How to Install Drupal on Ubuntu

How to Install Drupal on Ubuntu

Drupal is an enterprise-grade, open-source content management framework known for its powerful taxonomy system, granular user permissions, and extensibility. It is widely used for government websites, universities, and large-scale media platforms. This guide covers installing Drupal on a Breeze instance running Ubuntu.

Prerequisites

• A Breeze instance with Ubuntu 22.04 or later
• A LAMP or LEMP stack installed
• Composer installed globally
• PHP 8.2 or later with required extensions

Step 1 — Install PHP Extensions

Drupal requires specific PHP extensions. Install them:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y php-gd php-xml php-mbstring php-curl php-zip php-mysql php-opcache php-apcu

Verify your PHP version meets the minimum requirement:

php -v

Step 2 — Create the Database

Create a dedicated MySQL database for Drupal:

sudo mysql -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE drupal_db CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'drupal_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strong_password_here';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal_db.* TO 'drupal_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 3 — Install Drupal via Composer

The recommended way to install Drupal is through Composer, which handles dependencies automatically:

cd /var/www
sudo composer create-project drupal/recommended-project drupal
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/drupal
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/drupal

Step 4 — Configure Apache

Create a virtual host for Drupal:

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

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName yourdomain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/drupal/web

    <Directory /var/www/drupal/web>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/drupal_error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/drupal_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

sudo a2ensite drupal.conf
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Step 5 — Prepare the Settings File

Copy the default settings file and set up the files directory:

cd /var/www/drupal/web
cp sites/default/default.settings.php sites/default/settings.php
mkdir -p sites/default/files
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data sites/default/files
sudo chmod 666 sites/default/settings.php

Step 6 — Complete the Web Installation

Navigate to http://yourdomain.com in your browser. The Drupal installer will walk you through selecting an installation profile, entering database credentials, and configuring your site. After installation, tighten the settings file permissions:

sudo chmod 444 /var/www/drupal/web/sites/default/settings.php

Post-Installation Tips

• Enable the BigPipe module for faster perceived page loads
• Configure cron to run Drupal maintenance tasks: crontab -e and add 0 * * * * cd /var/www/drupal && vendor/bin/drush cron
• Install Drush for command-line site management: composer require drush/drush
• Secure your site with an SSL certificate via Certbot