How to set up AbanteCart on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx

|

,

|

The article provides a detailed and comprehensive instruction guide on installing the open-source eCommerce platform AbanteCart on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support. It describes all the necessary steps which include setting up Nginx HTTP Server, installing MariaDB, configuring PHP 7.FPM, and setting up the AbanteCart database. It also explains the process of obtaining SSL/TLS certificates…

This article explains how to install AbanteCart on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support.

One might want to set up AbanteCart on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx for several reasons. Firstly, Ubuntu is a popular and widely used Linux distribution known for its ease of use and robustness. It is also a very secure operating system, making it ideal for hosting eCommerce platforms like AbanteCart.

Secondly, Nginx is a fast and lightweight web server that is becoming increasingly popular due to its ability to handle high-traffic loads efficiently. It is also known for its stability and reliability, making it a great choice for hosting eCommerce platforms.

Finally, AbanteCart is a powerful and flexible eCommerce platform that is easy to use and comes with a wide range of features to help businesses create and manage online stores. It is also open-source, which means that it is free to use and can be customized to meet the specific needs of any business. All these reasons make AbanteCart on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx a great choice for businesses setting up an online store.

To get started with installing AbanteCart, follow the steps below:

How to install AbanteCart on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support

As mentioned above, AbanteCart is a free and popular open-source eCommerce platform based on PHP. It has comprehensive product features that are ideal for small, medium, and large businesses to create and manage online stores.

Below is how to install it on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support.

Install Nginx HTTP Server on Ubuntu

Nginx HTTP Server represents the A in the LAMP stack. It’s the most popular web server, so install it since AbanteCart needs it.

To install Nginx HTTP on the Ubuntu server, run the commands below.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used 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

To test the Nginx setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address. You should see the Nginx default test page, as shown below. When you see that, then Nginx is working as expected.

http://localhost

Install MariaDB

MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open-source database servers to use with AbanteCart. To install MariaDB, run the commands below.

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

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

Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mysql.service
sudo systemctl start mysql.service
sudo systemctl enable mysql.service

Run these on Ubuntu 17.10 and 18.04 LTS

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 by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

  • Enter current password for root (enter for none): 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

Type the commands below to log on to the MariaDB server to test if MariaDB is installed.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then, type the password you created above to sign on. If successful, you should see a MariaDB welcome message.

Install PHP 7.FPM and Related Modules

PHP 7.1 may not be available on Ubuntu default repositories. To install it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.

Run the commands below to add the below-party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.1-FPM

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

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2-FPM

sudo apt update

Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.

sudo apt install php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-soap php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-intl php7.2-mysql php7.2-cli php7.2-zip

After installing PHP 7.1, run the commands below to open Nginx’s PHP default config file.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

Then, save the changes on the following lines below in the file. The value below is an ideal setting to apply in your environment.

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
date.timezone = America/Chicago

After making the change above, please save the file and close it.

After installing PHP and related modules, you must restart Nginx to reload PHP configurations.

To restart Nginx, run the commands below

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Create AbanteCart Database

Now that you’ve installed all the required packages continue below to start configuring the servers.

First, run the commands below to create a blank AbanteCart database.

To log into the MariaDB database server, run the commands below

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then, create a database called abantecart

CREATE DATABASE abantecart;

Create a database user called abantecartuser with a new password

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

Then, grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON abantecart.* TO 'abantecartuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download AbanteCart’s Latest Release

Next, visit the AbanteCart site and download the latest version.

After downloading, run the commands below to extract the download file into the Nginx root directory.

cd /tmp && wget https://github.com/abantecart/abantecart-src/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
sudo mv abantecart-src-master/public_html /var/www/html/abantecart

Then, run the commands below to set the correct permissions for Concrete5 to function.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/abantecart/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/abantecart/

Configure Nginx

Finally, configure the Nginx site configuration file for AbanteCart. This file will control how users access AbanteCart content.

Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called abantecart

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/abantecart

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/abantecart;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

     client_max_body_size 100M;
     autoindex off;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ $uri.php @abantecart_rules;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
         include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location @abantecart_rules {
                rewrite ^(.*)\?*$ /index.php?_route_=$1 last;
     }
}

Save the file and exit.

