7 ### Operating system and web server
9 Shaarli can be hosted on dedicated/virtual servers, or shared hosting. The smallest DigitalOcean VPS (Droplet with 1 CPU, 1 GiB RAM and 25 GiB SSD) costs about $5/month and will run any Shaarli installation without problems.
11 You need write access to the Shaarli installation directory - you should have received instructions from your hosting provider on how to connect to the server using SSH (or FTP for shared hosts).
13 Examples in this documentation are given for [Debian](https://www.debian.org/), a GNU/Linux distribution widely used in server environments. Please adapt them to your specific Linux distribution.
15 ### Network and domain name
17 Try to host the server in a region that is geographically close to your users.
19 A **domain name** ([DNS record](https://opensource.com/article/17/4/introduction-domain-name-system-dns)) pointing to the server's public IP address is required to obtain a SSL/TLS certificate and setup HTTPS to secure client traffic to your Shaarli instance.
21 You can obtain a domain name from a [registrar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_registrar) ([1](https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains), [2](https://www.gandi.net/en/domain)), or from free subdomain providers ([1](https://freedns.afraid.org/)). If you don't have a domain name, please set up a private domain name ([FQDN](ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_qualified_domain_name)) in your clients' [hosts files](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)) to access the server (direct access by IP address can result in unexpected behavior).
23 Setup a **firewall** (using `iptables`, [ufw](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-firewall-with-ufw-on-debian-10), [fireHOL](https://firehol.org/) or any frontend of your choice) to deny all incoming traffic except `tcp/80` and `tcp/443`, which are needed to access the web server (and any other posrts you might need, like SSH). If the server is in a private network behind a NAT, ensure these **ports are forwarded** to the server.
25 Shaarli makes outbound HTTP/HTTPS connections to websites you bookmark to fetch page information (title, thumbnails), the server must then have access to the Internet as well, and a working DNS resolver.
30 Supported PHP versions:
32 Version | Status | Shaarli compatibility
36 7.0 | EOL: 2018-12-03 | Yes (up to Shaarli 0.10.x)
37 5.6 | EOL: 2018-12-31 | Yes (up to Shaarli 0.10.x)
38 5.5 | EOL: 2016-07-10 | Yes
39 5.4 | EOL: 2015-09-14 | Yes (up to Shaarli 0.8.x)
40 5.3 | EOL: 2014-08-14 | Yes (up to Shaarli 0.8.x)
42 Required PHP extensions:
44 Extension | Required? | Usage
46 [`openssl`](http://php.net/manual/en/book.openssl.php) | All | OpenSSL, HTTPS
47 [`php-json`](http://php.net/manual/en/book.json.php) | required | configuration parsing
48 [`php-mbstring`](http://php.net/manual/en/book.mbstring.php) | CentOS, Fedora, RHEL, Windows, some hosting providers | multibyte (Unicode) string support
49 [`php-gd`](http://php.net/manual/en/book.image.php) | optional | required to use thumbnails
50 [`php-intl`](http://php.net/manual/en/book.intl.php) | optional | localized text sorting (e.g. `e->รจ->f`)
51 [`php-curl`](http://php.net/manual/en/book.curl.php) | optional | using cURL for fetching webpages and thumbnails in a more robust way
52 [`php-gettext`](http://php.net/manual/en/book.gettext.php) | optional | Use the translation system in gettext mode (faster)
54 Some [plugins](Plugins.md) may require additional configuration.
59 We recommend setting up [HTTPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS) on your webserver for secure communication between clients and the server.
61 For public-facing web servers this can be done using free SSL/TLS certificates from [Let's Encrypt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_Encrypt), a non-profit certificate authority provididing free certificates.
63 - [How to secure Apache with Let's Encrypt](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-apache-with-let-s-encrypt-on-debian-10)
64 - [How to secure Nginx with Let's Encrypt](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-nginx-with-let-s-encrypt-on-debian-10)
65 - [How To Use Certbot Standalone Mode to Retrieve Let's Encrypt SSL Certificates](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-certbot-standalone-mode-to-retrieve-let-s-encrypt-ssl-certificates-on-debian-10).
