Installing and containing custom applications/software

Support
1

Hello everyone, thanks for reading and contributing to the community. I’m a novice user and sys-admin, as intended, and at the moment I’m using my fbx for syncing a few directories (syncthing) and my calendar/contacts (radicale), I’m looking to expand my usage a little by little as to not get overwhelmed… (I have used debian for my personal computers for many years but never really done any sys-admin, just install/update, so I’m slightly used to very basic gnu/linux commandline and package-managers)

I hope this is the right place for this topic, otherwise I’m happy to get information on where to ask this instead.

Problem Description
I want to install dokuwiki on my fbx as it has some features (file-storage, an active community, and it’s the wiki I’ve worked the most with so I know how to make it work and look like I want it) mostly as a personal wiki but also to share it, in parts, on occasion. (I have set-up and used several dokuwikis on web-hosts with a panel similar to fbx, but not manually)

I’m aware that both MediaWiki and ikiwiki are already in fbx, but they don’t suit me. I’d rather spend time on learning how to install custom software and tinker with that from time to time than to spend some time everyday in a system I don’t like

My highest priority is to not brake my fbx in a way that would require me to reset it, although I do back-ups of my data that I store on a separate ssd I would very much prefer to not have to do it.

Questions

  • How would I go about installing (and accessing) a custom php/apache application?
  • dokuwiki exists in debian so I could apt-get install dokuwiki, is that the safer option (with safer I mean most likely to not break other things), or is it safer to install it manually from downloaded files?

Information

  • FreedomBox version: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) and FreedomBox version 20.8. FreedomBox is up to date.
  • Hardware: Pioneer
  • How did you install FreedomBox? bought pre-installed hardware (that I reset using the updated image)
2 Likes
2

To install a custom package, get it from which ever source you like and then configure Apache. Installing with apt-get is recommended as you get automatic security upgrades with it. After this you need to configure Apache for your application. You should consult dockwiki documentation for this, but roughly speaking you will need to create a file /etc/apache2/conf-available/my-docuwiki.conf and write something like

Alias /docuwiki /path/to/docuwiki/

and run

a2enconf my-docuwiki

This is needed only if the Debian package already does not provide the configuration file. See examples in /etc/apache2/conf-available/ for configuration files provided by FreedomBox. You don’t have worry about PHP configuration or Let’s Encrypt certificates as they are taken care of by FreedomBox. You will then need to proceed and configure docuwiki (such as database etc.). Follow the usual process as you would with Debian. FreedomBox will mostly stay out of the way.

3

Thank you, this worked really well.