How to Install PrestaShop on a Cloud VPS

Prestashop is an e-commerce framework built on PHP and MySQL. It provides a theme-type interface, an easy-to-organize catalog of products, and ties into many different payment and shipping platforms. Additionally, it tracks statistics, metrics and is translated into almost 200 languages for easy internationalization. Prestashop is open source, making it a free solution for these well sought-after platforms.

Prestashop provides customization, giving you the ability to choose your colors, logo, and design from among a selection of hundreds of themes. Management of customer relations, statistics, product tracking, and orders can all be done using the Prestashop GUI. In addition, it supports multiple currencies and social media integration.

PrestaShop Requirements

PrestaShop requires Apache, MySQL, and PHP and can be installed on Linux, Windows, or OS X. Specifically, Apache 2.2 or Nginx, PHP 7.1 or higher, and MySQL 5.6 or higher are required. The PHP extensions CURL, DOM, Fileinfo, GD, Intl, Mbstring, Zip, Json, and icons are also necessary.

Note: It's recommended to use a server with 2GB or more RAM.

Below are the steps to install the PrestaShop requirements on a Linux VPS (Virtual Private Server) or Dedicated Server.

PrestaShop Preparation

Before installing PrestaShop itself, you will need to first prepare the following on your server by logging into your server via SSH. These steps are the foundation needed to set up the Prestashop framework.

Update Your OS

Step 1: Before beginning further installation, ensure your OS is up-to-date by running the following command

yum update

Install Apache

We will be installing Apache with dnf, which is the default package manager for CentOS 8:

dnf install httpd

After installing Apache services on your system, start all required services:

systemctl restart httpd
systemctl status httpd
systemctl enable httpd

You can verify that Apache is running by opening your favorite web browser and entering the URL http://your-server's-address.

Installing MySQL(MariaDB)

Step 1: Install MariaDB

dnf install mariadb-server
systemctl start mariadb

Step 2: Secure MariaDB

By default, MariaDB is not hardened. You can secure MariaDB using the mysql_secure_installation script.

It would be best if you read and below each step carefully to set a root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MariaDB:

mysql_secure_installation

Note: there is no root password by default, hit enter when asked.

Step 3: Restart the MariaDB database server and enable it to start on the system start-up.

systemctl restart mariadb
systemctl status mariadb
systemctl enable mariadb

Installing PHP

Step 1: Install PHP and required modules

dnf install php php-common php-pecl-apcu php-cli php-pear php-pdo php-mysqlnd php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-zip php-json php-intl

Step 2: Restart Apache using systemctl for the changes to take effect:

systemctl restart httpd

Step 3: Test your PHP installation to make sure it is installed correctly.

Create a new file called test.php on /var/www/html and add the following:

nano /var/www/html/info.php


<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Then press ctrl-x, y, enter to save and exit nano.

Access http://[your server IP]/info.php to confirm that the PHP is installed.

Installing PrestaShop

Step 1: Download the PrestaShop archive:

On https://www.prestashop.com/en/versions right-click on 'download' and chose 'Copy Link address'

In your SSH terminal, type

cd /var/www/html/
wget 

And space, then right-click to paste the URL, then enter.

Alternatively, you can download it to your desktop and then use SFTP to upload it.

Step 2: Unzip the zip file:

unzip prestashop_1.*

And set the permissions so PHP can write to the directory:

chown -R root.apache /var/www/html/
chmod 775 /var/www/html/

Step 3: Create a database for PrestaShop.

Log into MySQL with the password for root you set in the mysql_secure_installation step above.

mysql -u root -p

In the MySQL Command line, enter:

CREATE DATABASE presta_db;
GRANT ALL ON presta_db.* TO 'presta_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'ThisShouldBeAStrongerPassword' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

Step 4: Start the PrestaShop installation.

In a web browser, navigate to http://[your server ip]/, and it should start unzipping the PrestaShop file and installing it. It will then give you the options to:

• Set your language
• Accept the license agreement (It will check the system compatibility and let you know if anything is missing, but following this tutorial should skip to the next step)
• Set the store information
• Set the database information:
• Server address is 127.0.0.1
• Database name is presta_db
• Database user is presta_user
• Database password is as entered in the 'GRANT' command above
• leave the Tables prefix as 'ps_' and the checkbox to drop existing tables (there aren't any).
• Click 'test your database connection' and you should see a green bar appear with "Database is connected."
• Click 'Next'

PrestaShop will then finish the installation.

Step 5: Post Install Cleanup

Per the last page in the installation, the /install directory needs to be deleted. In the command line on the server, run.

rm -rf /var/www/html/install

Step 6: Log into the shop backend.

In your browser, navigate to http://[your server IP]/admin and log in with the email/password you set during the Prestashop installation on the 'Store Information' page. It will generate a new random admin URL (for security reasons) and redirect you.

You're all done! You can now set up the shop, add products, configure shipping, payment, and other plugins, and start selling.