How to host Cachet on AWS Lightsail VM Instance - ServerAvatar

Cachet is an open-source platform designed for organizations to efficiently create status pages. It includes essential tools for maintaining and communicating service statuses and ensuring accessibility for administrators and users alike. When considering hosting Cachet, deploying it on AWS Lightsail is a dependable choice due to its scalable infrastructure with straightforward deployment options. AWS Lightsail provides a range of pre-configured instances with easy deployment options. ServerAvatar simplifies the deployment of the Cachet application on the AWS Lightsail platform through easy steps.

Create VM Instance in AWS Lightsail

To create a server in AWS Lightsail, First log in to the AWS Lightsail console. Once you are there, Follow the steps given below.

Step 1: Go to the Instance Creation Form

To access the instance creation form, Go to the AWS Lightsail dashboard and click on the orange button with the Create Instance text. See the following image for reference.

Step 2: Select the Location of your Instance

First of all, You have to select the location for your instance. It is always better to select a location closest to your major traffic source. It will decrease the latency for the majority of your website visitors.

If you want to change the location of your server, You can simply update the current region in your AWS account.

Step 3: Select the OS for your Instance

After selecting the location, Select the operating system for your instance. In this case, First, click on OS Only and then select Ubuntu 20.04 as an operating system just like the following image.

Step 4: Select SSH Key and Launch Script (Optional/Advanced)

This is an optional step. Here you can set the Launch script and the main SSH key for your server. If you don't understand the launch script and SSH keys, Just ignore this step.

Step 5: Select the Plan

In this step, select the size of your VM instance. AWS Lightsail provides lots of different options when it comes to plans and pricing. The plan and pricing selection completely depend on the requirements of your site(s). So, select the plan based on the complexity and traffic of your sites. The necessary resources can differ based on different factors.

The minimum requirement is 2GB of RAM but for larger deployments 4GB or more is recommended and 1GB of free disk space is required, additional space need is depending on your data, logs, and backups. You can select another plan of higher configuration as per your requirements and usage.

Step 6: Verify and Create the Instance

Finally, Enter the name of your instance, and the number of instances you want to create and assign the tags accordingly for identification. Once done, click on the Create Instance button to start the instance creation process.

It might take a few minutes to deploy the instance. Once done, follow the below-given step to update the firewall rules for the VM instance.

Step 7: Update Firewall Rules

ServerAvatar requires 43210 port open. In total, You need to keep the following ports open on the instance.

• 22 (SSH): To access your server via SSH.
• 80 (HTTP): To access your sites on HTTP.
• 443 (HTTPS): To access your sites on HTTPS.
• 43210 (ServerAvatar): To allow communication between ServerAvatar and your instance.

To update the firewall rules for a specific instance, Go to the AWS Lightsail dashboard and click on the name of the instance you want to update. Then go to the Networking section and add the missing firewall rules. After updating the firewall rules, the networking section of your Instance should look like the following image.

Initial Server Configuration

The Initial server configuration includes the installation and configuration of various packages required to host your website. Usually, You have to write commands and modify configuration files. Luckily, With ServerAvatar, Your full server configuration and optimization can be automated.

Here are the three ways to automatically configure your server with ServerAvatar.

wget https://srvr.so/install
chmod +x install
./install

Install and Setup Cachet status page system with ServerAvatar

Step 1: Create a PHP application

To create an application, go to the ServerAvatar server panel, navigate to the Applications tab, and click the Create button like the following image.

1. Fill in basic detail

In the first step, fill in the basic details, including the Application Name, select the Domain type, and type the Primary Domain/Test Domain Name.

Note that:

If you want to host Joomla CMS on your domain, then make sure to point your domain to the current IP address of your server, and for that:

1. Log in to your hosting provider site, where you buy your domain. You can check your domain information with one click.
2. Access DNS Manager to edit your DNS records(contact the support team if you don’t find them)
3. Change the IP address of A Record of your website to the current server’s IP address.

Note that:

For accessing Cachet on the subdomain, you need to add your subdomain on A Record that points to the current IP address of your server. To point to an IPV6 address, you would need to use an AAAA record

Click the Next Step to continue.

2. Select the application creation method

Here you can fill in the required details. It includes-

1. Select the Git method and GitHub as a service provider so we can deploy an application from Git public repository.
2. Mark on Public Repository.
3. Type/Paste the GitHub project URL. You’ll find the link on GitHub in the image below.

4. Type the Branch of the GitHub project.

5. Type the below commands in the deployment script.

php7.3 /usr/bin/composer install cp .env.example .env php7.3 artisan key:generate

Note that:

Note that: Cachet supports PHP7.1 To 7.3, we need to specify the version in the command in the deployments script.

3. Allocate system user

System users manage the resources of the application. You can create a new application user or give permission to the existing user.

Click the Next Step to continue.

4. Other Options

In this step, select PHP version 7.3. Cachet supports PHP 7.1 - 7.3. Type Public in the Custom Webroot field.

5. Review your application details

Review your application details. Click the Create Application button.

Step 2: Create a Cachet database

On the server panel, navigate to the Databases tab from the sidebar and click the Create button to create a MySQL database.

Fill in database details, including-

• Database Name
• Database Username
• Database Password

Step 3: Delete the .env.example file and update the database information

To delete the .env.example file, go to the application panel>>file manager and access the public_html folder. Now check the Show Hidden Files. The .env.example file is at the top of the multiple hidden files. Please select the file and delete it like the following image.

Now open the .env file and change the database details we created in the second step. It includes-

DB_DATABASE: Database Name DB_USERNAME: Database Username DB_PASSWORD: Database Password

Don’t forget to save the file(CTRL+s) after making appropriate changes.

Step 4: Install SSL

To install SSL for your application. Go to your application panel and click the SSL Certificate from the sidebar.

You can install Automatic SSL or a Custom installation method to secure your site with an SSL certificate. It is recommended to install automatic SSL for your application.

Step 5: Install and Set up Cachet

1. Environment set up

Access your domain/subdomain on the browser to install and set up Cachet. The setup screen will look like the following image.

Fill in the required details in the above image and click the Next button.

2. Status Page Setup

On the next page, you’ll need to set up the status page. Here you can fill up the details, including your Website Name, Website Domain, Timezone, and Language.

Click the Next button to continue.

3. Administrator Account

Fill up admin details, including** Admin Username**, Email, and Password.

Once you enter all the details, click the Complete Setup button. The message will display like the following image. Click the Go To Dashboard button to continue.

Notice: you may see the error “An error occurs, and this resource cannot be displayed.”

If it occurs, log in to your application using an SSH connection. You can see the credentials in the application panel in the following image.

Execute the following command in your terminal to log in to your application-

ssh Username@Host

Now go to your application path using “cd Application_Name/public_html” and execute the following command.

Php7.3 artisan migrate:refresh

After that, go to your setup page and click the Complete Setup button. It will configure cachet successfully.

Once you access the dashboard, you’ll create and manage components and incidents, including updating incidents with additional information and marking them as resolved when the issue is fixed.

That’s it. Your CacheT instance should be live and you can start working on your status pages. We hope this tutorial was helpful to you. You can also refer to other deployment tutorials given below.