71 sudo apt install certbot
73 # stop your webserver if you already have one running
74 # certbot in standalone mode needs to bind to port 80 (only needed on initial generation)
75 sudo systemctl stop apache2
76 sudo systemctl stop nginx
78 # generate initial certificates - Let's Encrypt ACME servers must be able to access your server!
79 # (DNS records must be correctly pointing to it, firewall/NAT on port 80/443 must be open)
80 sudo certbot certonly --standalone --noninteractive --agree-tos --email "admin@shaarli.mydomain.org" -d shaarli.mydomain.org
81 # this will generate a private key and certificate at /etc/letsencrypt/live/shaarli.mydomain.org/{privkey,fullchain}.pem
83 # restart the web server
84 sudo systemctl start apache2
85 sudo systemctl start nginx
88 If you don't want to rely on a certificate authority, or the server can only be accessed from your own network, you can also generate self-signed certificates. Not that this will generate security warnings in web browsers/clients trying to access Shaarli:
90 - [How To Create a Self-Signed SSL Certificate for Apache](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-a-self-signed-ssl-certificate-for-apache-on-debian-10)
91 - [How To Create a Self-Signed SSL Certificate for Nginx](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-a-self-signed-ssl-certificate-for-nginx-on-debian-10)
93 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
97 The following examples assume a Debian-based operating system is installed. On other distributions you may have to adapt details such as package installation procedures, configuration file locations, and webserver username/group (`www-data` or `httpd` are common values).
99 In these examples we assume the document root for your web server/virtualhost is at `/var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/`:
102 sudo mkdir -p /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/
105 You can install Shaarli at the root of your virtualhost, or in a subdirectory as well. See [Directory structure](Directory-structure)
111 # Install apache + mod_php and PHP modules
113 sudo apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-php php-json php-mbstring php-gd php-intl php-curl php-gettext
115 # Edit the virtualhost configuration file with your favorite editor
116 sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/shaarli.mydomain.org.conf
121 ServerName shaarli.mydomain.org
122 DocumentRoot /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/
124 # Log level. Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, alert, emerg.
127 ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
128 CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
130 # Redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS
132 RewriteRule ^.well-known/acme-challenge/ - [L]
133 # except for Let's Encrypt ACME challenge requests
134 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} =shaarli.mydomain.org
135 RewriteRule ^ https://shaarli.mydomain.org%{REQUEST_URI} [END,NE,R=permanent]
139 ServerName shaarli.mydomain.org
140 DocumentRoot /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/
142 # Log level. Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, alert, emerg.
145 ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
146 CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
148 # SSL/TLS configuration (for Let's Encrypt certificates)
150 SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/shaarli.mydomain.org/fullchain.pem
151 SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/shaarli.mydomain.org/privkey.pem
152 Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
154 # SSL/TLS configuration (for self-signed certificates)
156 #SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
157 #SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
159 # Optional, log PHP errors, useful for debugging
160 #php_flag log_errors on
161 #php_flag display_errors on
162 #php_value error_reporting 2147483647
163 #php_value error_log /var/log/apache2/shaarli-php-error.log
165 <Directory /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/>
166 # Required for .htaccess support
172 <LocationMatch "/\.">
173 # Prevent accessing dotfiles
174 RedirectMatch 404 ".*"
177 <LocationMatch "\.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$">
178 # allow client-side caching of static files
179 Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2628000, public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"
182 # serve the Shaarli favicon from its custom location
183 Alias favicon.ico /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/images/favicon.ico
189 # Enable the virtualhost
190 sudo a2ensite shaarli
192 # mod_ssl must be enabled to use TLS/SSL certificates
193 # https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_ssl.html
196 # mod_rewrite must be enabled to use the REST API
197 # https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_rewrite.html
200 # mod_version must only be enabled if you use Apache 2.2 or lower
201 # https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/mod_version.html
202 # sudo a2enmod version
204 # restart the apache service
205 systemctl restart apache
208 See [How to install the Apache web server](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-the-apache-web-server-on-debian-10) for a complete guide.
