Bookstack

David Buhlman

Aug 8, 2022 • 6 min read

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!

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!

Install Operating System

Configure Operating System

Install Dependencies

Setup Database

Install PHP Package Manager

Download Bookstack PHP Webapp Files

Configure Bookstack

Configure Apache to Serve New Bookstack App

Verify Config and Enable

Login to Bookstack

Playing Around with Bookstack