How to install Drupal 8 using Composer on a Linux server

First you need to create the site directory by navigating to the web root directory (ex: www) and run the following command

mkdir your_site_directory

Then navigate inside this directory

cd your_site_directory

Then run the following command to install Drupal via composer

composer create-project drupal/recommended-project sitename

Then after Drupal finishes installing the files you need to prepare the settings.php file, by running the command

cp sitename/web/sites/default/default.settings.php sitename/web/sites/default/settings.php

The set the permission for settings.php to be writable by the install script

chmod 777 sitename/web/sites/default/settings.php

Then you need to create the files directory and make it writable by the web server

mkdir sitename/web/sites/default/files

chmod 775 sitename/web/sites/default/files

sudo chown apache:owner_username sitename/web/sites/default/files

Then you need to create a the mysql database and user and give the user full privilages on the database, you can do that anyway you want, we will do it through the terminal

To create a new database you need to login to mysql as root

mysql -u root -p

Then press enter and when prompted type your mysql root password, then run the following command to create a new database

create database database_name;

Then run the following command to create a database user and give it full privilages over the new database

CREATE USER 'newuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON database_name.* TO 'newuser'@'localhost';

You then need to make sure that your domain or subdomain is pointing to the web directory inside your Drupal install folder

After you point the domain/subdomain correctly navigate to the url from the browser, you should see the following Drupal install screen

Choose your Language and Click Save and Continue, Then select Standard and click Save and Continue

Then enter the database name and user and password you created, then Click Save and Continue

Wait for the Install to finish

After Drupal finishes installing fill in the site information and click Save and continue to proceed to your Drupal site

Then you need to secure your settings.php file by running the following command

chmod 444 sitename/web/sites/default/settings.php

Then install the Admin Toolbar module so you can better manage the site, first navigate to the site directory that contains the composer.json file and run the following command

cd sitename
composer require drupal/admin_toolbar

Then Navigate to Yoursite.com/admin/modules and Install the Admin Toolbar module

You also need to configure the Trusted hosts setting in your settings.php file, copy the commented lines and remove the comments and modify it to fit your site domain name

Then Navigate to Yoursitename.com/admin/reports/status and you should see an all green state

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial and I look forward to helping you achieve more with Drupal