How to Install Webtrees on NixOS

Webtrees is an open source web-based genealogy application. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Webtrees on NixOS.

Prerequisites

• Access to a NixOS system with the root access or a user account with sudo privileges.

Step 1: Open the Terminal

Open the terminal on your NixOS system.

Step 2: Update the System

Before proceeding, update the system packages to ensure that you have the latest software installed on your system.

To update the system, run the following command:

sudo nix-channel --update
sudo nixos-rebuild switch

Step 3: Install PHP

Webtrees is written in PHP, so you need to install PHP and some PHP extensions required by Webtrees.

To install PHP, run the following command:

sudo nix-env -i php php-fpm php-mysql php-gd php-zip

Step 4: Install a Web Server

Webtrees requires a web server to run. You can choose between Apache or Nginx. In this tutorial, we will install Nginx.

To install Nginx, run the following command:

sudo nix-env -i nginx

Step 5: Configure Nginx

Next, you need to create a new Nginx server block for Webtrees.

Open the Nginx configuration file using your favorite text editor:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Scroll down to the http section and add the following lines:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name your-domain-name.com;
    root /var/www/webtrees;
    index index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
    }
    location ~ \.php$ {
           try_files $uri /index.php =404;
           fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
           fastcgi_index index.php;
           fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
           include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Replace your-domain-name.com with your actual domain name. Save and close the file.

Restart Nginx to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 6: Download and Install Webtrees

Download Webtrees from the official website:

wget https://github.com/fisharebest/webtrees/releases/download/2.0.11/webtrees-2.0.11.zip

Extract the downloaded file to the default document root directory of Nginx:

sudo unzip -d /var/www/ webtrees-2.0.11.zip

Rename the extracted directory to webtrees:

sudo mv /var/www/webtrees-2.0.11 /var/www/webtrees

Change the ownership of the webtrees directory to the Nginx user:

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

Step 7: Configure Webtrees

Open the config.ini.php configuration file:

sudo nano /var/www/webtrees/data/config.ini.php

Edit the following lines:

[DATABASE]
db_type = "mysql"
db_host = "localhost"
db_user = "webtrees_user"
db_pass = "webtrees_password"
db_name = "webtrees_db_name"

Replace the database credentials with your actual database credentials.

Save and close the file.

Step 8: Create a MySQL Database

Connect to your MySQL database server:

mysql -u root -p

Create a new database for Webtrees:

CREATE DATABASE webtrees_db_name;

Create a new user for Webtrees:

CREATE USER 'webtrees_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'webtrees_password';

Grant all privileges on the webtrees_db_name database to the webtrees_user:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON webtrees_db_name.* TO 'webtrees_user'@'localhost';

Exit MySQL:

exit

Step 9: Test Webtrees

Finally, open your web browser and go to http://your-domain-name.com. You should see the Webtrees installation wizard.

Follow the prompts to complete the installation.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to install Webtrees on NixOS. You also learned how to configure Nginx, PHP, and MySQL to work with Webtrees.