How to host Cachet on Digitalocean Droplet - 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. DigitalOcean is a dependable hosting option for Cachet, providing scalable infrastructure and simple deployment solutions. ServerAvatar makes it easy and user-friendly to deploy the Cachet application on the DigitalOcean platform.

Create Server in Digitalocean

Digitalocean is one of the most popular cloud platforms right now. It offers on-demand cloud computing for various use cases as well as some managed solutions. We can deploy any PHP-based applications on Digitalocean Droplets. Droplets are the servers or cloud computing instances in Digitalocean. If you want to learn about droplet management in-depth in Digitalocean, We recommend you to read our Digitalocean guide.

To deploy any application on Digitalocean, We first need a Droplet. So, we will first create a droplet and perform the initial setup.

Step 1: Go to the Create Droplets page.

Log in to your Digitalocean account and click on the Create button given on the top-right corner of the page. From the drop-down menu, click on the Droplets option to see a droplet creation form.

Step 2: Choose Region

On the Droplet creation page, you will find several sections for selecting different options. We will proceed step by step.

The first thing you have to do is select the region for your droplet. Digitalocean provides a number of options when it comes to selecting the location. The general rule is to select the region that is closest to your audience. It means that for the majority of your audience, Your sites will load faster due to low latency.

Step 3: Choose an Image or an OS

In this step, you have to select the operating system for your droplet. Generally, the Cachet application required Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or a later version for compatibility and support.

However, We recommend you to use Ubuntu 20.04 LTS x64 or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS x64. These operating systems are required if you use ServerAvatar to manage your droplets.

Step 4: Choose the size of the Droplet

Here you have to choose the size of your Droplet. As we mentioned above, Digitalocean provides many different types of droplets. Select the one that fits best for your project.

If your site is brand new and does not have much traffic, start with a small plan. Once the project starts getting traction, you can upgrade the plan to handle more visitors on the site.

Step 5: Choose Authentication Method

Now you have to select the authentication method. There are two types of authentication methods. They are as follows:

1. Authentication via SSH Keys
2. Authentication via Password

Using SSH keys for authentication is the best option. If you are not familiar with SSH keys, you can choose the password method. Make sure to set a strong password for your root user, which is the most powerful user with all the privileges on Linux OS.

Step 6: Selecting Additional Options

There are three additional options you can choose from. They are optional but important in different use cases. The additional options are:

1. Monitoring: It is a free feature by Digitalocean. It allows you to see additional monitoring data for your server.
2. Backups: We recommend you to enable full server backups if you are going to deploy in the production environment. The cost of the backups depends on the size of the droplet.
3. Managed Database: You do not need a Managed database if you are using ServerAvatar to manage sites on a droplet. A managed database is a pre-configured MySQL Droplet.

Step 7: Finalise Details

In the last step of this process, We have to enter the name of the droplet, and the number of droplets you want to create, Define any tags, and select the project. Enter all the details and click on the Create Droplet button to create a droplet.

In a few minutes, You will have the Droplet up and running. Now, We have to perform the initial configuration on the Droplet to host PHP-based frameworks and software.

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.