Install Bludit CMS on Ubuntu 20.04 with Apache

In this article, we’ll explain how to install Bludit CMS on Ubuntu 20.04 with Apache.

Bludit is a web application to build your own website or blog in seconds; it’s completely free and open source. Bludit is a Flat-File CMS, which (in this case) means that Bludit uses files in the JSON format to store the content. You don’t need to install or configure a database; you only need a web server with PHP support.

Prerequisites

• An Ubuntu 20.04 installed dedicated server or KVM VPS.
• A root user access or normal user with administrative privileges.

Install Bludit CMS on Ubuntu 20.04 with Apache

1. Keep the server updated

Update the package repository index, and upgrade the installed packages.

# apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade

2. Install Apache webserver

# apt install apache2 -y

In case, you enabled firewall and firewall block requests of the apache web server, open a port in the firewall.

# ufw allow 80/tcp

# ufw allow 443/tcp

# ufw reload

Start and enable apache2 service.

# systemctl start apache2 && systemctl enable apache2

3. Install PHP and dependency

Here we are installing the default PHP version 7.4 and other modules for web deployments using the following command:

# apt install php php-common php-mysql php-gd php-cli php-fpm php-mbstring php-xml php-json -y

Install unzip tool.

# apt install -y unzip

4. Enable Apache mod_rewrite feature.

The Bludit application requires this module to craft user-friendly URLs.

# a2enmod rewrite

Restart the Apache web server to load the new modules and extensions.

# systemctl restart apache2

With the PHP extensions and mod_rewrite enabled, we can now download the Bludit CMS from the official repository.

5. Download Bludit CMS

Create a bludit directory in the root of your web server.

# mkdir -p /var/www/bludit

Next, navigate to the tmp directory and download current Bludit version from the Official Bludit Repository using the wget command.

# cd /tmp && wget https://www.bludit.com/releases/bludit-3-13-1.zip

Use the unzip command to unpack the bludit-3-13-1.zip archive file.

# unzip bludit-*.zip

Then, move the content of the unzipped bludit-3-13-1 directory to the /var/www/bludit/ directory that you’ve created earlier.

# rsync -rtv bludit-3-13-1/ /var/www/bludit/

Ensure Bludit has the right ownership to the /var/www/bludit directory.

# chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/bludit

You’ve now set the correct server environment for Bludit to work. Next, you’ll create a virtual host file for your Bludit site.

6. Create a Virtual Host File

Create a virtual host bludit.conf.

# nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/bludit.conf

Then, enter the information below into the file. Replace 192.168.0.1 with your domain name or public IP address of your server.

ServerName 192.168.0.1
DocumentRoot /var/www/bludit

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all

Save and close

Then, enable your new /etc/apache2/sites-available/bludit.conf configuration file.

# a2ensite bludit.conf

Restart the Apache web server to load the new virtual host file.

# systemctl restart apache2

The installation has been completed successfully at this stage. Lets navigate to browser and open http:192.168.0.1/install.php.

Follow the setup wizard.

From this point forward, your Bludit site is ready, and you can log in using the admin account and start creating new content for your audience.

In this article, we have explain how to install Bludit CMS on Ubuntu 20.04 with Apache.