Install Grav on Nginx : Modern, Flat File, PHP Powered CMS

Abhishek Ghosh

By Abhishek Ghosh June 11, 2016 8:41 pm Updated on June 11, 2016

Install Grav on Nginx : Modern, Flat File, PHP Powered CMS

There are lot of PHP powered Static Website builders now. Grav is A Modern, Light, File-Based, PHP Powered CMS Suitable For Small Blog, Profile Website, Documentation, Official Website of Business. Here is How to Install Grav on Nginx on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Cloud Server Instance. . This is also a self-reminder that Grav exists.

How to Install Grav on Nginx on Ubuntu 16.04 : Before We Begin

Grav has a built-in command-line interface (CLI) installed at bin/grav. This CLI is extremely useful for running day to day tasks such as updating, clearing cache, creating backups, and more. It is a Flat-File CMS – which makes database headache free. PHP is bad but PHP is the practical option in most of cases. One major reason of using WordPress is PHP. But WordPress is too heavy now. Making new WordPress installation lighter sucks a huge time. Basically, WordPress – Joomla – Drupal – Magento are the practical options. After Jekyll, OctoPress came; it became quite popular. But Ruby is not exactly easy to publish a post. We can not easily use the PHP functions directly. With Grav, we can see the created files with any FTP software like FileZilla or using Command Line File Browser. In other words – everything can be done from SSH, however there is a decent web GUI for the Admin part.

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We are using the word CMS quite loosely. WordPress in strict sense is not a CMS but basically WordPress is also not only a blogging software.

This is GitHub Repository of Grav :

https://github.com/getgrav/

1	https://github.com/getgrav/

If you are running Nginx, then this is your normal webroot in deb based GNU/Linux :

/usr/share/nginx/html

1	/usr/share/nginx/html

If you are NOT running Nginx, then follow our Nginx-WordPress-Ubuntu 16.04 guide to Install only Nginx and PHP part.

Now, first cd to /usr/share/nginx/html and do these steps :

cd /usr/share/nginx/html
adduser grav
locate www.conf
## cd to the path of ..fpm/pool.d/
## where www.conf resides
nano grav.conf

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cd /usr/share/nginx/html

adduser grav

locate www.conf

## cd to the path of ..fpm/pool.d/

## where www.conf resides

nano grav.conf

Add the following :

[grav]

user = grav
group = grav
listen = /var/php/php7.0-fpm.grav.sock; 
listen.owner = www-data
listen.group = www-data
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 5
pm.start_servers = 2
pm.min_spare_servers = 1
pm.max_spare_servers = 3
chdir = /

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[grav]

user = grav

group = grav

listen = /var/php/php7.0-fpm.grav.sock;

listen.owner = www-data

listen.group = www-data

pm = dynamic

pm.max_children = 5

pm.start_servers = 2

pm.min_spare_servers = 1

pm.max_spare_servers = 3

chdir = /

This is an approximate default nginx configuration for Nginx, Ubuntu 16.04, PHP-FPM :

server { 
    listen 80 default_server; 
    root /usr/share/nginx/html/grav; 
    index index.html index.htm index.php; 
    server_name localhost; 
    location / { 
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args; 
    } 
# for grav starts
	location /user {
		rewrite ^/user/accounts/(.*)$ /error redirect;
		rewrite ^/user/config/(.*)$ /error redirect;
		rewrite ^/user/(.*)\.(txt|md|html|php|yaml|json|twig|sh|bat)$ /error redirect;
	}
	location /cache {
		rewrite ^/cache/(.*) /error redirect;
	}
	location /bin {
		rewrite ^/bin/(.*)$ /error redirect;
	}
	location /system {
		rewrite ^/system/(.*)$ /error redirect;
	}
	location /vendor {
		rewrite ^/vendor/(.*)$ /error redirect;
	}
	access_log off;
        error_log  /var/log/nginx/grav-error.log error;
	sendfile off;
# for grav ends
    location ~ \.php$ { 
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf; 
        # NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini 
        # fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock; 
        	fastcgi_pass unix:/var/php/php7.0-fpm.grav.sock; 
        include fastcgi_params; 
    } 
## Begin - Security
    location ~* /(.git|cache|bin|logs|backups)/.*$ { return 403; }
    location ~* /(system|vendor)/.*\.(txt|xml|md|html|yaml|php|pl|py|cgi|twig|sh|bat)$ { return 403; }
    location ~* /user/.*\.(txt|md|yaml|php|pl|py|cgi|twig|sh|bat)$ { return 403; }
    location ~ /(LICENSE|composer.lock|composer.json|nginx.conf|web.config|htaccess.txt|\.htaccess) { return 403; }
## End - Security

}

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server {

listen 80 default_server;

root /usr/share/nginx/html/grav;

index index.html index.htm index.php;

server_name localhost;

location / {

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;

}

# for grav starts

location /user {

rewrite ^/user/accounts/(.*)$ /error redirect;

rewrite ^/user/config/(.*)$ /error redirect;

}

location /cache {

rewrite ^/cache/(.*) /error redirect;

}

location /bin {

rewrite ^/bin/(.*)$ /error redirect;

}

location /system {

rewrite ^/system/(.*)$ /error redirect;

}

location /vendor {

rewrite ^/vendor/(.*)$ /error redirect;

}

access_log off;

error_log /var/log/nginx/grav-error.log error;

sendfile off;

# for grav ends

location ~ \.php$ {

include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;

# NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini

# fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;

fastcgi_pass unix:/var/php/php7.0-fpm.grav.sock;

include fastcgi_params;

}

## Begin - Security

location ~* /(.git|cache|bin|logs|backups)/.*$ { return 403; }

location ~* /(system|vendor)/.*\.(txt|xml|md|html|yaml|php|pl|py|cgi|twig|sh|bat)$ { return 403; }

location ~* /user/.*\.(txt|md|yaml|php|pl|py|cgi|twig|sh|bat)$ { return 403; }

location ~ /(LICENSE|composer.lock|composer.json|nginx.conf|web.config|htaccess.txt|\.htaccess) { return 403; }

## End - Security

}

To run the Grav CLI to create a new project, we need to go the webroot. We can change our username to grav.

cd /usr/share/nginx/html
git clone https://github.com/getgrav/grav.git
cd grav
su grav
bin/grav install
# example to install admin plugin
bin/gpm install admin

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cd /usr/share/nginx/html

git clone https://github.com/getgrav/grav.git

cd grav

su grav

bin/grav install

# example to install admin plugin

bin/gpm install admin

Admin will be at :

http://yoursite.com/admin

1	http://yoursite.com/admin

Here is Plugin and Grav CLI docs :

https://learn.getgrav.org/cli-console/grav-cli-plugin

1	https://learn.getgrav.org/cli-console/grav-cli-plugin

They have another CLI tool :

https://learn.getgrav.org/cli-console/grav-cli-gpm

1	https://learn.getgrav.org/cli-console/grav-cli-gpm

We need to add alias php="php-cli" in .bashrc. Restart the services :

sudo systemctl restart php7.0-fpm 
service nginx restart

1 2	sudo systemctl restart php7.0-fpm service nginx restart

Install Grav on Nginx : Modern, Flat File, PHP Powered CMS

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Install Grav on Nginx : Modern, Flat File, PHP Powered CMS

How to Install Grav on Nginx on Ubuntu 16.04 : Before We Begin

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