212 Guide on setting up the Nginx web server: [How to install the Nginx web server](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-nginx-on-debian-10)
214 You will also need to install the [PHP-FPM](http://php-fpm.org) interpreter as detailed [here](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-nginx-mariadb-php-lemp-stack-on-debian-10#step-3-%E2%80%94-installing-php-for-processing). Nginx and PHP-FPM must be running using the same user and group, here we assume the user/group to be `www-data:www-data` but this may vary depending on your Linux distribution.
218 # install nginx and php-fpm
220 sudo apt install nginx php-fpm
222 # Edit the virtualhost configuration file with your favorite editor
223 sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/shaarli.mydomain.org
229 server_name shaarli.mydomain.org;
231 # redirect all plain HTTP requests to HTTPS
232 return 301 https://shaarli.mydomain.org$request_uri;
237 server_name shaarli.mydomain.org;
238 root /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org;
241 # combined log format prepends the virtualhost/domain name to log entries
242 access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log combined;
243 error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
245 # paths to private key and certificates for SSL/TLS
246 ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/shaarli.mydomain.org.crt;
247 ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/shaarli.mydomain.org.key;
249 # increase the maximum file upload size if needed: by default nginx limits file upload to 1MB (413 Entity Too Large error)
250 client_max_body_size 100m;
252 # relative path to shaarli from the root of the webserver
254 # default index file when no file URI is requested
256 try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
259 location ~ (index)\.php$ {
261 # slim API - split URL path into (script_filename, path_info)
262 fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
263 # pass PHP requests to PHP-FPM
264 fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock;
265 fastcgi_index index.php;
266 include fastcgi.conf;
270 # deny access to all other PHP scripts
271 # disable this if you host other PHP applications on the same virtualhost
276 # deny access to dotfiles
281 # deny access to temp editor files, e.g. "script.php~"
285 location = /favicon.ico {
286 # serve the Shaarli favicon from its custom location
287 alias /var/www/shaarli/images/favicon.ico;
290 # allow client-side caching of static files
291 location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$ {
293 add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
294 # HTTP 1.0 compatibility
295 add_header Pragma public;
302 # enable the configuration/virtualhost
303 sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/shaarli.mydomain.org /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/shaarli.mydomain.org
304 # reload nginx configuration
305 sudo systemctl reload nginx
311 If Shaarli is hosted on a server behind a [reverse proxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_proxy) (i.e. there is a proxy server between clients and the web server hosting Shaarli), configure it accordingly. See [Reverse proxy](Reverse-proxy.md) configuration.
315 ## Allow import of large browser bookmarks export
317 Web browser bookmark exports can be large due to the presence of base64-encoded images and favicons/long subfolder names. Edit the PHP configuration file.
319 - Apache: `/etc/php/<PHP_VERSION>/apache2/php.ini`
320 - Nginx + PHP-FPM: `/etc/php/<PHP_VERSION>/fpm/php.ini` (in addition to `client_max_body_size` in the [Nginx configuration](#nginx))
324 # (optional) increase the maximum file upload size:
327 # (optional) increase the maximum file upload size:
328 upload_max_filesize = 100M
331 To verify PHP settings currently set on the server, create a `phpinfo.php` in your webserver's document root
335 echo '<?php phpinfo(); ?>' | sudo tee /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/phpinfo.php
336 #give read-only access to this file to the webserver user
337 sudo chown www-data:root /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/phpinfo.php
338 sudo chmod 0400 /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/phpinfo.php
341 Access the file from a web browser (eg. <https://shaarli.mydomain.org/phpinfo.php> and look at the _Loaded Configuration File_ and _Scan this dir for additional .ini files_ entries
343 It is recommended to remove the `phpinfo.php` when no longer needed as it publicly discloses details about your webserver configuration.
