Zen Cart is a free, user-friendly, open-source shopping cart software based on PHP. It has comprehensive product features for small, medium, and large businesses to create and manage their online stores for free.
If you’re looking for a functional, high-performance eCommerce platform to manage your online storefront that’s 100% free, you’ll find Zen Cart to be helpful.
This brief tutorial will show students and new users how to install Zen Cart on Ubuntu 17.04 | 17.10 with Nginx, MariaDB, and PHP support.
This post covers installing the latest version of Zen Cart, which at the time of writing was at version 5.5
To get started with installing Zen Cart, follow the steps below:
Install Nginx
Zen Cart requires a webserver to function, and the second most popular web server in use today is Nginx. So, go and install Nginx on Ubuntu by running the commands below:
sudo apt install nginx
Next, run the commands below to stop, start and enable the Nginx service to always start up with the server boots.
sudo systemctl stop nginx.service sudo systemctl start nginx.service sudo systemctl enable nginx.service
Install MariaDB
Zen Cart also requires a database server to function. And MariaDB database server is a great place to start. To install it, run the commands below.
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client
After installing, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable the MariaDB service always to start up when the server boots.
sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service sudo systemctl start mariadb.service sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
After that, run the commands below to secure the MariaDB server.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.
- Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
- Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
- New password: Enter password
- Re-enter new password: Repeat password
- 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
Restart MariaDB server
sudo systemctl restart mariadb.service
Install PHP and Related Modules
Zen Cart also requires PHP to function. To install PHP and related modules, run the commands below.
sudo apt install php-fpm php-common php-mbstring php-xmlrpc php-soap php-gd php-xml php-intl php-mysql php-cli php-mcrypt php-ldap php-zip php-curl
After installing PHP, run the commands below to open the PHP-FPM default file.
sudo nano /etc/php/7.1/fpm/php.ini # Ubuntu 17.10 sudo nano /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini # Ubuntu 17.04
Then change to the following lines below in the file and save.
file_uploads = On allow_url_fopen = On memory_limit = 256M upload_max_filesize = 64M
Create Zen Cart Database
Now that you’ve installed all the required packages continue below to start configuring the servers.
First, run the commands below to create Zen Cart database.
Run the commands below to log on to the database server. When prompted for a password, type the root password you created above.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then create a database called zencart
CREATE DATABASE zencart;
Create a database user called zencartuser with a new password
CREATE USER 'zencartuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';
Then grant the user full access to the database.
GRANT ALL ON zencart.* TO 'zencartuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Finally, save your changes and exit.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
Download Zen Cart Latest Release
Next, visit the Zen Cart site and register for a free account. You must register before you’re allowed to download a copy. The community edition is what you’ll want to download.
After downloading, run the commands below to extract the download file into the Nginx root directory.
cd /tmp && wget https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/zencart/CURRENT%20-%20Zen%20Cart%201.5.x%20Series/zen-cart-v1.5.5e-03082017.zip unzip zen-cart-v1.5.5e-03082017.zip sudo mv zen-cart-v1.5.5e-03082017 /var/www/html/zencart
Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for PrestaShop to function.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/zencart/ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/zencart/
Configure Nginx
Finally, configure the Apahce2 site configuration file for Zen Cart. This file will control how users access Zen Cart content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called zencart
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/zencart
Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your domain name and directory root location.
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/html/zencart;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
client_max_body_size 30M;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?main_page=$uri&$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri =404;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
fastcgi_index index.php;
# fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock; # for Ubuntu 17.04
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock; # for Ubuntu 17.10
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
}
Save the file and exit.
Enable the Zen Cart and Rewrite Module
After configuring the VirtualHost above, please enable it by running the commands below.
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/zencart /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
Restart Nginx by running the commands below to load all the settings above.
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name, followed by install. Finally, you should see the Zen Cart setup wizard complete.
Please follow the wizard carefully.
http://example.com
Click the link to begin the installation
Then continue with the installation.
Next, confirm the site URL and continue.
Next, type the databases name, user, and password and continue
Next, create the zen cart site administrator account and continue
Finally, complete the installation
After that, run the commands below to delete the installation directory
sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/zencart/zc_install/
Enjoy!
Congratulation! You’ve successfully installed the Zen Cart eCommerce application on Ubuntu.
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