Installation on Debian/Ubuntu #
This tutorial will give you step-by-step commands to install the latest stable release of FreshRSS with Apache and MySQL using git. It’s always recommended that you backup your installation before updating
Please note: Commands need to be run as an administrator; either perform the following from a sudo shell (sudo -s) or use an administrator account.
Part 1: Setting up and configuring the LAMP stack #
Begin by installing Apache, and enable Apache modules needed for FreshRSS
apt install apache2
a2enmod headers expires rewrite ssl
Then, you have to configure Apache. You can create a file in /etc/apache2/sites-available, based on our example configuration file. Once you’re done, create a symbolic link from this file to the sites-enabled folder:
ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/freshrss.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/freshrss.conf
Next, install PHP and the necessary modules
apt install php php-curl php-gmp php-intl php-mbstring php-sqlite3 php-xml php-zip
Install the PHP module for Apache
apt install libapache2-mod-php
Next, we’ll need to install and configure MySQL. Install MySQL components like so:
sudo apt install mysql-server mysql-client php-mysql
MySQL must now be started:
service mysql-server start
We’ll need to configure MySQL. Note: As you’ve just installed mysql, there will be no root password; simply hit enter on the first step
mysql_secure_installation
And restart it
service mysql-server restart
Finally, restart MySQL and the web server
service apache2 restart
Part 2: Installing FreshRSS #
Begin by installing git, if you don’t already have it installed.
apt install git
Next, change to the install directory and download FreshRSS using git
cd /usr/share/
git clone https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS.git
Change to the new FreshRSS directory, and set the permissions so that your Web server can access the files
cd FreshRSS
sudo cli/access-permissions.sh
Optional: If you would like to allow updates from the Web interface, set write permissions (reduces slightly the security)
# Debian
chown www-data:www-data -R .
# Alpine
chown apache:www-data -R .
Finally, symlink the public folder to your FreshRSS directory
[ ! -e "/var/www/html/FreshRSS" ] && ln -s /usr/share/FreshRSS/p /var/www/html/FreshRSS || echo "/var/www/html/FreshRSS already exists"
Part 3: Creating a Database for FreshRSS #
Start a MySQL session. running this command will ask you for the MySQL password you set earlier, and then put you into a prompt that should look like MariaDB [(none)]>
mysql -u root -p
From the MySQL prompt (MariaDB [(none)]>), run the following commands, substituting <username>, <password>, and <database_name> for real values.
CREATE USER '<username>'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '<password>';
CREATE DATABASE `databaseName`;
GRANT ALL privileges ON `databaseName`.* TO 'userName'@localhost;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
QUIT;
A brief explanation of the previous command block:
- You first create a database user for FreshRSS to use.
- Then you create a database for FreshRSS to store data in.
- You grant permissions for the user you created to read, write, and modify the database.
- Flushing privileges reloads the permissions, which makes the previous command take effect.
Part 4: Finishing the Installation #
You can now finish the installation from a web browser by navigating to to http://<your_server>/ and following the graphical prompts.
Alternatively, you can finish the installation using the cli