Install Drupal on an Ubuntu VPS

Drupal is a powerful content management system for dynamic websites.

What you need

• An Ubuntu VPS with SSH access.
• An SSH client (PuTTY on Windows; the terminal on Linux and macOS).
• Root or sudo access.
• A domain name pointed to the VPS, or the server IP.
• Basic Linux command skills.

Step 1: Install Apache

sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2

Open the server IP in a browser to check that the Apache page shows.

Step 2: Install MySQL

sudo apt install mysql-server

Check the service:

sudo systemctl status mysql

Step 3: Install PHP

sudo apt install php php-mysql libapache2-mod-php php-gd php-xml php-mbstring php-curl

Check PHP with a test file:

sudo nano /var/www/html/info.php

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Open http://your_server_ip/info.php. Delete the file when you are done:

sudo rm /var/www/html/info.php

Step 4: Create the database

sudo mysql
CREATE DATABASE drupal CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_general_ci;
CREATE USER 'drupaluser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal.* TO 'drupaluser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 5: Download Drupal

cd /tmp
wget https://www.drupal.org/download-latest/tar.gz -O drupal.tar.gz
tar -zxvf drupal.tar.gz
sudo mkdir /var/www/html/mydrupalsite
sudo mv drupal-*/* drupal-*/.htaccess /var/www/html/mydrupalsite/

Step 6: Set permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/mydrupalsite
sudo find /var/www/html/mydrupalsite -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo find /var/www/html/mydrupalsite -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Also enable URL rewriting for clean URLs and allow .htaccess:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

In your virtual host or /etc/apache2/apache2.conf set AllowOverride All for /var/www/html, then restart Apache:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 7: Run the web installer

Open http://your_server_ip/mydrupalsite. The installer starts.

1. Choose a language and an installation profile (Standard is fine), then Save and continue.
2. For the database choose MySQL, MariaDB, or equivalent.
3. Enter the database name drupal, the user and the password you created. Keep the host as localhost.
4. Finish by setting the site name and the administrator account.

Step 8: Finish

Save the administrator login. Drupal sets the settings file read-only after the install. If it shows a warning, run:

sudo chmod 444 /var/www/html/mydrupalsite/sites/default/settings.php

Quick recap

• Install Apache, MySQL and PHP, create a database.
• Download Drupal to the web root and set ownership.
• Finish in the browser installer.