How to setup a RHEL web server and install LiteCart

For this tutorial we are assuming you already made a clean minimum installation of a RHEL 9.x OS (i.e. Red Hat Enterprise, Fedora, CentOS Stream, Alma Linux, or Rocky Linux).

Configure the Server

# Become root (or you will need to pass `sudo` before every command)
# (If a password is not previously set, first set a root password with the command: sudo passwd root)
su

# Make sure system and components are up to date
dnf upgrade --refresh -y && sudo dnf autoremove -y

# Install repository for extra packages like php-imagick
dnf -y install epel-release

# Install some server software and components
dnf -y install nano unzip httpd mod_ssl mariadb-server php php-bcmath php-intl php-apcu php-gd php-imagick php-json php-mysqlnd php-simplexml php-zip

# Install locales (Example: glibc-langpack-{language_code})
dnf -y install glibc-langpack-es
dnf -y install glibc-langpack-fr

# Change PHP distribution to version 8.3
dnf module switch-to php:8.3

# Start our new services
systemctl enable php-fpm httpd mariadb
systemctl start php-fpm httpd mariadb

# 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

# Allow outgoing traffic for the web server (SELinux)
setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1
setsebool -P httpd_unified 1

# Allow incoming connections to the webserver through the firewall
firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=https
firewall-cmd --permanent --list-all
firewall-cmd --reload

# Create a MySQL user, database, and grant privileges
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 -e "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;"

Install LiteCart

Go to the document root for your site, remove default index page, download the LiteCart web installer and setting the correct permissions:

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

# Create a MySQL database for LiteCart
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 <<END
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;
END

# Create an Apache virtualhost configuration directive for mydomain.tld pointing to the folder of LiteCart
cat <<EOL > /etc/httpd/conf.d/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

# 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)"

# Change owner of the files to apache
chown -R apache:apache ./

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

systemctl restart httpd

Install Let's Encrypt free SSL certificate


# Install certbot
dnf install certbot python3-certbot-apache -y

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

# Append to virtualhost configuration to listen for HTTPS connections
cat <<EOL >> /etc/httpd/conf.d/mydomain.tld.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 httpd