StackFood Documentation

Local #

Choose the right development environment for your local machine based on the operating system. Follow the instructions below for a smooth setup:

1. Windows (XAMPP):

   – Download and install XAMPP to set up a comprehensive local development environment on Windows.

2. Linux (LAMP):

   – Configure the LAMP stack on your Linux distribution for the local development environment.

3. MacOS (MAMP):

   – Install MAMP to establish a compatible local development environment on MacOS.

Each choice gives you a flexible setup that fits well with your computer’s system. Watch the tutorial videos for step-by-step help while installing.

CPanel #

Database Configuration  #

Before starting the admin installation, the database must be configured for the application.

For creating the database, the following ways must be maintained-

• Go to MySQL Databases

• Create a new database for the application

• Create a user for the database

• Add the user to the database

• Give privileges to the user

Domain Configuration #

Navigate to your cPanel and locate the page for domain configuration. For StackFood, it is essential to have two domains or subdomains. Utilise your main domain to host the customer web panel. 

Additionally, create a subdomain for the admin panel. For instance, if your domain is ‘example.com’, generate a subdomain such as ‘admin.example.com’ and host the admin panel on that subdomain.

Digital Ocean #

Initially, you must configure a droplet to host your application, allowing you to modify the configuration according to your business needs. We advise a minimum specification of 2 cores CPU paired with 4GB of RAM, with the option to increase resources for larger client bases.

Refer to the tutorial for additional details and guidance.

Server Setup #

To host an application on a Virtual Private Server (VPS), you need to configure the LAMP stack, which serves as the environment for PHP/Laravel applications. LAMP comprises Linux, Apache2, MySQL, and PHP. Alternatively, NGinx can be used instead of Apache2, but this tutorial focuses only on Apache2 configuration.

Installing LAMP Stack #

This guide will walk you through the process of setting up a LAMP stack on an Ubuntu server. Make sure you have an Ubuntu server instance with sudo privileges.

Run the following commands for installing required things-

Step 1: Update Package Lists

sudo apt update

Step 2: Install Apache

sudo apt install apache2 -y

Step 3: Install MySQL

sudo apt install mysql-server

Step 4: Install PHP

sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql

Step 5: Test PHP Processing

echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" | sudo tee /var/www/html/info.php

Step 6: Additional PHP Modules

sudo apt install php-bcmath -y

sudo apt install php-ctype -y

sudo apt install php-json -y

sudo apt install php-mbstring -y

sudo apt install php-openssl -y

sudo apt install php-pdo -y

sudo apt install php-tokenizer -y

sudo apt install php-xml -y

sudo apt install php-zip -y

sudo apt install php-fileinfo -y

sudo apt install php-gd -y

sudo apt install php-sodium -y

sudo apt install php-mysql -y

Afterward, access the IP address, and you’ll be directed to the default Apache configuration page.

Check if the php is working correctly or not by hitting the URL YOUR_IP/info.php and you can see the system’s PHP configs.

Configure domain/sub-domain #

Make sure you have an Apache web server installed. For configuring domain or sub-domain in your VPS server, you must configure a vhost (Virtual Host) configuration file. Follow the steps below to configure vhost config file for both domain or sub-domain-

Step 1: Navigate to Apache Sites Directory

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/

Step 2: Create a Virtual Host Configuration File

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain.com.conf

Add the following content:

<VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerAdmin webmaster@your_domain.com

    ServerAlias www.your_domain.com

    ServerName your_domain.com

    DocumentRoot /var/www/your_domain.com/public_html

    <Directory /var/www/your_domain.com/public_html>

        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks

        AllowOverride All

        Require all granted

    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Save the file and exit the text editor.

Step 3: Enable the virtual host configuration file

sudo a2ensite your_domain.com.conf

Step 4: Reload the Apache2 server

sudo systemctl reload apache2

Step 5: Test the Virtual Host

Open your web browser and navigate to http://your_domain.com. You should see your website.

