This brief post shows students and new users steps to install and use Adobe Commerce (previously Magento) on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx HTTP web server. This post will also have a link to setup 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 is used by millions of small businesses 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 you will need support from users to manage and maintain the store.
Magento enables users to create a complete online store, including inventory management, product catalogs, shipping, invoicing and many more.
This tutorial is based on Ubuntu Linux. We’ll be installing Nginx web server, MariaDB database server and PHP modules. We’ll also link to another post that will show you 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 Nginx on Ubuntu Linux
As mentioned above, we’re going to be using Nginx web server to run Magento. Magento requires a web server to function, and Nginx is one of the most popular open source web servers available today.
To install Nginx on Ubuntu, 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 Nginx services to always start up everytime your server starts up.
sudo systemctl stop nginx.service sudo systemctl start nginx.service sudo systemctl enable nginx.service
To test whether Nginx is installed and functioning, open your web browser and browse to the server’s IP address or hostname.
If you see the above page in your browser, then Nginx is working as expected.
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 be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB services to always 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, login 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 login without password, and only from the server console.
If you see a similar screen as shown above, then the server was successfully installed.
How to install PHP-FPM on Ubuntu Linux
As we also mentioned above, we’re installing PHP on Ubuntu since Magento requires it. PHP packages are added to Ubuntu repositories. The versions 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.
To a third party repository with the latest versions of PHP, run the commands below.
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
At the time of this writing, the latest PHP version 8.0.
sudo apt update
Next, run the commands below to install PHP 8.0 and related modules.
sudo apt install php8.0-fpm 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 be used to 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 PHP configuration settings that work great with Magento. Run the commands below to open PHP default configuration file.
sudo nano /etc/php/8.0/fpm/php.ini
Then change the line settings to be something line the lines below. Save your changes and exit.
file_uploads = On allow_url_fopen = On short_open_tag = On memory_limit = 256M cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0 upload_max_filesize = 100M max_execution_time = 360 date.timezone = America/Chicago
How to create Magento database on Ubuntu
At this point, we’re ready to create 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 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.
To get Magento latest release you may want to use GitHub repository. Install Composer, Curl and other dependencies to get started
sudo apt install curl git curl -sS | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Nginx 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…. (
You’ll have to register for an account to create the key above.
Then run command below to allow www-data user to own the Magento directory.
The run the commands below to create a new project called magento.
cd /var/www/
sudo composer create-project --repository= 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 [email protected] --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 is 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: [email protected]
- 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 Nginx for Magento
We have downloaded Magento content into a new folder we called Magento. Now, let’s configure Nginx to create a new server block to use with our Magento website. You can create as many server blocks with Nginx.
To do that, run the commands below to create a new configuration file called magento.conf in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory to host our Magento server block.
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/magento.conf
In the file, copy and paste the content below into the file and save.
upstream fastcgi_backend {
server unix:/var/run/php/php8.0-fpm.sock;
}
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/magento;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
client_max_body_size 100M;
autoindex off;
set $MAGE_ROOT /var/www/magento;
set $MAGE_MODE production;
access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com-access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/example.com-error.log;
include /var/www/magento/nginx.conf.sample;
}
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 Nginx after that.
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/magento.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ sudo systemctl restart nginx.service
At this stage, Magento is ready and can be launched by going to the server’s IP or hostname.
However, we want to make sure our server is protected with Let’s Encrypt free SSL certificates. So, continue below to learn how to generate Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for websites.
How to setup Let’s Encrypt for Magento
We have written a great post on how to generate and manage Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates for Nginx web server. 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 website, click on the link below:
How to Setup Let’s Encrypt on Ubuntu Linux with Nginx – Website for Students
If you were successful in generating a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, you should then reopen the server block for our Magento website by running the commands below.
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/magento.conf
The new Magento server blocks 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 non-www domain.
upstream fastcgi_backend {
server unix:/var/run/php/php8.0-fpm.sock;
}
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /var/www/magento;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
include snippets/well-known.conf;
return 301
}
server {
listen 443 ssl http2;
listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
root /var/www/magento;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name www.example.com;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;
ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/chain.pem;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_ciphers 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;
add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains";
include snippets/well-known.conf;
return 301
}
server {
listen 443 ssl http2;
listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
root /var/www/magento;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
server_name example.com;
ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem;
ssl_trusted_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/chain.pem;
ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_ciphers 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;
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
ssl_session_timeout 1d;
ssl_session_tickets off;
ssl_stapling on;
ssl_stapling_verify on;
resolver 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 valid=300s;
resolver_timeout 30s;
ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem;
add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains";
add_header X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
include snippets/well-known.conf;
client_max_body_size 100M;
autoindex off;
set $MAGE_ROOT /var/www/magento;
set $MAGE_MODE production;
access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com-access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/example.com-error.log;
include /var/www/magento/nginx.conf.sample;
}
Save the file above, then restart Nginx and PHP using the commands below.
sudo systemctl reload nginx sudo systemctl reload php8.0-fpm
Finally, if everything went as planned, you should be able to start Magento setup wizard by browsing to the server hostname or IP address over HTTPS.
Next, open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see Magento homepage.
You can now login as administrator and start customizing and building your store.
How to upgrade Magento 2
First stop the webserver.
sudo systemctl stop nginx
In the future when you want to upgrade to a new 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 Nginx directory permissions.
Conclusion:
This post showed you how to install Magento 2 on Ubuntu Linux with link to setting up Let’s Encrypt. If you find any error above, or have something to add, please use the comment form below.