346 ## Robots and crawlers
348 To opt-out of indexing your Shaarli instance by search engines, create a `robots.txt` file at the root of your virtualhost:
355 By default Shaarli already disallows indexing of your local copy of the documentation by default, using `<meta name="robots">` HTML tags. Your Shaarli instance may still be indexed by various robots on the public Internet, that do not respect this header or the robots standard.
357 - [Robots exclusion standard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard)
358 - [Introduction to robots.txt](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?hl=en)
359 - [Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications](https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_tag)
360 - [About robots.txt](http://www.robotstxt.org)
361 - [About the robots META tag](https://www.robotstxt.org/meta.html)
366 [fail2ban](http://www.fail2ban.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) is an intrusion prevention framework that reads server (Apache, SSH, etc.) and uses `iptables` profiles to block brute-force attempts. You need to create a filter to detect shaarli login failures in logs, and a jail configuation to configure the behavior when failed login attempts are detected:
369 # /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/shaarli-auth.conf
373 failregex = \s-\s<HOST>\s-\sLogin failed for user.*$
378 # /etc/fail2ban/jail.local
382 filter = shaarli-auth
383 logpath = /var/www/shaarli.mydomain.org/data/log.txt
384 # allow 3 login attempts per IP address
385 # (over a period specified by findtime = in /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf)
387 # permanently ban the IP address after reaching the limit
393 - [Apache/PHP - error log per VirtualHost - StackOverflow](http://stackoverflow.com/q/176)
394 - [Apache - PHP: php_value vs php_admin_value and the use of php_flag explained](https://ma.ttias.be/php-php_value-vs-php_admin_value-and-the-use-of-php_flag-explained/)
395 - [Server-side TLS (Apache) - Mozilla](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS#Apache)
396 - [Nginx Beginner's guide](http://nginx.org/en/docs/beginners_guide.html)
397 - [Nginx ngx_http_fastcgi_module](http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_fastcgi_module.html)
398 - [Nginx Pitfalls](http://wiki.nginx.org/Pitfalls)
399 - [Nginx PHP configuration examples - Karl Blessing](http://kbeezie.com/nginx-configuration-examples/)
400 - [Apache 2.4 documentation](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/)
401 - [Apache mod_proxy](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_proxy.html)
402 - [Apache Reverse Proxy Request Headers](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_proxy.html#x-headers)
403 - [HAProxy documentation](https://cbonte.github.io/haproxy-dconv/)
404 - [Nginx documentation](https://nginx.org/en/docs/)
405 - [`X-Forwarded-Proto`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Forwarded-Proto)
406 - [`X-Forwarded-Host`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Forwarded-Host)
407 - [`X-Forwarded-For`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Forwarded-For)
408 - [Server-side TLS (Nginx) - Mozilla](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS#Nginx)
409 - [How to Create Self-Signed SSL Certificates with OpenSSL](http://www.xenocafe.com/tutorials/linux/centos/openssl/self_signed_certificates/index.php)
410 - [How do I create my own Certificate Authority?](https://workaround.org/certificate-authority)
411 - [Travis configuration](https://github.com/shaarli/Shaarli/blob/master/.travis.yml)
412 - [PHP: Supported versions](http://php.net/supported-versions.php)
413 - [PHP: Unsupported versions (EOL/End-of-life)](http://php.net/eol.php)
414 - [PHP 7 Changelog](http://php.net/ChangeLog-7.php)
415 - [PHP 5 Changelog](http://php.net/ChangeLog-5.php)
416 - [PHP: Bugs](https://bugs.php.net/)
417 - [Transport Layer Security](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security)
418 - Hosting providers: [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/) ([1](https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/overview/), [2](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/), [3](https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/how-to/create/), [How to Add SSH Keys to Droplets](https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/how-to/add-ssh-keys/), [4](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/initial-server-setup-with-debian-8), [5](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/an-introduction-to-securing-your-linux-vps)), [Gandi](https://www.gandi.net/en), [OVH](https://www.ovh.co.uk/), [RackSpace](https://www.rackspace.com/), etc.