Install Xibo on Ubuntu 24.04

I have installed Xibo CMS on Ubuntu Server 24.04 using Apache2 as the web server and enforcing TLS using this configuration. I have completed this using the autogenerated self-signed certificates for TLS (not trusted). You will need to follow another guide for creating public-signed certificates. I recommend using Let’s Encrypt with their certbot.

This guide is now updated for installing Xibo CMS 4.0.10.

• The MariaDB version installed here is not currently supported by Xibo.
• The library location is /var/www/Library due to the installer writing the install log file to /var/www/library. The installer requires that the library directory is empty.
• A local install of QuickChart is not covered in this guide but recommended.

Install Requirements

All of the requirements can be installed using apt.

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client apache2 libapache2-mod-xsendfile libapache2-mod-php8.3 php8.3-{cli,gd,mysql,zip,soap,curl,simplexml,mbstring,zmq}

Install Xibo CMS

When I am configuring server software outside of a package manager I always place it under the /srv folder. I will be installing Xibo under /srv/xibo-cms.

sudo mkdir /srv/xibo-cms
cd /srv/xibo-cms
sudo wget https://github.com/xibosignage/xibo-cms/releases/download/4.0.10/xibo-cms-4.0.10.tar.gz

This extracts the contents of the archive without placing it into a folder

sudo tar -xvzf xibo-cms-4.0.10.tar.gz --strip-components=1
sudo rm xibo-cms-4.0.10.tar.gz

The apache2 user ‘www-data’ needs to be set as owner of all the extracted items.

sudo chown -R www-data: /srv/xibo-cms

This deletes the existing /var/www directory and creates a symlink to /srv/xibo-cms.

sudo rm -r /var/www
sudo ln -s /srv/xibo-cms /var/www

Configure Apache2

This enables the necessary apache2 modules and creates a site configuration using vim.

sudo a2enmod rewrite ssl session headers
sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/xibo-cms.conf

xibo-cms.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/web"
    ServerName xibo.domain.com
    XSendFile on
    XSendFilePath /var/www/Library
    <Directory "/var/www/web">
        AllowOverride All
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/web"
    ServerName xibo.domain.com
    XSendFile on
    XSendFilePath /var/www/Library
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile "/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem"
    SSLCertificateKeyFile "/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key"
    <Directory "/var/www/web">
        AllowOverride All
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

This disables the default site and enables the newly created xibo-cms site configuration.

sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
sudo a2ensite xibo-cms.conf

Configure MariaDB

This configures a root password for MariaDB. Make sure to change MY_NEW_PASSWORD to your password of choice. First enter mysql console by runinng sudo mysql, then run these SQL commands.

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'MY_NEW_PASSWORD';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
quit

Configure PHP

PHP configuration needs to be modified to allow upload of larger files.

sudo vim /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini

You need to modify the file to change the following settings

max_execution_time = 300
memory_limit = 256M
post_max_size = 2G
upload_max_filesize = 2G
session.cookie_secure = Off
session.cookie_httponly = On
session.cookie_samesite = Lax

You can do this quickly with sed.

sudo sed -i 's/max_execution_time = 30/max_execution_time = 300/g' /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/memory_limit = -1/memory_limit = 256M/g' /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/post_max_size = 8M/post_max_size = 2G/g' /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/upload_max_filesize = 2M/upload_max_filesize = 2G/g' /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/;session.cookie_secure =/session.cookie_secure = Off/g' /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/session.cookie_httponly =/session.cookie_httponly = On/g' /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini
sudo sed -i 's/session.cookie_samesite =/session.cookie_samesite = Lax/g' /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini

Configure XMR

Create XMR Configuration File

sudo vim /srv/xibo-cms/vendor/xibosignage/xibo-xmr/bin/config.json

Enter the following information and change the pubOn IP address to the public IP of the server. You can view this by running the command “ip address”

{
    "listenOn": "tcp://127.0.0.1:50001",
    "pubOn": ["tcp://192.168.1.1:9505"],
    "debug": false
}

Set www-data as the owner of the file.

sudo chown www-data: /srv/xibo-cms/vendor/xibosignage/xibo-xmr/bin/config.json

Create XMR service

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/xibo-xmr.service

There is an issue with this because it is using php8 by default and you receive the error PHP Fatal error: Unparenthesized `a ? b : c ? d : e` is not supported. Use either `(a ? b : c) ? d : e` or `a ? b : (c ? d : e)` in phar:///srv/xibo-cms/vendor/xibosignage/xibo-xmr/bin/xmr.phar/index.php on line 204. To Resolve this I have forced it to use php8.3 in the ExecStart command.

Enter the following.

[Unit]
Description=Xibo XMR
After=network.target

[Service]
User=www-data
Group=www-data
ExecStart=/usr/bin/php8.3 /srv/xibo-cms/vendor/bin/xmr.phar
Restart=always
KillMode=process
RestartSec=1

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start the service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable xibo-xmr.service
sudo systemctl start xibo-xmr.service

Check the status of the xibo-xmr service to confirm it is working.

sudo systemctl status xibo-xmr.service

Configure XTR

sudo crontab -u www-data -e

Select the editor you prefer and then enter the following line.

* * * * * /usr/bin/php8.3 /srv/xibo-xmr/bin/xtr.php

Configure Firewall

sudo ufw allow ssh
sudo ufw allow http
sudo ufw allow https
sudo ufw allow 9505/tcp
sudo ufw enable

Complete Installation

sudo systemctl restart apache2

You can now browse to the server at the location you configured in the xibo-cms.conf

Upgrading

Backup

The simplest thing to do is to stop apache2 and xibo-xmr service, moving the /srv/xibo-cms directory, and backing up the database.

sudo systemctl stop apache2 xibo-xmr
sudo mv /srv/xibo-cms /srv/xibo-cms.backup
sudo mysqldump xibo-cms > xibo-cms.sql

Create xibo-cms directory and change to it. Download the new version, in this example 4.0.8 extract it and copy back the necessary files. You will also need to delete the install/index.php file to stop a warning from appearing.

Installation

sudo mkdir /srv/xibo-cms
cd /srv/xibo-cms
sudo wget https://github.com/xibosignage/xibo-cms/releases/download/4.0.10/xibo-cms-4.0.10.tar.gz
sudo tar -xvzf xibo-cms-4.0.10.tar.gz --strip-components=1
sudo cp /srv/xibo-cms.backup/web/settings.php web/
sudo cp -r /srv/xibo-cms.backup/Library .
sudo cp /srv/xibo-cms.backup/vendor/xibosignage/xibo-xmr/bin/config.json vendor/xibosignage/xibo-xmr/bin/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /srv/xibo-cms
sudo rm web/install/index.php

If upgrading between versions i.e. 3.x.x to 4.x.x, you will need to upgrade the database with this command which must be run from /srv/xibo-cms directory.

vendor/bin/phinx migrate -c phinx.php

Start up the services again.

sudo systemctl start apache2 xibo-xmr

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