blog

Facebook-styled blog. Free, extremely lightweight, single-user and easy to install.
Blog
13 May 2020233
218php11blog329docker2facebook6lightweight77self-hosted20blogging platforms943selfhosted

blog

This is a simple self-hosted, lightweight, singe-user PHP blog, where you can create your own Facebook-like feed. Give read access to other people, and you can share rich text with photos including highlighted code or links.

In this context lightweight means:

  • No npm dependency, there won't be an annoying 1GB node_modules directory.
  • No pipeline. What you see is pure code without a need to install it.
  • No overhead, essential features, simple usage.

Live demo

Live demo is available here:

https://blog.m1k1o.net/

Please note, that this demo has very limited computing resources, strict rate limiting and can be reset at anytime. Upload of files will not always work, but as simple demo to see this product in action it is enough.

Screenshots

Light theme

screenshot

Dark theme

screenshot

Legacy theme (compatible with older browsers)

screenshot

Install standalone app using docker-compose

You need to install docker-compose.

Step 1: Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/m1k1o/blog
cd blog

Step 2: Build & run containers using docker-compose.

docker-compose up -d

You can specify these environment variables, otherwise the default ones will be used:

  • HTTP_PORT=80 - where the blog will be accessible.
  • DATA=./data - directory to store the user data.

These environment variables can be stored in the .env file or passed to the command directly:

HTTP_PORT=3001 DATA=/home/user/blog docker-compose up -d

Step 3: Copy the config

Copy the config from the root directory to your new ./data/ directory.

cp ./config.ini ./data/config.ini

Now you can modify your config.

Correct permissions

Make sure your ./data/ directory has correct permissions. Apache is running as a www-data user, which needs to have write access to the ./data/ directory (for uploading images).

Prefered solution

Change the directory owner to the www-data user:

chown 33:33 ./data/

Alternatively, add the www-data user to the user group that owns the ./data/ directory.

Bad solution (but it works)

Set 777 permission for your ./data/, so everyone can read, write, and execute:

chmod 777 ./data/

NOTICE: You should not use 777. You are giving access to anyone for this directory. Maybe to some attacker, who can run his exploit here.

Install using docker

You need to install docker.

If you don't want do spawn a new database server, but you want to use your existing mariadb or mysql server, you can install this blog using Docker.

Build image

After you have cloned and accessed the repository, you need to run this command. It will build a docker image with a tag blog.

docker build --tag blog .

Run container

After you have built the image, you can run it as the following:

docker run \
  -p 80:80 \
  -p 443:443 \
  -v ./data:/var/www/html/data \
  blog

Now you can copy the config to your new ./data directory and set up the database connection settings.

cp ./config.ini ./data/config.ini

Install

If you have decied that you don't want to use Docker, you can intall it manually.

Requirements: Apache 2.0*, PHP 7.4, MariaDB 10.1

NOTICE: If you would like to use Nginx or another web server, make sure that the sensitive data are not exposed to the public. Since .htaccess is protecting those files in Apache, that could not be the case in a different environment. Take care of:

  • config.ini - disallow access to all .ini files for the public.
  • data/logs/_ANY_.log - make sure no sensitive information are located in .log.

Database Schema

You can find database schema in the ./app/db/01_schema.sql file.

Debug mode

To check if your server is set up correctly, turn on a debug mode (in config add debug = true) to see the details. In the debug mode, an error may be shown if you are missing some PHP extensions needed to be installed on your server.

Config file

DO NOT edit ./config.ini file. If you wish to modify the config, simply make a copy to the ./data/config.ini directory and edit it there.

But, why? If there is any change in config file (most likely adding a new feature), you will have problems with merging a new version. Also, if you would fork this repository, you might accidentally push your secrets to the git. We don't want that to happen. Content of the /data directory is ignored by the git, so none of your pictures or personal data should ever be published to git.

Features

  • Dark mode, retina ready, legacy theme available.
  • Use BBcode in texts.
  • Make posts available for everyone, only you or just for friends.
  • Extra fields in post: Feeling, With and At.
  • Hide posts from timeline so they are visible only when you need them to be.
  • All pasted links will get preview with page title, description and image (can be configured proxy).
  • Upload images using button (for mobile).
  • Upload images using drag & drop (drop it into textarea).
  • Upload images using CTRL + V (paste it into textarea).
  • Highlight code in post using [code]..your code..[/code].
  • Highlight your goal using [goal]Text of your goal.[/goal].
  • Use tags in posts (allowed characters A-Za-z0-9-_ terminated by space or EOL): #song
  • Sort posts by hashtags: http://blog/#tag=songs
  • Sort posts by location in url using: http://blog/#loc=Vienna.
  • Display posts from chosen date using (format YYYY-MM-DD or YYY-MM): http://blog/#from=2017-06.
  • Display posts to chosen date using (format YYYY-MM-DD or YYY-MM): http://blog/#to=2017-06.
  • Combine parameters in url using &, e.g. show posts between dates: http://blog/#from=2017-06&to=2017-08.

Language support

Feel free to create new PR and add a new language. Specify language in config or in url: http://blog/?hl=sk.

  • en - 🇬🇧 English
  • de - 🇩🇪 German
  • sk - 🇸🇰 Slovak
  • fr - 🇫🇷 French (thanks @Phundrak)