Drupal

Prerequisites

• OpenLiteSpeed with PHP 8.2+ (see Install PHP)
• Required PHP extensions: gd, mbstring, xml, pdo_mysql, opcache, curl
• MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+
• Composer

Install Drupal

cd /var/www
composer create-project drupal/recommended-project example.com
cd example.com

# Set permissions
chown -R nobody:nobody .
chmod -R 755 web/sites/default
cp web/sites/default/default.settings.php web/sites/default/settings.php
chmod 644 web/sites/default/settings.php
mkdir -p web/sites/default/files
chmod 775 web/sites/default/files

Database Setup

mysql -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE drupal CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'drupaluser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strong_password_here';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal.* TO 'drupaluser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Virtual Host Configuration

Drupal’s web root is the web/ subdirectory:

virtualhost example {
  vhRoot                  /var/www/example.com
  configFile              conf/vhosts/example/vhconf.conf
  allowSymbolLink         1
  enableScript            1
  restrained              1

  docRoot                 $VH_ROOT/web/

  index {
    indexFiles             index.php, index.html
  }

  scripthandler {
    add                   lsapi:lsphp  php
  }

  rewrite {
    enable                1
    autoLoadHtaccess      1
  }
}

Clean URL Rewrite Rules

Drupal requires clean URLs to function properly.

OLS Native Rewrite (in vhconf.conf)

rewrite {
  enable                  1
  rules                   <<<END_rules
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
  END_rules
}

.htaccess (with LiteHTTPD)

Drupal ships a .htaccess file in its web/ directory. With the LiteHTTPD module, it is processed automatically. The key rewrite section:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on

  # Rewrite URLs of the form 'x' to the form 'index.php?q=x'.
  RewriteBase /
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
  RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Complete the Installation

Navigate to https://example.com in your browser and follow the Drupal installation wizard, or install via Drush:

cd /var/www/example.com

# Install Drush
composer require drush/drush

# Run installer
./vendor/bin/drush site:install standard \
  --db-url=mysql://drupaluser:strong_password_here@localhost/drupal \
  --site-name="My Drupal Site" \
  --account-name=admin \
  --account-pass=admin_password_here \
  -y

Post-Installation Security

Lock down settings.php:

chmod 444 web/sites/default/settings.php
chmod 555 web/sites/default

Block Direct Access to Sensitive Files

With the LiteHTTPD module, Drupal’s .htaccess already blocks access to .yml, .twig, and other sensitive file types:

<FilesMatch "\.(engine|inc|install|make|module|profile|po|sh|.*sql|theme|twig|tpl(\.php)?|xtmpl|yml)(~|\.sw[op]|\.bak|\.orig|\.save)?$|^(\.(?!well-known).*|Entries.*|Repository|Root|Tag|Template|composer\.(json|lock)|web\.config)$|^#.*#$|\.php(~|\.sw[op]|\.bak|\.orig|\.save)$">
  Require all denied
</FilesMatch>

Or via OLS context:

context exp:^.+\.(yml|twig|engine|inc|install|module|profile|theme)$ {
  allowBrowse             0
}

PHP Settings for Drupal

memory_limit = 256M
max_execution_time = 300
upload_max_filesize = 64M
post_max_size = 64M
max_input_vars = 5000

; OPcache
opcache.enable = 1
opcache.memory_consumption = 256
opcache.max_accelerated_files = 20000

Cron

Drupal requires periodic cron runs:

# Add to crontab
*/15 * * * * cd /var/www/example.com && ./vendor/bin/drush cron >> /dev/null 2>&1

Troubleshooting

“Clean URLs” not working:

• Verify rewrite rules are active
• Check that mod_rewrite is referenced in .htaccess and LiteHTTPD is loaded
• Run drush status to check clean URL status

Permission errors:

• Ensure web/sites/default/files/ is writable by the OLS user (nobody)
• Check settings.php is readable

Database connection errors:

• Verify credentials in settings.php
• Check MySQL is running: systemctl status mysql