How to host Matomo on Google Cloud VM Instance - ServerAvatar

Matomo is a flexible open-source analytics platform recognized for its extensive functionalities and adaptability. Matomo empowers organizations to monitor and analyze website traffic, user interactions, and marketing campaign effectiveness. With its various plugins and customizable features, it facilitates personalized analytics solutions without requiring advanced technical knowledge. Google Cloud is a dependable hosting option for Matomo, providing scalable infrastructure and simple deployment solutions. ServerAvatar makes it easy and user-friendly to deploy the Matomo application on the Google Cloud platform.

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 Matomo application requires Ubuntu 20.04 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 Matomo on Cloud using ServerAvatar

Step1: Create Matomo Database

The Matomo installation process requires database Credentials. So, to create a MySQL database for Matomo, 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.

Database successfully created.

Steps 2: Create a PHP Application

Access the Applications tab from the server panel to create a new PHP application for Matomo.

Now fill up the required details in the application form, as seen in the image below.

Note that:

If you want to host Matomo 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 Matomo on your subdomain, for example, matomo.yourdomain.com, create a new application with the subdomain as your primary domain and follow the same procedure. For accessing Matomo 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 on Next Step.

Now, choose the method and service provider: Git and GitHub (follow as per the snapshot).

Continue the process by entering the necessary information as provided below:

Repository Type: Public
Clone HTTPS URL: https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo.git
Branch: 5.x-dev
Deployment script:

composer install;

Proceed by clicking the "Next Step".

You can either create a new System User or select an existing one.

Next, choose PHP version 7.2 or above. For the custom Webroot, keep the field empty, as shown in the provided snapshot, as we're specifically seeking "index.php" or "index.html" within the custom setup.

Custom Webroot: (keep this field empty)

Proceed to the next steps and ensure your details and requirements are accurately entered.

After confirming, click on Create Application to initiate the application creation process.

STEP 3: Install and Setup Matomo

Now access the site URL from the Application panel to install and set up Matomo.

MATOMO INSTALLER

The welcome message screen is displayed upon accessing the URL, as depicted in the snapshot.

Click next to process further with the system check tab, which will open where you have two options: copy the system check or download the system check. According to your convenience, save or save system check. It is essential to keep it with you in case the Matomo support team asks you for this information.

DATABASE SETUP

We have already created a database for Matomo 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 name, username, and password, by accessing the database tab from the server panel.

Enter the following database credential we have already created in ServerAvatar:

Login: Username of database
Password: Database password
Database Name: Database name

Process further by clicking on Next.

CREATE SUPERUSER

We have successfully configured the database with Matomo. Now, we create a superuser to log into Matomo after successfully installing and setting up Matomo.

To create a superuser, enter the following details:

Superuser login: dharmilshiroya
Password: your password
Password (Repeat): your password
Email: dharmilshiroya2456@gmail.com

Please remember the credentials you entered above for logging into MATOMO.

SET UP THE WEBSITE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO ANALYZE

Now, Enter the details of the websites you would like to track or analyze with Matomo. For example, I have tried to track and analyze the website URL on which we deploy the Matomo. Please enter your website URL and the name you want to analyze. Here, Matomo provides the advanced option for you who want to use it to analyze e-commerce websites (E-commerce enabled) or Others. If your website is on E-commerce, select E-commerce enable in the E-commerce menu, as seen in the snapshot.

We had set up a website that you like to track and analyze. We have almost completed the setup process.

The next step is JavaScript tracking code. Do not change anything in the code. Just click on next.

We have successfully installed and set up Matomo on the Server through ServerAvatar. You can see a congratulatory message on your screen.

Now, log in to Matomo using the superuser credentials we created for the superuser. Please enter the credentials that you provided.

We have successfully deployed Matomo on Server on ServerAvatar.

Tip:- It will run on HTTP, but to run it on HTTPs ServerAvatar provides a one-click solution to switch to HTTPs for that, go to the SSL Certificate in the application panel and click on force HTTP to HTTPs.