Install LiteCart on Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi is a low-cost micro computer. In this guide we will let a Raspberry Pi computer host your LiteCart installation. Suitable for small businesses in development countries who wants an online presence but without any costs of hosting.

For this guide we used a fresh installation of Raspberry Pi OS Lite (Bookworm).

Sign in to your Raspberry Pi device

You can sign in to your device by hooking up a keyboard and display, or by signing in remotely via SSH over a network. To sign in remotely over a network you might need to first enabling the service.

Enable remote access using SSH

# Enable the service for automatic starting next reboot
sudo systemctl enable ssh

# Start the service now
sudo systemctl start ssh

# Show the device IP address and make notes
ip a

Sign in remotely over a network using SSH on Windows

Open Windows Terminal from your Start menu.
Type the following command in Windows Terminal to sign in to your Raspberry Pi:

ssh username@hostname-or-ip-address

Install the necessary software to run LiteCart

Once signed in, pass the following commands.


# Become root (or you will need to pass `sudo` before every command)
# (If this is not enabled. Set a root password first by the command: sudo passwd root)
su

# Make sure all sources and software on the device is up to date
apt update && apt -y full-upgrade && apt -y autoremove

# Install necessary software
apt -y install curl nano unzip apache2 libapache2-mod-php mariadb-server php php-common php-cli php-fpm php-apcu php-curl php-dom php-gd php-imagick php-mysql php-simplexml php-mbstring php-intl php-zip php-xml certbot python3-certbot-apache

# Install additional locales if missing (Example: language-pack-{language_code})
apt -y install language-pack-es language-pack-fr language-pack-de

# Enable some required Apache modules
a2enmod proxy_fcgi rewrite headers setenvif ssl

# Enable the PHP-FPM configuration for PHP 8.2
a2enconf php8.2-fpm

# Secure your MySQL/MariaDB server
# Alternatively run a handsfree command for securing MariaDB/MySQL:
#   mysql -uroot <<END
#   ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '{desired_root_password_here}';
#   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
#   DROP USER IF EXISTS ''@'localhost';
#   DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS test;
#   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
#   END
mysql_secure_installation

# Let's make som changes to the PHP configuration
sed -ri 's/;?memory_limit\s*=\s*[^\s]*/memory_limit = 256M/' /etc/php/8.2/apache2/php.ini
sed -ri 's/;?upload_max_filesize\s*=\s*[^\s]*/upload_max_filesize = 64M/' /etc/php/8.2/apache2/php.ini
sed -ri 's/;?date\.timezone\s*=\s*[^\s]*/date.timezone = Europe\/London/g' /etc/php/8.2/apache2/php.ini

Install LiteCart


# Create a directory for LiteCart
mkdir /var/www/litecart

# Create an Apache virtualhost configuration directive for mydomain.tld pointing to the folder of LiteCart
cat <<EOL > /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mydomain.tld.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName mydomain.tld
  ServerAlias www.mydomain.tld
  ServerAdmin webmaster@mydomain.tld
  DocumentRoot /var/www/litecart

  ErrorLog \${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
  CustomLog \${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

  <Directory /var/www/litecart>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
EOL

# Restart Apache to apply all changes
systemctl restart apache2

# Create the LiteCart database in MariaDB/MySQL
read -p "New database name: " newdb_name
read -p "New database user: " newdb_user
read -sp "Password for database user '$newdb_user': " newdb_password

mysql -u root -p <<EOL
CREATE DATABASE $newdb_name;
CREATE USER '$newdb_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '$newdb_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON $newdb_name.* TO '$newdb_user'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EOL

# Go to the document root for your site
cd /var/www/litecart

# Install LiteCart
bash -c "$(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/litecart/installer/master/cli/install.sh)"

# When the LiteCart web installation is completed, do some cleanup:
rm -Rf install/

# Change owner of the files and folders to Apache web user
chown -R www-data:www-data ./

# Install an SSL Certificate using Let's Encrypt
certbot --apache -w /var/www/litecart -d mydomain.tld

# Install a virtualhost for HTTPS connections
cat <<EOL > /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mydomain.tld-ssl.conf
<VirtualHost *:443>
  ServerName mydomain.tld
  ServerAlias www.mydomain.tld
  ServerAdmin webmaster@mydomain.tld
  DocumentRoot /var/www/litecart

  ErrorLog \${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
  CustomLog \${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

  <Directory /var/www/litecart>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
  </Directory>

  # SSL Configuration
  SSLEngine on
  SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.tld/fullchain.pem
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.tld/privkey.pem
</VirtualHost>
EOL

# Restart Apache web server for SSL
systemctl restart apache2

Automatically update a Cloudflare DNS Record with the machine's Public IP Address

If you are using Cloudflare for your domain's DNS records. Install a script to keep the A-record up to date. Having a dynamic IP address will impact your online availability. But if a static IP-address is not an option this will at least make your website available most of the time.

cat <<EOL > /etc/network/if-up.d/cloudflare-updater.conf
#!/bin/bash

# My WAN adapter
WAN_ADAPTER = "eth0"             # Replace with your adapter name found in `ip link show`

# Cloudflare API credentials
ZONE_ID="your_zone_id"           # Replace with your Cloudflare zone ID
RECORD_ID="your_record_id"       # Replace with the DNS record ID you want to update
API_TOKEN="your_api_token"       # Replace with your Cloudflare API token
DNS_NAME="myvirtualhost.tld"     # The DNS record you want to update

# Check if interface eth0 (or your interface) is up
if [ "\$IFACE" == \$WAN_ADAPTER ]; then

  # Get current public IP
  CURRENT_IP=\$(curl -4 -s ifconfig.me)

  # Get the existing IP from Cloudflare DNS record
  EXISTING_IP=\$(curl -s -X GET "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/\$ZONE_ID/dns_records/\$RECORD_ID" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer \$API_TOKEN" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" | jq -r .result.content)

  # Compare IPs
  if [ "\$CURRENT_IP" != "\$EXISTING_IP" ]; then
    echo "IP has changed. Updating Cloudflare DNS record..."

    # Update the DNS record on Cloudflare
    curl -s -X PUT "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/\$ZONE_ID/dns_records/\$RECORD_ID" \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer \$API_TOKEN" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      --data '{"type":"A","name":"'"\$DNS_NAME"'","content":"'"\$CURRENT_IP"'","ttl":300,"proxied":false}'

    echo "DNS record updated to \$CURRENT_IP"
  else
    echo "IP address is unchanged."
  fi

fi
END

# Make script executable
chmod +x /etc/network/if-up.d/cloudflare-updater.conf

Troubleshooting

Why doesn't my website resolve?

First make sure the DNS record for your domain is pointing to your machine's WAN IP (curl -4 ifconfig.me). This allows the world to find it when accessing the hostname. If you are behind a router you need to make sure that incoming traffic to your router (TCP ports 80 and 443) gets forwarded internally to your Raspberry Pi device. If you have a firewall installed in your Pi computer you will need to allow incoming traffic (ufw allow http https).

Why doesn't my certificate get generated and installed?

A common issue is that the domain does not resolve or isn't pointing to your machine.

I just updated my DNS records, but I am still having troubles.

Let the DNS changes propagate around the world by waiting a couple of hours.

How do I find my WAN IP?

Your WAN IP is stated in your router, or by navigating to https://whatsmyip.com/, or by running the command curl -4 ifconfig.me from the Pi computer.