How to Setup PIMCore with Nginx on Ubuntu Linux

This article describes the steps to install and use PIMCore CMS on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support.

Pimcore combines Product Information Management (PIM), Master Data Management (MDM), Content Management (CMS), and eCommerce. This open-source platform based on the Zend Framework might be very useful for your business.

Finding an open-source content management system that fits your business needs might be difficult. You may be able to get CMS like WordPress or Drupal and publish content, but that may not be enough for some businesses.

How to install PIMCore on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx support

As mentioned above, Pimcore combines Product Information Management (PIM), Master Data Management (MDM), Content Management (CMS), and eCommerce.

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

Install Nginx

Nginx HTTP Server represents the A in the LAMP stack. It’s the most popular web server, so install it since Pimcore 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, and 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 Pimcore. 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 MariaDB service to start up 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 into 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 MariaDB welcome message.

Install PHP 7.1-FPM and Related Modules.

PHP 7.1-FPM 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 third 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 7.1-FPM

sudo apt update

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

sudo apt install php7.1-fpm php7.1-common php7.1-mbstring php7.1-xmlrpc php7.1-soap php7.1-gd php7.1-xml php7.1-intl php7.1-mysql php7.1-cli php7.1-zip

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

sudo nano /etc/php/7.1/fpm/php.ini

Then make the changes on the following lines below in the file and save. The value below is an excellent 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 Pimcore 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 Pimcore database.

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

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called pimcoredb

CREATE DATABASE pimcoredb;

Create a database user called pimcoreuser with a new password

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

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON pimcoredb.* TO 'pimcoreuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download PimCore Latest Release

Next, visit the Pimcore 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://www.pimcore.org/download/pimcore-latest.zip
sudo mkdir /var/www/html/pimcore
sudo unzip pimcore-latest.zip -d /var/www/html/pimcore

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

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

Configure Nginx

Finally, configure the Apahce2 site configuration file for Pimcore. This file will control how users access Pimcore content.

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

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

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/pimcore;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;
  
    client_max_body_size 100M;

    location / {
    try_files $uri /app.php$is_args$args;        
    }

    location ~ ^/app\.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;
         send_timeout 1800;
         fastcgi_read_timeout 1800;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

Enable the Pimcore

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

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pimcore /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

To get Let’s Encrypt free SSL/TLS certificates on your Ubuntu machine, you should first install its client. 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 get 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 Pimcore configuration file by Let’s Encrypt certbot. After that, your Pimcore site is ready to be used over HTTPS.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/html/pimcore;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;
  
    client_max_body_size 100M;

    location / {
    try_files $uri /app.php$is_args$args;        
    }

    location ~ ^/app\.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;
         send_timeout 1800;
         fastcgi_read_timeout 1800;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }

   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 Pimcore setup wizard complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.