How to Install Magento with Apache on Ubuntu Linux

This brief post shows students and new users how to install and use Magento 2 on Ubuntu Linux with Apache HTTP web server. This post will also have a link to set up free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates to secure your Magento websites and applications.

Magento is a free and open-source eCommerce platform based on PHP and MySQL that millions of small businesses use to sell and manage their products online. If you want to create an online store, Magento might be the simplest way to do it, especially if users need support to manage and maintain the store.

Magento enables users to create a complete online store, including inventory management, product catalogs, shipping, invoicing, etc.

This tutorial is based on Ubuntu Linux. We’ll install the Apache web server, MariaDB database server, and PHP modules. We’ll also link to another post showing how to secure your Magento website using Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates.

For more about Magento, please check its homepage.

To get started with installing Magento on Ubuntu Linux, follow the steps below:

How to install Apache on Ubuntu Linux

As mentioned above, we will use the Apache web server to run Magento. Magento requires a web server to function, and Apache is one of the most popular open-source web servers available today.

To install Apache on Ubuntu, run the commands below:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2

After installing Apache, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Apache services to start up every time your server starts up.

sudo systemctl stop apache2.service
sudo systemctl start apache2.service
sudo systemctl enable apache2.service

To test whether Apache is installed and functioning, open your web browser and browse to the server’s IP address or hostname.

http://localhost

Apache works as expected if you see the above page in your browser.

How to install MariaDB on Ubuntu Linux

A database server is required for Magento to function. Magento stores its content in a database, and MariaDB is probably the best database server available to run Magento.

MariaDB is fast, secure, and the default server for almost all Linux servers. To install MariaDB, run the commands below:

sudo apt install mariadb-server
sudo apt install mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can stop, start and enable MariaDB services to start up when the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

Next, run the commands below to secure the database server with a root password if you were not prompted to do so during the installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, use the guide below to answer:

If you've just installed MariaDB, and haven't set the root password yet, you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): PRESS ENTER

Switch to unix_socket authentication [Y/n] n

Change the root password? [Y/n] n

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

All done!

To verify and validate that MariaDB is installed and working, log in to the database console using the commands below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

You should automatically be logged in to the database server since we initiated the login request as root. Only the root can log in without a password and from the server console.

The server was successfully installed if you see a similar screen.

How to install PHP on Ubuntu Linux

As mentioned above, we’re installing PHP on Ubuntu since Magento requires it. PHP packages are added to Ubuntu repositories. The versions of the repositories might not be the latest. If you need to install the latest versions, you’ll need to add a third-party PPA repository.

Run the commands below to a third-party repository with the latest versions of PHP.

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

At the time of this writing, the latest PHP version is 8.0.

sudo apt update

Next, run the commands below to install PHP 8.0 and related modules.

sudo apt install php8.0 php8.0-common php8.0-mysql php8.0-gmp php8.0-curl php8.0-intl php8.0-mbstring php8.0-xmlrpc php8.0-gd php8.0-xml php8.0-cli php8.0-zip php8.0-soap php8.0-bcmath

Once PHP is installed, the commands below can start, stop and enable PHP-FPM services to automatically startup when the server boots.

sudo systemctl stop php8.0-fpm
sudo systemctl start php8.0-fpm
sudo systemctl enable php8.0-fpm

Next, you’ll want to change some great PHP configuration settings with Magento. Run the commands below to open the PHP default configuration file.

sudo nano /etc/php/8.0/fpm/php.ini

Then change the line settings to be something like the lines below. Save your changes and exit.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

How to create a Magento database on Ubuntu

At this point, we’re ready to create a Magento database. As mentioned above, Magento uses databases to store its content.

To create a database for Magento, run the commands below:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called magentodb

CREATE DATABASE magentodb;

Next, create a database user called magentodbuser and set a password

CREATE USER 'magentodbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON magentodb.* TO 'magentodbuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

How to download Magento 2

We’re ready to download Magento and begin configuring it. First, run the commands below to download the latest version of Magento from its repository.

You may want to use the GitHub repository to get Magento’s latest release. Install Composer, Curl, and other dependencies to get started.

sudo apt install curl git
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Apache root directory and download Magento 2 packages from GitHub.

When prompted, enter your authentication keys. Your public key is your username; your private key is your password….  ( https://marketplace.magento.com

You’ll have to register for an account to create the key above.

Then run the command below to allow the www-data user to own the Magento directory.

Run the commands below to create a new project called magento.

cd /var/www/
sudo composer create-project --repository=https://repo.magento.com/ magento/project-community-edition magento

Copy and paste the authentication key. (Your public key is your username; your private key is your password)

Output:
Authentication required (repo.magento.com):
Username: 234f2343435d190983j0ew8u3220
Password: 
Do you want to store credentials for repo.magento.com in /opt/magento/.config/composer/auth.json ? [Yn] Y

After downloading Magento packages, run the commands below to install Magento with the following options:

cd /var/www/magento
sudo bin/magento setup:install --base-url-secure=https://example.com/ --db-host=localhost --db-name=magentodb --db-user=magentodbuser --db-password=db_user_password_here --dbadmin-firstname=Admin --admin-lastname=User --admin-email=admin@example.com --admin-user=admin --admin-password=admin123 --language=en_US --currency=USD --timezone=America/Chicago --use-rewrites=1

• The Magento software is installed in the root directory on localhost. Admin is admin;  therefore: Your storefront URL is https://exmaple.com
• The database server is on the same localhost as the webserver….
• The database name is magento, and the magentouser and password are db_user_password_here
• Uses server rewrites
• The Magento administrator has the following properties:
  • First and last name are: Admin User
  • Username is: admin
•  and the password is admin123
• E-mail address is: admin@example.com
• Default language is: (U.S. English)
• Default currency is: U.S. dollars
• Default time zone is: U.S. Central (America/Chicago)

After that, run the commands below to set the correct permissions for Magento 2 to function.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/magento/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/magento/

How to configure Apache for Magento

We have downloaded Magento content into a new folder we called Magento. Now, let’s configure Apache to create a new server block to use with our Magento website. You can create as many server blocks with Apache.

To do that, run the commands below to create a new configuration file called magento. conf in the /etc/apache2/sites-available/ directory to host our Magento server block.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/magento.conf

In the file, copy and paste the content below into the file and save.

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName example.com
  ServerAlias www.example.com
  ServerAdmin admin@example.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/magento
    
  <Directory /var/www/magento/>
       Options FollowSymlinks
       AllowOverride All
       Require all granted
  </Directory>

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

</VirtualHost>

Save the file and exit.

After saving the file above, run the commands below to enable the new file that contains our Magento server block. Restart Apache after that.

sudo a2ensite magento.conf
sudo systemctl restart apache2

At this stage, Magento is ready and can be launched by going to the server’s IP or hostname.

http://localhost

However, we want to protect our server with Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates. So, continue below to learn how to generate a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for websites.

How to Setup Let’s Encrypt for Magento

We have written a great post on generating and managing Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates for Apache web servers. You can use that post to apply it here for your Magento website.

To read the post on how to generate Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates for a website, click on the link below:

How to Setup Let’s Encrypt SSL/TLS on Ubuntu with Apache support

If you successfully generate a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, you should reopen the server block for our Magento website by running the commands below.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/magento.conf

The new Magento server block configurations should look similar to the line below. Take notes of the highlighted lines.

• The first server block listens on port 80. It contains a 301 redirect to redirect HTTP to HTTPS.
• The second server block listens on port 443. It contains a 301 redirect to redirect www to the non-www domain.

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName example.com
  ServerAlias www.example.com

  Redirect permanent / https://example.com/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
  ServerName example.com
  ServerAlias www.example.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/magento

  Protocols h2 http:/1.1

  <If "%{HTTP_HOST} == 'www.example.com'">
    Redirect permanent / https://example.com/
  </If>
  
  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com-error.log
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com-access.log combined

  SSLEngine On
  SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem
  SSLOpenSSLConfCmd DHParameters "/etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem"
  
  SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384

  SSLProtocol All -SSLv2 -SSLv3 -TLSv1 -TLSv1.1
  SSLCompression off
  SSLUseStapling on

  Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000"

  <Directory /var/www/magento/>
       Options FollowSymlinks
       AllowOverride All
       Require all granted
  </Directory>
 
</VirtualHost>

Save the file above, then restart Apache and PHP using the commands below.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Finally, if everything went as planned, you should be able to start the Magento setup wizard by browsing to the server hostname or IP address over HTTPS.

https://example.com/

Next, open your browser and browse the server domain name. You should see the Magento homepage.

You can now log in as an administrator and start customizing and building your store.

How to upgrade Magento 2

First, stop the web server.

sudo systemctl stop apache2

In the future, when you want to upgrade to a newly released version, simply run the commands below to upgrade…

cd /var/www/magento
sudo bin/magento maintenance:enable
sudo composer require magento/product-community-edition 2.2.5 --no-update
sudo composer update
sudo php bin/magento setup:upgrade
sudo php bin/magento setup:di:compile
sudo php bin/magento indexer:reindex
sudo php bin/magento maintenance:disable

You may have to re-run the to update Apache directory permissions.

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to install Magento 2 on Ubuntu Linux with a link to set up Let’s Encrypt. Please use the comment form below if you find any errors above or have something to add.