Guide to Installing Anchor CMS on CentOS 7

Anchor is a lightweight, open-source blogging CMS written in PHP. Its source code is hosted on GitHub. This guide provides a step-by-step tutorial for installing Anchor CMS on a CentOS 7 system.

Requirements

Your server must meet the following requirements:

MySQL 5.6 or greater (MySQL 5.7 recommended)
PHP 5.6 or greater with these PHP extensions: curl, mcrypt, gd, mbstring, pdo_mysql or pdo_sqlite
Apache or Nginx (Nginx used in this tutorial)

Prerequisites

CentOS 7 operating system
A non-root user with sudo privileges

Initial Steps

First, verify your CentOS system version:

cat /etc/centos-release
# CentOS Linux release 7.5.1804 (Core)

Set the timezone:

timedatectl list-timezones
sudo timedatectl set-timezone 'Region/City'

Update your operating system’s packages:

sudo yum update -y

Install useful packages if they are not already installed:

sudo yum install -y vim wget curl git unzip bash-completion

Step 1 – Install PHP and Necessary PHP Extensions

Since the default CentOS repositories have an older version of PHP, add the Webtatic repository to get a newer version.

Setup the Webtatic YUM repo:

sudo rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm

Install PHP along with the required extensions:

sudo yum install -y php72w php72w-cli php72w-fpm php72w-common php72w-mbstring php72w-curl php72w-mysql php72w-sqlite3 php72w-gd php72w-mcrypt php72w-dom

Verify PHP version:

php --version

# PHP 7.2.12 (cli) (built: Nov 11 2018 14:54:16) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies

Start and enable PHP-FPM service:

sudo systemctl start php-fpm.service
sudo systemctl enable php-fpm.service

Step 2 – Install MariaDB and Create a Database for Anchor CMS

Anchor supports MySQL/MariaDB and SQLite databases. Use the official MariaDB repository for an up-to-date version.

Create the MariaDB YUM repository:

sudo vim /etc/yum.repos.d/MariaDB.repo

Paste the following into the file:

# MariaDB 10.2 CentOS repository list - created 2017-12-11 23:19 UTC
# http://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories/
[mariadb]
name=MariaDB
baseurl=https://yum.mariadb.org/10.2/centos7-amd64
gpgkey=https://yum.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck=1

Install MariaDB:

sudo yum install -y MariaDB-server MariaDB-client

Verify the MariaDB version:

mysql --version
# mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.2.19-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1

Start and enable MariaDB service:

sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

Run the MySQL secure installation script:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Configure MariaDB with the steps below:

Enter current password for root (enter for none):
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]:  Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]:  Y

Log into MariaDB shell:

mysql -u root -p
# Enter password

Create a MariaDB database and user for Anchor CMS:

CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit MariaDB shell:

quit

Step 3 – Install and Configure Nginx

Install Nginx:

sudo yum install -y nginx

Verify Nginx version:

nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.12.2

Start and enable Nginx service:

sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

Create the Nginx configuration file for Anchor:

sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/anchor.conf

Add the following configuration to the file:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    root /var/www/anchor;
    index index.php index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
    }
    
    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri =404;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

Test Nginx configuration:

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx:

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Step 4 – Install Composer

Install Composer, the dependency manager for PHP:

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php -r "if (hash_file('SHA384', 'composer-setup.php') === '93b54496392c062774670ac18b134c3b3a95e5a5e5c8f1a9f115f203b75bf9a129d5daa8ba6a13e2cc8a1da0806388a8') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
php composer-setup.php
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Verify Composer version:

composer --version
# Composer version 1.8.0 2018-12-03 10:31:16

Step 5 – Install Anchor CMS

Create a document root directory:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/anchor

Change ownership of the directory to your user:

sudo chown -R [your_user]:[your_user] /var/www/anchor

Navigate to the document root:

cd /var/www/anchor

Download Anchor CMS using Composer:

composer create-project anchorcms/anchor-cms .

Change ownership of the /var/www/anchor directory to nginx:

sudo chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/anchor

Create the directory /var/lib/php/session and set ownership to nginx:

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/php/session && sudo chown -R nginx:nginx /var/lib/php

Update PHP-FPM user and group settings to nginx by editing the configuration file:

sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
# user = nginx
# group = nginx

Restart the PHP-FPM service:

sudo systemctl restart php-fpm.service

Step 6 – Complete the Anchor CMS Setup

Open your web browser and visit http://example.com. You should see the installation page:

Click “Run the installer” to start the web installer. Then, configure language and timezone:

Select your settings and click “Next Step” to proceed to the database configuration:

Enter database details and click “Next Step.” Proceed to site metadata configuration page:

Set your site name and description, or leave defaults. Move on to creating your first account:

After creating the account, click “Complete” to finish the installation. For security, remove the install folder:

sudo rm -rf /var/www/anchor/install

FAQ

What version of PHP is required for Anchor CMS?: Anchor CMS requires PHP 5.6 or greater.
Can I use Apache web server instead of Nginx?: Yes, although this tutorial demonstrates installation with Nginx, Anchor CMS is compatible with Apache as well.
How do I secure my MariaDB installation?: After installation, run the mysql_secure_installation script to enhance security.
What should I do if I encounter permission issues?: Ensure that the ownership settings of your directories and files are correctly assigned to Nginx or the relevant user.