Domain propagation #

• Domain propagation refers to the process of updating DNS (Domain Name System) records across the internet, allowing a newly purchased domain or subdomain to become accessible globally.
• To initiate the process, configure an A record for your domain and CNAME record for your subdomain. Alternatively, if preferred, you can opt to create an A record for your subdomain instead of a CNAME record.

Setup SSL with Certbot on Apache #

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is crucial for securing data transmitted between the user’s browser and your web server. Certbot is a free, open-source software tool for automatically managing SSL certificates.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the process of setting up SSL for your Apache web server using Certbot.

Before you begin, make sure you have:

An Apache web server installed.

A registered domain pointing to your server’s IP address.

The domain is accessible over HTTP (port 80).

Step 1: SSH into the server

• Access the server hosting your HTTP website via SSH using a user account with sudo privileges.

Step 2: Install snapd

• Ensure that you install snapd and carefully follow any provided instructions to activate classic snap support.
• Refer to the instructions provided on snapcraft’s website for installing snapd.

install snapd

Step 3: Remove certbot-auto and any Certbot OS packages

• If you have any Certbot packages installed via an OS package manager such as apt, it’s advisable to uninstall them before installing the Certbot snap. This ensures that when you execute the command “certbot,” the snap version is utilized rather than the one from your OS package manager. For removing the certbot from the system run the following command-

sudo apt-get remove certbot

Step 4: Install Certbot

• Execute this command on the command line of your machine to install Certbot.

sudo snap install --classic certbot

Step 5: Prepare the Certbot command

• Run the following instruction on the command line of your machine to ensure that the certbot command can be executed.

sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

Step 6: Choose how you’d like to run Certbot

• Either get and install your certificates…
• Run this command to get a certificate and have Certbot edit your apache configuration automatically to serve it, turning on HTTPS access in a single step.

sudo certbot --apache

• Or, just get a certificate
• If you’re feeling more conservative and would like to make the changes to your apache configuration by hand, run this command.

sudo certbot certonly --apache

Step 7: Test automatic renewal

• The Certbot packages on your system come with a cron job or systemd timer that will renew your certificates automatically before they expire. You will not need to run Certbot again, unless you change your configuration. You can test automatic renewal for your certificates by running this command:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Step 8: Confirm that Certbot worked

To confirm that your site is set up properly, visit https://yourwebsite.com/ in your browser and look for the lock icon in the URL bar.

MySQL Database and User Setup #

Setting up a MySQL database involves creating a database, creating a user, and assigning that user appropriate privileges. This guide will walk you through the process using MySQL commands.

Before you begin, make sure you have:

MySQL installed on your server.

MySQL root access or a user with sufficient privileges.

Step 1: Log in to MySQL

sudo mysql

Step 2: Create a Database

CREATE DATABASE your_database_name;

Replace your_database_name with the desired name for your database.

Step 3: Create a MySQL User

CREATE USER 'your_username'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';

Replace your_username with the desired username and your_password with the desired password for the user.

Step 4: Grant All Privileges to the User for the Database

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON your_database_name.* TO 'your_username'@'localhost';

Step 5: Flush the privileges 

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Replace your_database_name with the name of the database created in Step 2 and your_username with the username created in Step 3.

Step 6: Exit MySQL

EXIT;

phpMyadmin setup (optional) #

Run the following commands for installing phpmyadmin in your system

sudo apt update

sudo apt install phpmyadmin php-mbstring php-zip php-gd php-json php-curl

Here are the options you should choose when prompted in order to configure your installation correctly:

For the server selection, choose apache2

Select Yes when asked whether to use dbconfig-common to set up the database

You will then be asked to choose and confirm a MySQL application password for phpMyAdmin

Restart the apache2 server-

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Project Setup  #

Upload your project in /var/www/your_domain.com/public_html and unzip the file

apt install unzip

unzip your_file_name

Then give permission to some specific files & folders

sudo chmod 777 modules_statuses.json

sudo chmod 755 .env

sudo chmod 777 Providers/RouteServiceProvider.php

sudo chmod -R 777 storage

sudo chmod -R 777 bootstrap/cache

sudo chmod -R 777 resources/lang 

Now you are ready to go for the installation.