Sign in Subscribe
Bookstack

Bookstack

David Buhlman

• 6 min read
Bookstack
Photo by mostafa meraji / Unsplash

So I've had a thought of building my own Wiki. I've grown tired of OneNote, and while I am currently testing Obsidian, I've thought about using a Wiki for my note taking instead. Bookstack always gets rave, glowing reviews as being a tremendous Wiki. It seems full featured and robustly developed. It looks like just what I am interested in.

Install Operating System

I don't see any specific system requirements so I build a new virtual machine named BOOKSTACK-01 with 1vCPU, 4GB of RAM, and 20GB virtual disk. I remember to set the Secure Boot option to Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority this time so I hopefully don't run into any trouble. I go through the Debian installation wizard. The installation gets to 90% and then starts looping back to 90% over and over. I can't get it to go forward past 90% and I can't get it to abort the installation. I can't get the virtual machine to power down or shut off. After quite some time everything finally times out and I am now able to power it off.

Trying again, I unmount and remount the Debian ISO. After the wizard, this time the installation completes successfully.

Configure Operating System

First I log into BOOKTSACK-01 as root.

  • apt install sudo
  • /sbin/adduser david sudo
  • nano /etc/network/interfaces
    • Allow-hotplug eth0
    • iface eth0 inet static
    • Address 10.100.100.XXX
    • Netmask 255.255.255.0
    • Gateway 10.100.100.254
  • sudo reboot

Now I log back in to BOOKSTACK-01 as david.

  • ip -c addr

I confirm the IP address is set correctly.

From Windows Terminal on my dekstop:

  • ssh-keygen -t ed25519
  • Move-Item -Path c:\Users\david\filename* -Destination c:\Users\david\.ssh -Force
  • I open Windows Terminal Settings
  • I open JSON file and add the following:
            {
                "colorScheme": "Ubuntu-ColorScheme",
                "commandline": "ssh -i \"~/.ssh/bookstack-01\" [email protected]",
                "experimental.retroTerminalEffect": false,
                "font": 
                {
                    "face": "Cascadia Code"
                },
                "guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceaeaa6119}",
                "hidden": false,
                "name": "BOOKSTACK-01",
                "tabTitle": "BOOKSTACK-01"
            },
  • I confirm the GUID is unique and save the JSON file

Steps performed from BOOKTSACK-01

  • mkdir /home/david/.ssh
  • nano /home/gooseneck/.ssh/authorized_keys
    • I paste in the public key and save the authorized_keys
  • chmod 600 /home/david/.ssh/authorized_keys
  • sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
    • PermitRootLogin no
    • PubkeyAuthentication yes
    • PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes ssh-ed25519
    • PasswordAuthentication no
    • AuthorizedKeysFile /home/david/.ssh/authorized_keys
    • I save the sshd_config
  • sudo sshd -t
  • sudo systemctl restart ssh

Install Dependencies

Steps performed on BOOKTSACK-01

  • sudo apt install -y git unzip apache2 php7.4 curl php7.4-fpm php7.4-curl php7.4-mbstring php7.4-ldap \ php7.4-tidy php7.4-xml php7.4-zip php7.4-gd php7.4-mysql libapache2-mod-php7.4 \ default-mysql-server

Setup Database

Steps performed on BOOKSTACK-01

  • mysql -uroot
    • ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Password';
    • FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
    • EXIT;
  • mysql_secure_installation
    • I run through the wizard
  • mysql -uroot -p
    • CREATE DATABASE bookstack;
    • CREATE USER 'bookstack'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Password';
    • GRANT ALL ON bookstack.* TO 'bookstack'@'localhost';
    • FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
    • Exit;

Install PHP Package Manager

Steps performed on BOOKSTACK-01

  • EXPECTED_CHECKSUM="$(php -r 'copy("https://composer.github.io/installer.sig", "php://stdout");')"
  • php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
  • ACTUAL_CHECKSUM="$(php -r "echo hash_file('sha384', 'composer-setup.php');")"
  • if [ "$EXPECTED_CHECKSUM" != "$ACTUAL_CHECKSUM" ]
  • then
    • >&2 echo 'ERROR: Invalid composer installer checksum'
    • rm composer-setup.php
    • exit 1
  • fi
  • php composer-setup.php --quiet
  • rm composer-setup.php
  • mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Download Bookstack PHP Webapp Files

Steps performed on BOOKTSACK-01

  • cd /var/www
  • git clone https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack.git --branch release --single-branch bookstack
  • cd bookstack

Configure Bookstack

  • Export COMPOSER_ALLOW_SUPERUSER=1
  • php /usr/local/bin/composer install --no-dev --no-plugins

Success!