Enable the AbanteCart

After configuring the VirtualHost above, please enable it by running the commands below.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/abantecart /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart Nginx by running the commands below to load all the settings above.

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Install Let’s Encrypt Client

You should first install its client to get Let’s Encrypt free SSL/TLS certificates on your Ubuntu machine. The client helps automate the process for you. To install it, run the commands below.

sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx

If python-certbot-nginx isn’t installed, you may have to add its PPA repository and install the package.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx

Obtaining your free SSL/TLS Certificates

After installing the Let’s Encrypt Certbot client module for Nginx, run the commands below to obtain your free Let’s Encrypt SSL/TLS certificate in the domain specified. Make sure to replace example.com with your domain.

sudo certbot --nginx -m admin@example.com -d example.com -d www.example.com

After running the above commands, you should be prompted to accept the licensing terms. If everything is checked, the client should automatically install the free SSL/TLS certificate and configure the Nginx site to use the certs.

Please read the Terms of Service at
https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.2-November-15-2017.pdf. You must
agree in order to register with the ACME server at
https://acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(A)gree/(C)ancel: A

Choose Yes ( Y ) to share your email address.

Would you be willing to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a founding partner of the Let's Encrypt project and the non-profit
organization that develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about EFF and
our work to encrypt the web, protect its users and defend digital rights.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Y)es/(N)o: Y

This is how easy it is to obtain your free SSL/TLS certificate for your Nginx-powered website.

Please choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, removing HTTP access.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: No redirect - Make no further changes to the webserver configuration.
2: Redirect - Make all requests redirect to secure HTTPS access. Choose this for
new sites, or if you're confident your site works on HTTPS. You can undo this
change by editing your web server's configuration.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Select the appropriate number [1-2] then [enter] (press 'c' to cancel): 2

Pick option 2 to redirect all traffic over HTTPS. This is important!

After that, the SSL client should install the cert and configure your website to redirect all traffic over HTTPS.

Congratulations! You have successfully enabled https://example.com and
https://www.example.com

You should test your configuration at:
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=example.com
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.example.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
   Your key file has been saved at:
   /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem
   Your cert will expire on 2018-02-24. To obtain a new or tweaked
   version of this certificate in the future, simply run certbot again
   with the "certonly" option. To non-interactively renew *all* of
   your certificates, run "certbot renew"
 - If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

   Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:   https://letsencrypt.org/donate
   Donating to EFF:                    https://eff.org/donate-le

The highlighted code block should automatically be added to your Nginx AbanteCart configuration file by Let’s Encrypt certbot. After that, your AbanteCart site is ready to be used over HTTPS.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/html/abantecart;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

     client_max_body_size 100M;
     autoindex off;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ $uri.php @abantecart_rules;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
         include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location @abantecart_rules {
                rewrite ^(.*)\?*$ /index.php?_route_=$1 last;
     }

  listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
    include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot

    if ($scheme != "https") {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    } # managed by Certbot

    # Redirect non-https traffic to https
    # if ($scheme != "https") {
    #     return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    # } # managed by Certbot

}

You’ll have to renew the certificates manually. You’ll get an email reminder to reset when the certificates are about to expire. To test the renewal process, run the commands below.

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

To set up a process to automatically renew the certificates, add a cron job to execute the renewal process.

sudo crontab -e

Then add the line below and save.

0 1 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew & > /dev/null

The cron job will attempt to renew 30 days before expiring

Next, open your browser and browse to the server domain name, followed by install. You should see the AbanteCart setup wizard complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.

http://example.com/

Validate all PHP settings are good and click Continue.

Then, type in the database connection you created above and the admin account to manage the store. When you’re done, continue with the installation.

After a brief moment, the installation should be complete. Login to the back as the administrator or go to the site. You should also run the commands below to delete the installation folder to complete the installation.

sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/abantecart/install

Enjoy!


Discover more from Geek Rewind

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

Like this:



Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Blog at WordPress.com.

Discover more from Geek Rewind

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading