Lychee

#lang-php #photo-management #web 

Lychee is a open source photo-management software written in PHP and distributed under the MIT license. It allows you to easily upload, sort and manage your photos, all while presenting those with a beautiful web interface.

Note

For this guide you should be familiar with the basic concepts of

Prerequisites

We’re using PHP in the stable version 8.1:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace tools version use php 8.1
Selected PHP version 8.1
The new configuration is adapted immediately. Patch updates will be applied automatically.

[isabell@stardust ~]$

You’ll need your MySQL credentials. Get them with my_print_defaults:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ my_print_defaults client
--default-character-set=utf8mb4
--user=isabell
--password=MySuperSecretPassword
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Also, the domain you want to use for Lychee must be set up as well:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace web domain list
isabell.uber.space
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Installation

Since version 4.0, Lychee requires the web server to actually point to the public subfolder instead of the main Lychee folder. Therefore, we are going to put the Lychee base folder into the parent folder of the default DocumentRoot, i.e. /var/www/virtual/$USER.

Clone the Lychee code from GitHub:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ cd /var/www/virtual/$USER
[isabell@stardust isabell]$ git clone https://github.com/LycheeOrg/Lychee Lychee
Cloning into '/var/www/virtual/isabell/Lychee'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 5, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
remote: Total 6469 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 6464
Receiving objects: 100% (6469/6469), 28.55 MiB | 13.36 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (4511/4511), done.
[isabell@stardust isabell]$

Next update the Composer repository:

[isabell@stardust isabell]$ cd /var/www/virtual/$USER/Lychee
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$ composer update
Loading composer repositories with package information
Info from https://repo.packagist.org: #StandWithUkraine
Updating dependencies
Lock file operations: 0 installs, 25 updates, 0 removals
 ...
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$

After this, the required dependencies need to be installed:

[isabell@stardust Lychee]$ composer install --no-dev
Installing dependencies from lock file
Verifying lock file contents can be installed on current platform.
Package operations: 0 installs, 0 updates, 51 removals
...
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$ npm install

up to date, audited 292 packages in 1s

44 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

found 0 vulnerabilities

[isabell@stardust Lychee]$ npm run build

> build
> vite build
[…]
✓ built in 7.01s
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$

Set up the environment file:

[isabell@stardust Lychee]$ cp .env.example .env
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$

Now edit following lines of your /var/www/virtual/$USER/Lychee/.env with the editor of your choice. Replace isabell with your username and fill the DB_PASSWORD password with yours.

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=isabell
DB_USERNAME=isabell
DB_PASSWORD=<MySQL_PASSWORD>

Hint

The file contains a lot more lines with configuration options, but for a working basic setup they can all just stay there untouched. You may change it depending on your needs and knowledge. See https://lycheeorg.github.io/docs/configuration.html for more configuration possibilities.

Generate a application key:

[isabell@stardust Lychee]$ php artisan key:generate
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$

And prepare the database:

[isabell@stardust Lychee]$ php artisan migrate
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$

Finally, replace your html directory with a symbolic link for the public folder:

Warning

Please be aware that this tutorial is designed for a new fresh without any other projects or own content in the html directory.

[isabell@stardust isabell]$ rm -r /var/www/virtual/$USER/html
[isabell@stardust isabell]$ ln -s /var/www/virtual/$USER/Lychee/public /var/www/virtual/$USER/html
[isabell@stardust isabell]$

Now point your browser to your Lychee URL and create your admin user.

Updates

You can regularly check their GitHub’s Atom Feed for any new Lychee releases.

If a new version is available, cd to your Lychee folder and do a simple git pull origin master:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ cd /var/www/virtual/$USER/Lychee
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$ git pull origin master
Already up to date.
[isabell@stardust Lychee]$

Or you use the automatic update function available in the web interface.

Tested with Lychee 4.5.1, Uberspace 7.12.2

Written by: TheForcer <https://github.com/TheForcer>