Detailed Steps to Install Phabricator on Server

Phabricator was originally developed by Facebook. We actually had an old guide on installing Phabricator. But probably that old guide will not work with new version. Phabricator is essentially a PHP Based Web Application With Many Web Suites. This Guide Describe the Steps to Install Phabricator on Cloud Server Running CentOS. You need to know many things to use it. You can look at phabricator.wikimedia.org, developer.blender.org to realise the power of all in software for chat, blog, wiki, question and answer to code hosting.

Prerequisites Steps to Install Phabricator on Cloud Server

We need a fresh cloud server instance running CentOS. Phabricator does not support PHP 7.x, we need to use PHP 5.x. We recommend to use Apache2 instead of Nginx. We need full database with full privileges as Phabricator will create many databases. Note that – in contrast normal web softwares like WordPress needs one database.

You can use VPSDime 6GB RAM OpenVZ server at $7/month or ArubaCloud 1 GB VMWare instance at £1.00 per month or Host1Plus is not exactly cost effective. Question of using DigitalOcean, Linode etc does not arises as they cost minimum $10.00 for 1GB to 2GB instances.

You need a domain or subdomain. We have a list of free domain names.

You can use free Hurricane Electric DNS or Dyn DNS or read our list of Dyn Providers.

Optionally you can use KeyCDN as CDN.

Optionally you can use Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificate.

Steps to Install Phabricator on Cloud Server (CentOS)

Actually installing Phabricator is just easy. First we will install MySQL, you will use password without special character (very important, Phabricator can give error if you use password like Pa$$word) :

Next, we will install PHP :

Once APC is installed, test that it is available by running:

If it doesn’t show up, add:

to php.ini file indicated by php -i. As we started with a blank server, we have option to use this script distributed by Phabricator (kindly note that, Phabricator can change URL in future. It works at the time of writing this guide), it will automate the next steps :

cd to ~ as root and :

If I have shown to wget, you may be using old one at the time of reading. Now execute the script :

The installation will start now. Press Enter to continue when prompted. It will install Apache2 as well. At the end, you will see this message :

If you install Nginx (you need to modify the above script to exclude httpd), then you need to follow this steps (we do not suggest Nginx), most of you are not following this step :

If you run ls you’ll get like this :

We will move the needed directories to the Apache root document directory :

Now, cd to /var/www/html/ :

We need to start Apache2 :

We need to configure Apache configuration file with your domain name, take that your domain is example.com :

You will see how many lines are loaded, go to last line by ^ + _ within nano. Paste just above those directives to include stuffs :

We will restart Apache2. You need to point your domain from DNS with very low TTL value. Then restart Apache :

As for database part, we will use root as user. You may create :

But, basically it is not hugely secure only to change the username. We are not creating one database and giving that user privilege. MySQL server demands workup by you later for ensuring higher security.

Run all these commands one by one while inside /var/www/html/phabricator/ directory :

Restart mysql service :

Simply you will run this command to set your domain:

When you will use HTTPS later, you can upgrade it by running the new one. Restart the services :

Open up your Web browser and open http://your-domain-like-example.com/ in the address bar. You should see a configuration screen to set administrator account. The first step is to setup admin account name, real name, and password etc.

In case, you are having trouble with WebGUI (like getting message of being unauthorised), in such case, you can reset it using a command which can be found by performing a Google search with your problem. As far I can recall, the command format is :

You will notice that, on Web GUI, there are “Unresolved Setup Issues”. Click and see the list. It is usually around 13 – 14 issues.

Never delete the files on /var/www/html/. There are JSON files. If you login to your MySQL server and list the databases :

You’ll see how many databases Phabricator actually need.