# Installing using Git

We'll guide you through setting up a fresh installation of Directus using Git.

# Step 1: Make sure requirements are met

Directus requires PHP and MySQL to run properly. That means that a wide variety of webservers, operating systems, and versions are able to run Directus. That being said, we can't promise that Directus will run smoothly in every possible combination of environments. Therefore, we only officially support LAMP stacks.

# Step 2: Clone Directus

Run the following command:

git clone https://github.com/directus/directus.git /var/www/directus

# Step 3: Configure Apache

# Enable mod_rewrite

Run the following command:

a2enmod rewrite

# Point Apache to the Directus public folder

Make sure the DocumentRoot in your Apache configration points to the public folder in Directus, located at /var/www/directus/public. You can use the following Apache config as a starting point:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/directus/public

        <Directory /var/www/directus/public/>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
            AllowOverride All
            Require all granted
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        <IfModule mod_dir.c>
            DirectoryIndex index.php index.pl index.cgi index.html index.xhtml index.htm
        </IfModule>
</VirtualHost>

On most servers, the default Apache configuration file is located at /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf. If you're planning on hosting multiple projects on this server, we recommend setting up separate Virtual Hosts for each project. To learn more about that, we recommend reading this article: How To Set Up Apache Virtual Hosts on Ubuntu 16.04.

# Step 4: Set read and write permissions

Directus needs write access to the logs, public, and config directories. Make sure that your PHP user is able to read and write to these locations.

On most LAMP stacks, you can change the owner of the files to www-data to ensure the correct permissions are met:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/directus

# Step 5: Setup a database and user in MySQL

While you can technically use the root MySQL user for Directus, we strongly recommend creating a separate user that only has access to the database that Directus will use.

To learn how to do this, we recommend the following article: How To Create a New User and Grant Permissions in MySQL.

# Step 6: Install your first project

Open Directus in the browser. It should take you straight to the installation wizard. If you were following along with the steps above, Directus will be located at http://<ip-address>/.