How to Install Cachet on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

• Requirements
• Before you begin
• Install PHP
• Install MySQL and create a database
• Install and configure Nginx
• Install Composer
• Install Cachet

Cachet is an open source status page system written in PHP. Cachet source code is hosted on this Github repo. In this article we will go over Cachet installation process on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS by using a PHP, MySQL and Nginx software stack.

Requirements

• Git
• PHP 5.5.9 or later
• Nginx
• MySQL
• Composer

Before you begin

Check the Ubuntu version.

lsb_release -ds
# Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS

Create a new non-root user account with sudo access and switch to it.

adduser johndoe --gecos "John Doe"
usermod -aG sudo johndoe
su - johndoe

NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.

Set up the timezone.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Ensure that your system is up to date.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install needed packages.

sudo apt install -y curl wget git

Install PHP

Install PHP 7.0 and required PHP extensions.

sudo apt install -y php7.0 php7.0-cli php7.0-fpm php7.0-common php7.0-xml php7.0-gd php7.0-zip php7.0-mbstring php7.0-mysql php7.0-pgsql php7.0-sqlite3 php7.0-mcrypt php-apc

Check the version.

php --version
# PHP 7.0.30-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 (cli) ( NTS )

Install MySQL and create a database

Install MySQL.

sudo apt install -y mysql-server

Check the version.

mysql --version && sudo mysqld --version

# mysql  Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.22, for Linux (x86_64) using  EditLine wrapper
# mysqld  Ver 5.7.22-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 for Linux on x86_64 ((Ubuntu))

Run the mysql_secure installation script to improve MySQL security and set the password for the root user.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Connect to the MySQL shell as the root user.

mysql -u root -p
# Enter password

Create an empty MySQL database and user for Cachet, and remember the credentials.

CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Install and configure Nginx

Install Nginx.

sudo apt install -y nginx

Check the version.

sudo nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.10.3 (Ubuntu)

Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/cachet.conf and configure Nginx for Cachet. Populate the file with the following configuration.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    server_name status.example.com; # Check this
    root /var/www/cachet/public; # Check this

    index index.php;

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

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock; # Check this
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_keep_conn on;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

Activate new cachet.conf configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled directory.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/cachet.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Test Nginx configuration.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Install Composer

Install Composer globally.

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php -r "if (hash_file('SHA384', 'composer-setup.php') === '544e09ee996cdf60ece3804abc52599c22b1f40f4323403c44d44fdfdd586475ca9813a858088ffbc1f233e9b180f061') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
php composer-setup.php
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Check the version.

composer --version
# Composer version 1.6.5 2018-05-04 11:44:59

Install Cachet

Create a document root directory.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/cachet

Change ownership of the /var/www/cachet directory to johndoe.

sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /var/www/cachet

Download the Cachet source code with Git and checkout the latest tagged release.

cd /var/www/cachet
git clone https://github.com/cachethq/Cachet.git .
git tag -l
git checkout v2.3.15

Copy .env.example to the .env file and configure the database and APP_URL settings in .env file.

cp .env.example .env
vim .env

Install dependencies with composer.

composer install --no-dev -o

Set the application key.

php artisan key:generate

Install Cachet.

php artisan app:install

Change ownership of the /var/www/cachet directory to www-data.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/cachet

Open your site in a web browser and follow the instructions on the screen to finish the Cachet installation. To access the Cachet dashboard append /dashboard to your website URL.