Install CachetHQ on CentOS 7

 In this tutorial, we will explain how to install CachetHQ on a CentOS 7.1 VPS with MariaDB, PHP-FPM 5.6 and Nginx. CachetHQ is an open source status page system build on top of Laravel 5. This guide should work on other Linux VPS systems as well but was tested and written for CentOS 7 VPS.

1. Login to your VPS via SSH

ssh user@myVPS

2. Update the system and install necessary packages

[user]$ sudo yum -y upgrade
[user]$ sudo yum install git curl

3. Install MariaDB

MariaDB 5.5 is shipped in the default CentOS 7 repository, to install it just run:

[user]$ sudo yum install mariadb-server

To start the MariaDB service and enable it to start on boot, execute the following commands:

[user]$ sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
[user]$ sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

Run the following command to secure your installation:

[user]$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

Next, we need to create a database for our CachetHQ instance.

[user]$ mysql -uroot -p
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE cachet;
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON cachet.* TO 'cachetuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'cachetuser_passwd';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> \q

4. Install PHP and Nginx

Nginx is not available in the default CentOS 7 repository so we will use the official Nginx repository:

[user]$ sudo rpm -UVh http://nginx.org/packages/centos/7/noarch/RPMS/nginx-release-centos-7-0.el7.ngx.noarch.rpm
[user]$ sudo yum -y install nginx

Enable the EPEL repository:

[user]$ sudo yum install epel-release

CentOS 7 ships with PHP version 5.4, to be able to install the latest version of PHP, version 5.6 we will enable the Webtatic repository:

[user]$ sudo rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm

Install PHP 5.6 and all nessesary extensions:

[user]$ sudo yum install php56w-cli php56w-process php56w-mcrypt php56w-mbstring php56w-common php56w-fpm php56w-xml php56w-opcache php56w-pecl-apcu php56w-pdo php56w-mysqlnd

5. Install Composer

Composer is a dependency manager for PHP with which you can install packages. Composer will pull in all the required libraries and dependencies you need for your project.

[user]$ curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
[user]$ sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

6. Install Node Gulp and Bower

We need Gulp and Bower to build the assets.

[user]$ sudo yum install -y nodejs npm
[user]$ sudo npm install -g bower
[user]$ sudo npm install -g gulp

7. Install CachetHQ

Create a root directory for your application.

[user]$ mkdir -p ~/CachetHQ

Clone the project repository from GitHub:

[user]$ git clone https://github.com/cachethq/Cachet.git ~/CachetHQ
[user]$ cd  ~/CachetHQ

Install all dependencies:

[user]$ composer install --no-dev -o

Copy the .env.example file to .env

[user]$ cp .env.example .env

generate and set the application key:

[user]$ php artisan key:generate

and edit the appropriate values:

[user]$ vim .env

APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=http://localhost
APP_KEY=SomeRandomString

DB_DRIVER=mysql
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=cachet
DB_USERNAME=cachetuser
DB_PASSWORD=cachetuser_passwd

CACHE_DRIVER=apc
SESSION_DRIVER=file
QUEUE_DRIVER=sync

MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=mailtrap.io
MAIL_PORT=2525
MAIL_USERNAME=null
MAIL_PASSWORD=null

Run database migrations and seed the database with sample data:

[user]$ php artisan migrate
[user]$ php artisan db:seed

Build assets:

[user]$ npm install
[user]$ bower install
[user]$ gulp       

8. Configure Nginx and PHP

Create a new PHP-FPM pool for your user:

[user]$ sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/your_user.conf

[your_user]
user = your_user  
group = your_user  
listen = /var/run/php-fpm/your_user.sock  
listen.owner = your_user
listen.group = your_user  
listen.mode = 0666  
pm = ondemand  
pm.max_children = 5  
pm.process_idle_timeout = 10s;  
pm.max_requests = 200  
chdir = /  

Do not forget to change your_user with your username.

Restart PHP-FPM

[user]$ sudo systemctl restart php-fpm.service

Generate ssl certificate:

[user]$ sudo mkdir -p /etc/nginx/ssl
[user]$ cd /etc/nginx/ssl
[user]$ sudo openssl genrsa -des3 -passout pass:x -out cachet.pass.key 2048
[user]$ sudo openssl rsa -passin pass:x -in cachet.pass.key -out cachet.key
[user]$ sudo rm cachet.pass.key
[user]$ sudo openssl req -new -key cachet.key -out cachet.csr
[user]$ sudo openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in cachet.csr -signkey cachet.key -out cachet.crt

Next, create a new Nginx server block:

[user]$ sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/CachetHQ.conf

server {
    listen      443 default;
    server_name CachetHQ;

    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate     /etc/nginx/ssl/cachet.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/cachet.key;
    ssl_session_timeout 5m;

    ssl_ciphers               'AES128+EECDH:AES128+EDH:!aNULL';
    ssl_protocols              TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    root /home/your_user/CachetHQ/public;

    index index.html index.htm index.php;

    charset utf-8;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location = /robots.txt  { access_log off; log_not_found off; }

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/cachet.access.log;
    error_log   /var/log/nginx/cachet.error.log;

    sendfile off;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php-fpm/your_user.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_intercept_errors off;
        fastcgi_buffer_size 16k;
        fastcgi_buffers 4 16k;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

server {
    listen      80;
    server_name CachetHQ;

    add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=2592000;
    rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri? permanent;
}

Do not forget to change your_user with your username.

Finally, restart nginx:

[user]$ sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

That’s it. You have successfully installed CachetHQ on your Centos 7 VPS. If you have not change the default user and password before seeding, you can login with ‘test@test.com’ and ‘test123’.

For more information about CachetHQ ,please refer to the CachetHQ website.

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Of course you don’t have to do any of this if you use one of our CentOS VPS Hosting services, in which case you can simply ask our expert Linux admins to setup this for you. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.

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