How to host Kanboard on Google Cloud VM Instance - ServerAvatar

Kanboard is an open-source application designed to streamline project management tasks for teams. It includes essential features for creating tasks, managing projects, and tracking progress, ensuring a seamless experience for both team members and project stakeholders. When selecting a hosting provider for Kanboard, Google Cloud stands out as a leading cloud infrastructure provider known for its simplicity, scalability, and user-friendly approach. ServerAvatar simplifies the deployment of Kanboard on Google Cloud VPS (Virtual Private Servers) through an intuitive interface, automating complex setup procedures, and allowing users with minimal technical knowledge to efficiently configure and manage their server environments.

Create a VM Instance in Google Cloud

Getting started with Google Cloud:

Google is one of the most famous and reliable cloud providers among all of its competitors in the market. Google Cloud Platform provides a robust and comprehensive set of cloud computing services, catering to diverse business needs from startups to large enterprises. With its focus on scalability, performance, security, and innovation, GCP enables organizations to build, deploy, and scale applications and services efficiently in the cloud. Whether it's computing, storage, data analytics, machine learning, or networking, GCP offers a powerful and flexible platform for modern cloud computing requirements.

Google Cloud Platform’s Compute Engine offers robust virtual machine capabilities designed to meet the needs of modern cloud computing environments. Whether you’re looking for flexibility, scalability, performance, or integration with other Google Cloud services, Compute Engine provides a comprehensive solution for running your applications and workloads in the cloud efficiently and securely. Here’s a detailed introduction to Google Cloud as a virtual machine provider:

• Compute Engine as a primary service: It allows you to quickly scale VMs up or down based on demand, allowing you to handle varying workloads effectively. Users have the flexibility to select VM instance types tailored to their needs for CPU, memory, and disk capacities. Google provides predefined machine types optimized for different tasks, or you can customize machine types to allocate resources according to specific requirements.
• Key Features and Capabilities: It provides preemptible VMs at a greatly reduced price, ideal for fault-tolerant and batch-processing tasks. VM instances can be migrated live between host systems without any downtime, ensuring exceptional availability and reliability. Users have the option to either create custom VM images or utilize Google's pre-built images for quick deployment of popular software configurations.
• Integration with Google Services: It offers Control access and permissions for VM instances by managing IAM roles and policies. Compute Engine seamlessly integrates with Google Cloud's VPC networking, enabling the creation of secure and isolated networks tailored for your VMs. It also supports VPNs, Cloud Interconnect, and Google Cloud Load Balancing to efficiently manage network traffic. Moreover, Google's Deployment Manager can be used to automate the creation and management of VMs and associated resources following Infrastructure-as-Code principles.
• Management and Monitoring: Administer VM instances using the Google Cloud Console, which offers a graphical interface for deploying, monitoring, and managing resources. Engage with Compute Engine programmatically through Google Cloud SDK tools and APIs, enabling automation and seamless integration with other systems.
• Security and Compliance: Compute Engine incorporates security features such as encryption of data at rest and in transit, secure boot, and IAM controls to safeguard VM instances and data. Google Cloud Platform adheres to various compliance standards (e.g., ISO, SOC, GDPR), providing assurances for regulatory requirements across different industries.

Let’s get started with creating a Virtual Machine on the Google Cloud Platform:

Step 1: Creating a VM in Google Cloud Platform

• Click on the below link and log in to your Google account.

  • https://console.cloud.google.com

• Here you can create a New project or you can select the project you want, and then click on Create a VM as shown in the image below.

Step 2: Creating a VM Instance

• For creating a VM instance click on the sidebar, select the Compute Engine, and then click on the VM instances and Create Instance, as depicted in the images below.

Step 3: Configuring a New VM Instance

• Click on New VM Instance, here you can give Name to your virtual machine. Additionally, you can select the Region and Zone of your choice. Moreover, you can select the machine according to your needs from the available types. Refer to the image below.

Step 4: Select the Machine type

• Now you have the option to select a Machine Type with predefined configurations of vCPUs and memory which is suitable for most workloads. In addition to this, you can also add Availability policies according to your needs. (Recommended Standard policy)

• Also, you can customize your machine that is suitable for your workload as shown in the image below.

Step 5: Select the Boot disk

• In this step, you have to select the Operating System for your instance. Click on the Change button to select the boot disk as shown in the image below.

• Generally, the Kanboard application required Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or a later version for compatibility and support. We recommend you to use Ubuntu 20.04 LTS x64 or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS x64. If you are using ServerAvatar to manage your instance, these operating systems are required. Moreover, you can select the disk type you want; however, we recommend you select a Balanced persistence disk with a minimum 25 GB disk size, then click on the Select button as depicted in the following image.

Step 6: Firewall rules

• The next step is to allow firewall rules that are available at the time of creating an instance in Google. Select the checkbox next to the HTTP and HTTPS to allow incoming traffic. Click on the Create button to create a VM instance in Google as shown in the image below.

