Installation

Get your own instance of Elgg running in no time.

Requirements

  • MySQL 5.5.3+ (5.0.0+ if upgrading an existing installation)

  • PHP 7.2+ with the following extensions:

    • GD (for graphics processing)
    • PDO (for database connection)
    • JSON (for AJAX responses, etc.)
    • XML (for reading plugin manifest files, etc.)
    • Multibyte String support (for i18n)
    • Proper configuration and ability to send email through an MTA
  • Web server with support for URL rewriting

Official support is provided for the following configurations:

  • Apache server
    • Apache with the rewrite module enabled
    • PHP running as an Apache module
  • Nginx server
    • Nginx with PHP-FPM using FastCGI

By “official support”, we mean that:

  • Most development and testing is performed with these configurations
  • Much of the installation documentation is written assuming Apache or Nginx is used
  • Priority on bug reports is given to Apache and Nginx users if the bug is web server specific (but those are rare).

Note

If using RHEL, CentOS, or any other distribution with SELinux enabled, you will need to make sure that the appropriate contexts and permissions are configured:

  • Give your project root, your data directory, and all of their children the httpd_sys_rw_content_t context
  • Enable the httpd_can_network_connect and httpd_can_network_connect_db booleans

Browser support policy

Feature branches support the latest 2 versions of all major browsers as were available at the time of the first stable release on that branch.

Bugfix release will not alter browser support, even if a new version of the browser has since been released.

Major browsers here means all of the following, plus their mobile counterparts:

  • Android Browser
  • Chrome
  • Firefox
  • IE
  • Safari

“Support” may mean that we take advantage of newer, unimplemented technologies but provide a JavaScript polyfill for the browsers that need it.

You may find that Elgg happens to work on unsupported browsers, but compatibility may break at any time, even during a bugfix release.

Overview

Upload Elgg

With Composer (recommended if comfortable with CLI):

composer self-update
composer create-project elgg/starter-project:dev-master ./path/to/project/root
cd ./path/to/project/root
composer install
composer install # 2nd call is currently required
vendor/bin/elgg-cli install # follow the questions to provide installation details

From pre-packaged zip (recommended if not comfortable with CLI):

  • Download the latest version of Elgg
  • Upload the ZIP file with an FTP client to your server
  • Unzip the files in your domain’s document root.

Create a data folder

Elgg needs a special folder to store uploaded files including profile icons and photos. You will need to create this directory.

Attention

For security reasons, this folder MUST be stored outside of your document root. If you created it under /www/ or /public_html/, you’re doing it wrong.

Once this folder has been created, you’ll need to make sure the web server Elgg is running on has permission to write to and create directories in it. This shouldn’t be a problem on Windows-based servers, but if your server runs Linux, Mac OS X or a UNIX variant, you’ll need to set the permissions on the directory.

If you are using a graphical FTP client to upload files, you can usually set permissions by right clicking on the folder and selecting ‘properties’ or ‘Get Info’.

Note

Directories must be executable to be read and written to. The suggested permissions depend upon the exact server and user configuration. If the data directory is owned by the web server user, the recommended permissions are 750.

Warning

Setting your data directory to 777 will work, but it is insecure and is not recommended. If you are unsure how to correctly set permissions, contact your host for more information.

Create a MySQL database

Using your database administration tool of choice (if you’re unsure about this, ask your system administrator), create a new MySQL database for Elgg. You can create a MySQL database with any of the following tools:

Make sure you add a user to the database with all privileges and record the database name, username and password. You will need this information when installing Elgg.

Set up Cron

Elgg uses timed requests to your site to perform background tasks like sending notifications or performing database cleanup jobs. You need to configure the cron to be able to use those kind of features.

Visit your Elgg site

Once you’ve performed these steps, visit your Elgg site in your web browser. Elgg will take you through the rest of the installation process from there. The first account that you create at the end of the installation process will be an administrator account.

A note on settings.php and .htaccess

The Elgg installer will try to create two files for you:

  • elgg-config/settings.php, which contains local environment configuration for your installation
  • .htaccess, which allows Elgg to generate dynamic URLs

If these files can’t be automatically generated, for example because the web server doesn’t have write permissions in the directories, Elgg will tell you how to create them. You could also temporarily change the permissions on the root directory and the engine directory. Set the permissions on those two directories so that the web server can write those two files, complete the install process, and them change the permissions back to their original settings. If, for some reason, this won’t work, you will need to:

  • In elgg-config/, copy settings.example.php to settings.php, open it up in a text editor and fill in your database details
  • On Apache server, copy install/config/htaccess.dist to .htaccess
  • On Nginx server copy install/config/nginx.dist to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled and adjust it’s contents

Troubleshooting

Help! I’m having trouble installing Elgg

First:

  • Recheck that your server meets the technical requirements for Elgg.
  • Follow the environment-specific instructions if need be
  • Have you verified that mod_rewrite is being loaded?
  • Is the mysql apache being loaded?

Keep notes on steps that you take to fix the install. Sometimes changing some setting or file to try to fix a problem may cause some other problem later on. If you need to start over, just delete all the files, drop your database, and begin again.

I can’t save my settings on installation (I get a 404 error when saving settings)

Elgg relies on the mod_rewrite Apache extension in order to simulate certain URLs. For example, whenever you perform an action in Elgg, or when you visit a user’s profile, the URL is translated by the server into something Elgg understands internally. This is done using rules defined in an .htaccess file, which is Apache’s standard way of defining extra configuration for a site.

