Learn How To Install Polr on CentOS 8

May 13, 2019

Table of Contents

If you are using a different system, please check our other tutorials.

Introduction

Polr is a free and open-source link shortener written in PHP and Lumen. It allows you to quickly host your own URL shortener. It’s significant features include a management dashboard, detailed link analytics, and an API. This tutorial will guide you through the process of installing Polr on CentOS 8.

Prerequisites

This tutorial requires An ITWeb.Services Cloud Compute instance with CentOS 8 and root access, and a valid domain name pointing to your server.

Install Apache

Polr requires a web server, a MySQL database, and PHP. For this tutorial we will be using the Apache web server.

Install the Apache web server.

dnf install httpd -y
systemctl enable httpd.service

Open ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) through the firewall to be able to access the server from the internet.

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=http
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Create a new Apache configuration file for the Polr installation.

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/polr.conf

Paste the following snippet into the newly created file, replacing example.com with your own domain name.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias example.com
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/public"
    <Directory "/var/www/html/public">
        Require all granted
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Install PHP

Polr requires PHP and a number of PHP modules. Install PHP and the PHP modules required by Polr.

dnf install php php-xml php-pdo php-mysqlnd php-mbstring php-tokenizer php-json php-curl -y

Install MySQL & Create a Database

Polr stores data in an SQL database. Install and enable the MySQL server.

dnf install mysql-server -y
systemctl enable mysqld.service
systemctl start mysqld.service

Secure the MySQL installation installation by running the provided script.

mysql_secure_installation

When prompted for a root password, choose a safe password and proceed through the installation.

Would you like to setup VALIDATE PASSWORD plugin? [Y/N] N
New password: <Your Password>
Re-enter new password: <Your Password>
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

Login to the MySQL console.

mysql -u root -p

When asked for a password, enter the root password created earlier. Once you are logged in to the console, create a new database for Polr.

mysql>CREATE DATABASE polr;

Create a new database user and grant it privileges to the created database. You can replace username and password with the username and password of your choice.

mysql>CREATE USER 'username'@'localhost' identified by 'password';
mysql>GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES on polr.* to 'username'@'localhost';
mysql>FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit the MySQL console.

mysql>exit

Install Polr

Install git and clone the Polr repository from Github.

dnf install git -y
cd /var/www/html
git clone https://github.com/cydrobolt/polr.git --depth=1

Move the downloaded files to the root of the webserver.

mv ./polr/.[!.]* . && mv ./polr/* . && rm -rf polr

Download the Composr package. This is required to install dependencies.

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Install the dependencies with Composr.

php composer.phar install --no-dev -o

Copy the provided configuration file to enable the web-based installer.

cp .env.setup .env

Set the appropriate file permissions.

chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/
chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t storage .env

Start the Apache web server.

systemctl start httpd.service

Complete the installation

Navigate to example.com/setup to launch the web-based Polr installer and enter the required information. Use the MySQL credentials created earlier for database configuration. Once you have submitted the setup form, the Polr installation will be completed.

Need help?

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