  • cp .env.example .env
  • nano .env
    • Set APP_URL
    • Set DB_DATABASE
    • Set DB_USERNAME
    • Set DB_PASSWORD
  • php artisan key:generate --no-interaction --force
    • Application key set successfully
  • chown www-data:www-data -R bootstrap/cache public/uploads storage
  • chmod -R bootstrap/cache public/uploads storage
    • Invalid mode: 'bootstrap/cache'

Whoops! Silly typo!

  • chmod -R 755 bootstrap/cache public/uploads storage

Configure Apache to Serve New Bookstack App

Steps performed on BOOKTSACK-01

  • a2enmod rewrite
  • a2enmod php7.4
  • nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/bookstack.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
            ServerName 10.100.100.XXX           # Set to static IP otherwise define hostname in DNS entry for it to work.
            ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
            DocumentRoot /var/www/bookstack/public/
        <Directory /var/www/bookstack/public/>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride None
            Require all granted
            <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
                <IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
                    Options -MultiViews -Indexes
                </IfModule>
                RewriteEngine On
                # Handle Authorization Header
                RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
                RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
                # Redirect Trailing Slashes If Not A Folder...
                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$
                RewriteRule ^ %1 [L,R=301]
                # Handle Front Controller...
                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
                RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
            </IfModule>
        </Directory>
            ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
            CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
    </VirtualHost>
  • Saved

Verify Config and Enable

Steps performed on BOOKSTACK-01

  • apachectl configtest
    • Syntax OK
  • a2dissite 000-default.conf
    • Site 000-default disabled
  • a2ensite bookstack.conf
    • Enabling site bookstack
  • sudo sysemctl restart apache2
    • sysemctl: command not found
  • sudo systemctl restart apache2
    • Job for apache2.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
  • apachectl configtest
    • Syntax error on line 2

It looks like it did not like my inline comment.

  • Removing # Set to static IP otherwise define hostname in DNS entry for it to work.
  • apachectl configtest
    • Syntax OK
  • sudo systemctl restart apache2

Success!

Login to Bookstack

Testing just produces a blank page. Huh. Let's try seeing if it will load a test file.

Steps performed on BOOKSTACK-01

  • nano info.php
<?php
	phpinfo();
/php>

Nope. Nothing. Let's troubleshoot. I'm looking for what I've clearly missed. Ah! I missed a step under "Configure Bookstack."

  • php artisan migrate --no-interaction --force
    • Access denied for user 'bookstore'@'localhost'
  • mysql -uroot -p
    • USE mysql;
    • SELECT user FROM user;
    • Verify that bookstack does not exist.
    • Exit;
  • mysql -u bookstack -p
    • The login is successful so I have the right username and password documented.
    • USE bookstack;
    • SHOW GRANTS;
    • GRANT ALL PROVILEGES ON 'bookstack'.* TO 'bookstack'@'localhost'

I found my problem now. You might have caught it above. In my .env file I used bookstore instead of bookstack. What a silly mistake!

  • I correct my typos.
  • php artisan migrate --no-interaction --force

Success!

Something else still seems to be wrong because I can't get info.php to load. Let's think here. Well now it looks like it is redirecting http://FQDN to https://FQDN. That is strange since I did not set that up right?

No, it isn't even doing that. It is redirecting http://FQDN to https://localhost/login which doesn't exist. Where is the redirect coming from? And why doesn't it load info.php?

I delete and recreate info.php and now it loads just fine. I must have had a typo the first time. Damn. Well I go back to the .env file. I don't have much experience with these .env files. I have never had a problem with or had to modify the APP_URL to anything other than localhost. But to test let's change it to the server IP.

This allows Bookstack to load. I suppose I need to read up more on the .env files.

Playing Around with Bookstack

  • Logged in with default account
  • Created my own account
  • Logged out
  • Logged in with my own account
  • Deleted default account

I was able to play around with it for about five more minutes. I made a shelf, a book, a chapter, and a page. I made some quick revisions to the page. Damn, this is slick software!