How to Install BoltWire CMS on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

BoltWire is a free, open source and an easy to use content management system that can be used to create personal or business websites. It is written in PHP language and it doesn't require a database, all its data is stored in the file system. BoltWire CMS provides lots of features that may not be available to other PHP based CMS, like WordPress. BoltWire provides WYSIWYG support, is SEO friendly, has a flexible CSS framework, and many other features.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to install and configure BoltWire CMS on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS server.

Requirements

• A server running Ubuntu 18.04.
• A static IP address is configured in your server.
• A non-root user with sudo privileges.

Getting Started

Before starting, you will need 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

Install Apache and PHP

BoltWire is written in PHP language and runs on the Apache web server. So, you will need to install Apache, PHP and other PHP libraries to your server. You can install all of them with the following command:

sudo apt-get install apache2 php7.2 libapache2-mod-php7.2 php7.2-common php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-tidy php7.2-intl php7.2-curl php7.2-zip unzip wget curl -y

Once all the packages are installed, open PHP default config file and make some changes:

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini

Make the following changes:

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = Europe/Berlin

Save and close the file, when you are finished. Then, start Apache service and enable it to start on boot time with the following command:

sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl enable apache2

Configure Apache for BoltWire

Next, you will need to create an apache virtual host file for BoltWire. You can do this with the following command:

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

Add the following lines:

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin admin@example.com
     DocumentRoot /var/www/html/boltwire
     ServerName example.com

     <Directory /var/www/html/boltwire>
          Options FollowSymlinks
          AllowOverride All
          Require all granted
     </Directory>

     ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/seopanel_error.log
     CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/seopanel_access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Replace example.com in the above file with your own domain name. Save and close the file. Then, enable BoltWire virtual host file with the following command:

sudo a2ensite boltwire

Next, enable the Apache rewrite module and restart Apache web server to apply all the changes:

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Install BoltWire

First, go to the /tmp directory

cd /tmp

Then download the latest version of BoltWire from their official website using the following command:

wget https://www.boltwire.com/files/6/boltwire6.02.zip

Once the download is completed, unzip the downloaded file with the following command:

unzip boltwire6.02.zip

Next, copy the extracted directory to the Apache web root directory:

sudo mkdir /var/www/html/boltwire
sudo cp -r boltwire /var/www/html/boltwire/

Next, give proper permissions to the Apache web root directory:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/boltwire
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/boltwire

Access BoltWire

To access, open your web browser and type the URL of your server, in my case, the URL is http://example.com/boltwire/start.php. Now, provide a new password that will be used to access your site administration, then click on the SUBMIT button. Later, provide your site password and site ID, the site ID is the name of the folder where the new site is added to and will be visible in the site URL. Then click on the Create Site button. 

Now, open your web browser and type the URL of your site, in my case: http://example.com/testsite/index.php to access your site. Click on "Register" to log into the admin area. The username of the administrator user is 'admin' and the password is the one that you have chosen during site creation.

Successfully logged into BoltWire. Click on Admin to go to the Admin Dashboard.

There click on 'Settings' and start to configure your site.