This error suggests that the mod_rewrite rules aren’t being picked up correctly. This may be for several reasons. If you’re not comfortable implementing the solutions provided below, we strongly recommend that you contact your system administrator or technical support and forward this page to them.

The .htaccess, if not generated automatically (that happens when you have problem with mod_rewrite), you can create it by renaming install/config/htaccess.dist file you find with elgg package to .htaccess. Also if you find a .htaccess file inside the installation path, but you are still getting 404 error, make sure the contents of .htaccess are same as that of install/config/htaccess.dist.

``mod_rewrite`` isn’t installed.

Check your httpd.conf to make sure that this module is being loaded by Apache. You may have to restart Apache to get it to pick up any changes in configuration. You can also use PHP info to check to see if the module is being loaded.

The rules in ``.htaccess`` aren’t being obeyed.

In your virtual host configuration settings (which may be contained within httpd.conf), change the AllowOverride setting so that it reads:

AllowOverride all

This will tell Apache to pick up the mod_rewrite rules from .htaccess.

Elgg is not installed in the root of your web directory (ex: http://example.org/elgg/ instead of http://example.org/)

The install script redirects me to “action” when it should be “actions”

This is a problem with your mod_rewrite setup.

Attention

DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT change any directory names!

I installed in a subdirectory and my install action isn’t working!

If you installed Elgg so that it is reached with an address like http://example.org/mysite/ rather than http://example.org/, there is a small chance that the rewrite rules in .htaccess will not be processed correctly. This is usually due to using an alias with Apache. You may need to give mod_rewrite a pointer to where your Elgg installation is.

  • Open up .htaccess in a text editor
  • Where prompted, add a line like RewriteBase /path/to/your/elgg/installation/ (Don’t forget the trailing slash)
  • Save the file and refresh your browser.

Please note that the path you are using is the web path, minus the host.

For example, if you reach your elgg install at http://example.org/elgg/, you would set the base like this:

RewriteBase /elgg/

Please note that installing in a subdirectory does not require using RewriteBase. There are only some rare circumstances when it is needed due to the set up of the server.

I did everything! mod_rewrite is working fine, but still the 404 error

Maybe there is a problem with the file .htaccess. Sometimes the elgg install routine is unable to create one and unable to tell you that. If you are on this point and tried everything that is written above:

  • check if it is really the elgg-created .htaccess (not only a dummy provided from the server provider)
  • if it is not the elgg provided htaccess file, use the htaccess_dist (rename it to .htaccess)

I get an error message that the rewrite test failed after the requirements check page

I get the following messages after the requirements check step (step 2) of the install:

We think your server is running the Apache web server.

The rewrite test failed and the most likely cause is that AllowOverride is not set to All for Elgg’s directory. This prevents Apache from processing the .htaccess file which contains the rewrite rules.

A less likely cause is Apache is configured with an alias for your Elgg directory and you need to set the RewriteBase in your .htaccess. There are further instructions in the .htaccess file in your Elgg directory.

After this error, every interaction with the web interface results in a error 500 (Internal Server Error)

This is likely caused by not loading the “filter module by un-commenting the

#LoadModule filter_module modules/mod_filter.so

line in the “httpd.conf” file.

the Apache “error.log” file will contain an entry similar to:

… .htaccess: Invalid command ‘AddOutputFilterByType’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

There is a white page after I submit my database settings

Check that the Apache mysql module is installed and is being loaded.

I’m getting a 404 error with a really long url

If you see a 404 error during the install or on the creation of the first user with a url like: http://example.com/homepages/26/d147515119/htdocs/elgg/action/register that means your site url is incorrect in your sites_entity table in your database. This was set by you on the second page of the install. Elgg tries to guess the correct value but has difficulty with shared hosting sites. Use phpMyAdmin to edit this value to the correct base url.

I am having trouble setting my data path

This is highly server specific so it is difficult to give specific advice. If you have created a directory for uploading data, make sure your http server can access it. The easiest (but least secure) way to do this is give it permissions 777. It is better to give the web server ownership of the directory and limit the permissions.

Warning

Setting directory permissions to 777 allows the ENTIRE internet to place files in your directory structure an possibly infect you webserver with malware. Setting permissions to 750 should be more than enough.

The top cause of this issue is PHP configured to prevent access to most directories using open_basedir. You may want to check with your hosting provider on this.

Make sure the path is correct and ends with a /. You can check the path in your database in the config table.

If you only have ftp access to your server and created a directory but do not know the path of it, you might be able to figure it out from the www file path set in your config database table. Asking for help from your hosting help team is recommended at this stage.

I can’t validate my admin account because I don’t have an email server!

While it’s true that normal accounts (aside from those created from the admin panel) require their email address to be authenticated before they can log in, the admin account does not.

Once you have registered your first account you will be able to log in using the credentials you have provided!

I have tried all of these suggestions and I still cannot install Elgg

It is possible that during the process of debugging your install you have broken something else. Try doing a clean install:

  • drop your elgg database
  • delete your data directory
  • delete the Elgg source files
  • start over

If that fails, seek the help of the Elgg community. Be sure to mention what version of Elgg you are installing, details of your server platform, and any error messages that you may have received including ones in the error log of your server.