcp6 0 0 :::80 :::* LISTEN 14873/apache2
Kanboard .htaccess configuration use mod_rewrite on its configuration, we need to enable the module first.
$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
Now restart apache2 process so the new module enabled will be used by Apache.
$ sudo service apache2 restart
Install MySQL 5.6
We will install and use MySQL 5.6 as database for Kanboard. 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 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 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!
The 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 Kanboard
Now we have a secure MySQL installation, time to create database and user for Kanboard 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 new database named Kanboard using command below:
mysql> CREATE DATABASE kanboard;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Create a User for Kanboard
The database for Kanboard is ready, let’s create a username and password and grant privileges to Kanboard database.
We need to run FLUSH PRIVILEGES command so that the privileges table will be reloaded by MySQL and we can use new credential.
Don’t forget to change the password verysecret below with better password.
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `kanboard`.* TO 'kanboard'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'verysecret';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Exit from the MySQL console by typing \q
mysql> \q
Install PHP 5
The last component that we have to install before we can install Kanboard 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 php5-gd php5-mcrypt
Install Kanboard
Now let’s install Kanboard. Download Kanboard latest release using wget
$ wget https://kanboard.net/kanboard-latest.zip
Extract the downloaded file using unzip. If your system don’t have unzip yet, you can install unzip using command below:
$ sudo apt-get -y install unzip
Extract the downloaded Kanboard source using unzip.
$ unzip kanboard-latest.zip
Move extracted kanboard directory to /var/www.
$ sudo mv kanboard /var/www/
Change ownership of /var/www/kanboard to user and group www-data.
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/kanboard/
Configuring Kanboard
Copy the kanboard default configuration to config.php.
$ cd /var/www/kanboard
$ sudo cp config.default.php config.php
Open config.php. Find these lines:
define('DB_DRIVER', 'sqlite');
// Mysql/Postgres username
define('DB_USERNAME', 'root');
// Mysql/Postgres password
define('DB_PASSWORD', '');
Replace sqlite with mysql.
Replace root with kanboard and put password that you set before on DB_PASSWORD.
Import the Kanboard Database Schema
Kanboard runs DB migration on its first run to make sure db schema is up to date but this process might take some time and leads to timeout. To avoid timeout we will manually import db schema from command line
$ cd /var/www/kanboard
$ mysql -u kanboard -p kanboard < app/Schema/Sql/mysql.sql
Configure Kanboard Daily Scheduler
We will configure Kanboard daily scheduler using cronjob. The cronjob will be installed on www-data user cronjob.
Edit www-data cronjob:
$ sudo crontab -u www-data -e
Input
0 8 * * * cd /var/www/kanboard && ./cli cronjob >/dev/null 2>&1
This job will be run everyday at 8AM.
Configure Apache Virtual Host for http Only
Kanboard is ready and configured, now create new apache configuration file on /etc/apache2/sites-available/kanboard.conf with contents below.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName kanboard.exampleserver.xyz
DocumentRoot /var/www/kanboard
<Directory /var/www/kanboard>
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/kanboard.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/kanboard.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Don’t forget to change kanboard.exampleserver.xyz above with the domain name that you use for your Kanboard installation.
Enable the site using a2ensite command:
$ sudo a2ensite kanboard
Reload apache2 process so it read the new virtualhost configuration:
$ sudo service apache2 reload
Change Kanboard default Admin password
Open Kanboard installation. Input username and password. Default username and password is admin/admin.
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After logging in we will go to Kanboard dashboard.
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To change password click drop down menu on top right of the page. Choose My profile
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From Actions choose Change password
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Input current password and new password
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Kanboard is now ready to be used.
Configure Kanboard To Use https only
A secure connection is now a requirement for web application. The 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/kanboard-ssl.conf with contents below. Don’t forget to change:
ServerNameSSLCertificateFileSSLCertificateChainFileSSLCertificateKeyFile
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName kanboard.exampleserver.xyz
Redirect permanent / https://kanboard.exampleserver.xyz/
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName kanboard.exampleserver.xyz
DocumentRoot /var/www/kanboard
<Directory /var/www/kanboard>
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/kanboard.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/kanboard.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/kanboard.exampleserver.xyz.crt
SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl/kanboard.exampleserver.xyz.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/kanboard.exampleserver.xyz.key
# 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 kanboard http only virtual host and enable the new virtual host config.
$ sudo a2dissite kanboard
$ sudo a2ensite kanboard-ssl
The new virtual host configuration need Apache mod_ssl module. We need to enable the module.
$ sudo a2enmod ssl
Now, restart 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
Kanboard installation is complete. You can extend Kanboard functionality using plugins. You can learn more about Kanboard from Kanboard documentation.
Summary
In this tutorial we learned how to install Kanboard on Ubuntu 14.04. We installed all the prerequisites, created a user and database on MySQL for Kanboard and also configure Apache 2 virtual hosts to be able to serve Kanboard. Hopefully Kanboard will help you and your team manage time and report time better across all of your projects.
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