Step 7: Creating New Firewall Rule

• Now, you have to go to the VPC network by clicking on the sidebar and then click on the Firewall section. After that click on Create Firewall Rule as shown in the images below.

• Here you have to enter the details such as the Name of the rule and its description. You can also turn on firewall logs. In addition to this leave the network and priority sections as default. The direction of traffic should be Ingress and Allow the action. In the Targets section, you have three options: All instances in the network, Specified target tags, and Specified service accounts, select from them according to your needs. Furthermore, set the Source filter to IPv4 ranges you can specify the ranges as per your requirement in the Source IPv4 ranges input field. To understand it better refer to the image below.

• Lastly, you need to specify the Protocols and ports. ServerAvatar requires 43210 port to be open and the protocol is TCP so add the port number in that field and click on Create as shown in the image below.

• Congratulations! You have successfully created your instance in Google Cloud which is now ready to connect with ServerAvatar.

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 Kanboard on cloud using ServerAvatar

Step1: Create Kanboard Database

The Kanboard installation process requires database Credentials. So, to create a MySQL database for Kanboard, Access the Database tab on the ServerAvatar server panel to create a Database.

To create a Database, Enter the details, such as the Database Name, in the database creation form like the image below.

Congratulations! You've successfully created your database.

Step 2: Create a PHP Application

Access the Applications tab from the server panel to create a new PHP application for Kanboard. Now, create an application, click on the Applications tab, then click the Create button on the server panel.

To create an application and proceed with the installation and deployment of Kanboard. You need to feel the prerequisite for Kanboard.

Please select an application name of your choice. Afterward, input the domain name where you'd like to direct your URL. You have the choice between a test domain or a primary domain. If you decide on the test domain, you can use ".serveravatar" as a test domain extension. This flexibility ensures you can make the perfect selection for your project.

Note that:

If you want to host Kanboard 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 domain provider site, where you buy your domain. Click here for more info about your domain name.
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.

To host Kanboard on your subdomain, for example, Kanboard.yourdomain.com, create a new application with the subdomain as your primary domain and follow the same procedure. For accessing Opencart 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.

Now, you will clone Kanboard through the available repository in GitHub. so,
Select a method: Git
Select a Service Provider: GitHub
Select a Repository Type: Public
Clone HTTPS URL: https://github.com/kanboard/kanboard.git
Branch: main

Let's take the next step in creating your application. Now, you need to set up deployment scripts. These are the manually entered commands that will run automatically after you've cloned the repository.

Installing Kanboard requires running manual scripts or commands in the deployment process.

Deployment Scripts:

cp config.default.php config.php

To proceed further, select checkbox labeled "Show Advanced Options". You'll find this checkbox right below the deployment scripts section.

The next step is to create a system user for your application. You have the option to either select an existing user or create a new one dedicated to this application.

Now, let's select the PHP version. Choose PHP version 8.1 or a newer version if available. Regarding the custom webroot for Kanboard, it should be blank(do not write) as illustrated in the provided snapshot. We are specifically looking for either an "index.php" or "index.html" file within this custom setup.

Select PHP Version: PHP version 7.4 or higher
Custom Webroot: (leave it blank)

With all these settings in place, go ahead and click on the "Create Application" button to complete the procedure.

Congratulations! You've successfully created your application.

Step 3: Config Database with Application

In this step, we're connecting the database we created in Step 1 with the application from Step 2. To configure the database, we need to edit the config.php file.

To edit the config file, you can access the public_html directory from your file manager or navigate through the directory path.

Proceed to open it. Inside, you'll need to enter the database credentials that were created in Step 1. To establish a connection between the database and the application, enter the database credential we have already made. You can access all your database credentials, like database driver, database name, username, hostname, and password, by accessing the database tab from the server panel.

Enter the following database credential we have already created in ServerAvatar:
DB_DRIVER: MySQL
DB_USERNAME: Username of database
DB_PASSWORD: Database password
DB_HOSTNAME: localhost
DB_NAME: Database name

Don't forget to save the changes you've made to the "config.php" file.

The next step is, to update your directory permission.

Congratulations! Successfully deployed Kanboard on the server through the ServerAvatar.

You can access it by visiting your domain name in your web browser.

Step 4: Access Kanboard Web UI

Now, access the site URL from the Application panel to log into Kanboard.

To login, use following credentials:
Username: admin
Password: admin

You successfully logged into Kanboard. You should get to a dashboard like below.

Reset admin password

To reset your admin login credentials follow the given path: Admin > Users Management > admin > Change password.

Input current and new passwords for admin users.

Congratulations! Successfully install and setup Kanboard on the server through the ServerAvatar.

Check Kanboard documentation for more information related to installation and functionalities.

Thank you for choosing ServerAvatar! We warmly welcome you to our vibrant community of ServerAvatar.