How to Install Typo3 CMS on Debian 9

In this guide, we’ll learn how to install and configure the latest version of Typo3 CMS in Debian 9.

Typo3 is a powerful open source content management system with most parts written in PHP programming language. It is often deployed in Linux under Apache/Nginx web servers, PHP server-side programming language and MySQL/MariaDB database management system, also known as LAMP or LEMP stack.  Typo3 CMS platform is highly flexible and scalable and can be extended without writing any line of code, making it a perfect candidate for deploying small websites or powerful multi-lingual enterprise portals.

Requirements

• Debian 9 minimal installation on a bare-metal machine or on a virtual private server
• sudo root privileges for a local or remote account or direct access to root account
• A static IP address configured for one of your system network interfaces cards
• A domain name, private or public, depending on your deployment, with the proper DNS records configured for web services. If don’t have a valid or a registered domain name you can perform the installation and access the website via your server IP address
• If you want to use website registration, comment moderation and other features, you should have a running mail server properly configured at your premises with remote access to its IMAP and SMTP services.

Prepare the server

Before starting to install and configure Typo from sources in your own server, first assure the system meets all the software requirements for compiling and installing the application.  On the first step, update your system repositories and software packages by issuing the following command.

apt update

apt upgrade

After the system has been fully updated, setup the name for your system by executing the following command. Replace your hostname variable accordingly.

Set the Hostname

hostnamectl set-hostname typo

Verify machine hostname and hosts file by issuing the below commands.

hostnamectl

cat /etc/hostname

hostname –s

hostname –f

Finally, reboot Debian server in order to apply kernel updates and the hostname changes properly.

systemctl reboot

Install required Tools

On the next step, execute the following command in order to install some necessary utilities that will be used to further manage your system from command line.

apt install wget bash-completion zip unzip

Also, install the imagemagick software, required by Typo3 to create, edit, compose or convert bitmap or other types of images format uploaded to website.

apt install imagemagick

Typo3 is a web based CMS platform written mostly in PHP server-side programming language. In order to execute the PHP file scripts of the application, a web server, such as Apache HTTP server, and a PHP processing gateway must be installed and made operational in the system.

Install Apache and PHP

In order to install Apache web server and the PHP interpreter alongside with all required PHP modules needed by the application to run properly, issue the following command in your server console.

apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-php7.0 php7.0 php7.0-zip php7.0-gd php7.0-xml php7.0-gd php7.0-json php7.0-opcache php-imagick  php7.0-curl php7.0-mbstring php7.0-bcmath php7.0-gmp

After Apache and PHP has been installed, test if the web server is up and running and listening for network connections on port 80 by issuing the following command with root privileges.

netstat –tlpn

In case netstat network utility is not installed by default in your Debian system, execute the following command to install it.

apt install net-tools

By inspecting the netstat command output you can see that apache web server is listening for incoming network connections on port 80. For the same task you can also use the ss command, which is automatically installed by default in Debian 9.

ss- tulpn

Configure the Firewall

In case you have a firewall enabled in your system, such as UFW firewall application, you should add a new rule to allow HTTP traffic to pass through the firewall by issuing the following command.

ufw allow WWW

or

ufw allow 80/tcp

If you’re using iptables raw rules to manage Firewall rules in your Debian server, add the following rule to allow port 80 inbound traffic on the firewall so that visitors can browse the website.

apt-get install -y iptables-persistent

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp –destination-port 80 -j ACCEPT

systemctl iptables-persistent save

systemctl iptables-persistent reload

Configure Apache

Next, enable and apply the following Apache modules required by the web application to run properly, by issuing the following command.

a2enmod rewrite deflate headers

systemctl restart apache2

Finally, test if Apache web server default web page can be displayed in your client’s browsers by visiting your Debian machine IP address or your domain name or server FQDN via HTTP protocol, as shown in the below image. If you don’t know your machine IP address, execute ifconfig or ip a commands to reveal the IP address of your server.

http://your_domain.tld

In order to install and access Typo3 web admin panel backed and the frontend website via HTTPS protocol that will secure the traffic for your clients, issue the following command to enable Apache web server SSL module and SSL site configuration file.

a2enmod ssl

a2ensite default-ssl.conf

Next, open Apache default SSL site configuration file with a text editor and enable URL rewrite rules by adding the following lines of code after DocumentRoot directive, as shown in the following sample:

nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl.conf

SSL site configuration file excerpt:

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

Also, make the following change to VirtualHost line to look like shown in the below excerpt:

        <VirtualHost *:443>

Close the SSL Apache file and open the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf file for editing and add the same URL rewrite rules as for SSL configuration file. Insert the lines of code after DocumentRoot statement as shown in the following example.

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

Finally, restart Apache daemon to apply all rules configured so far and visit your domain via HTTP protocol. Because you’re using the automatically Self-Signed certificates pairs issued by Apache at installation, an error warning should be displayed in the browser.

systemctl restart apache2

https://yourdomain.tld

Accept the warning in order to use the untrusted certificate and to continue and be redirected to Apache default web page, as illustrated in the following image.

In case the UFW firewall application blocks incoming network connections to HTTPS port, you should add a new rule to allow HTTPS traffic to pass through the firewall by issuing the following command.

ufw allow ‘WWW Full’

or

ufw allow 443/tcp

If iptables is the default firewall application installed to protect your Debian system at the network level, add the following rule to allow port 443 inbound traffic in the firewall so that visitors can browse your domain name.

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp –destination-port 443 -j ACCEPT

systemctl iptables-persistent save

systemctl iptables-persistent reload

Configure PHP

In the next step, we need to make some further changes to the PHP default configuration file in order to assure that the following PHP variables are enabled and the PHP timezone setting is correctly configured and matches your system geographical location.  Open the /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini file for editing and assure that the following lines are setup as follows. Also, initially, make a backup of PHP configuration file.

cp /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini{,.backup}

nano /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini

Search, edit and change the following variables in the php.ini configuration file:

file_uploads = On
memory_limit = 128 M
upload_max_file_size = 64M
max_execution_time = 240
max_input_vars = 1500
date.timezone = Europe/London

opcache.enable=1 
opcache.enable_cli=1 
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8 
opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000 
opcache.memory_consumption=128 
opcache.save_comments=1
opcache.revalidate_freq=1

use mysql;
update user set plugin='' where user='root';
flush privileges;
exit

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!
In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MariaDB, 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...
Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MariaDB
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] y
New password:
Re-enter new password:
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!
By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB 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!
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!
By default, MariaDB 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...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!
Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!
Cleaning up...
All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MariaDB
installation should now be secure.
Thanks for using MariaDB!

ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)

Enter password:
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 15
Server version: 10.1.26-MariaDB-0+deb9u1 Debian 9.1
Copyright (c) 2000, 2017, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
MariaDB [(none)]> exit
Bye

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 2
Server version: 10.1.26-MariaDB-0+deb9u1 Debian 9.1
Copyright (c) 2000, 2017, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
MariaDB [(none)]> create database typo;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
 
MariaDB [(none)]> grant all privileges on typo.* to 'typo_user' identified by 'password1';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
 
MariaDB [(none)]> flush privileges;   
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
 
MariaDB [(none)]> exit
Bye

# Modify PHP settings
php_flag register_globals off
php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off
php_value upload_max_filesize 500M
php_value post_max_size 500M

# Redirect to HTTPS
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</IfModule>