Buen

A simple self-hosted micro photo sharing engine written in PHP.

Example: jetstream

Features

• Single-user photo sharing for personal use
• Minimal dependencies - only requires PHP
• Easy to deploy - no database (posts are saved as JSON files), no exotic dependencies
• No learning curve - straightforward and simple
• Wall page with all photos displayed as a thumbnail grid
• Strips all EXIF metadata from uploaded photos
• Sunshine: a simple like system — click the sun icon to show appreciation (cookie-based, one per post per visitor)
• Microformats2 support
• Works with simian

Requirements

• PHP 7.4+ with GD extension
• A web server or PHP built-in server

Installation

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/dmpop/buen.git
   

2. Generate a password hash:

   php -r "echo password_hash('YOUR_PASSWORD', PASSWORD_DEFAULT);"
   

3. Open config.php and replace the default password hash with your generated hash:

   define("PASSWORD_HASH", '2ドルy12ドル$...');
   

4. Update the site title, description, and URL in config.php as needed.

Running

Using PHP Built-in Server (Testing)

Start the built-in PHP server:

php -S 127.0.0.1:8080

Open http://127.0.0.1:8080 in your browser.

Using Docker

Build and start the container:

docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Using a Web Server

Configure your web server (Apache, Nginx, etc.) to serve the application directory. Ensure the posts/, uploads/, and uploads/thumbs/ directories are writable by the web server.

Usage

• View photos: Navigate to the site URL to browse uploaded photos
• Upload photos: Access /admin.php to upload and manage photos
• RSS feed: Access /rss.php for the RSS feed

Fix upload limit

Upload doesn't work? Most likely upload_max_filesize or post_max_size in your PHP config is too small and PHP is silently dropping the upload. Check your current limits:

php -i | grep -E 'upload_max_filesize|post_max_size|file_uploads'

If they're too low (default is often 2MB), either edit /etc/php/8.x/apache2/php.ini directly:

file_uploads = On
upload_max_filesize = 25M
post_max_size = 27M

Or drop a .htaccess file in your blog directory:

php_value upload_max_filesize 25M
php_value post_max_size 27M

Note that post_max_size must be larger than upload_max_filesize — it covers the entire POST body including the file plus form fields.

After editing php.ini, restart Apache:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

The .htaccess approach takes effect immediately without a restart, which is handy for testing. If neither helps, also check that the uploads/ and uploads/thumbs/ directories exist and are writable by the www-data user:

ls -la uploads/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data uploads/ posts/

License

GPLv3 - see the LICENSE file for details.