How to host Mautic on Digitalocean Droplet - ServerAvatar

Mautic is an open-source marketing automation platform suitable for businesses of any scale. It provides essential tools for managing leads, emails, and campaigns, enabling users to automate and customize their marketing strategies. When considering hosting Mautic, deploying it on DigitalOcean is a dependable choice due to its scalable infrastructure and user-friendly deployment solutions. ServerAvatar assists with DigitalOcean VPS and simplifies the deployment of the Mautic application on the DigitalOcean platform through easy steps.

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 several 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. 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 enable full server backups if you are going to deploy in a 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

Auto-install Mautic with ServerAvatar

Step 1: Create a PHP application

Once you are on the server panel, access the Application tab from the sidebar.

Now by clicking the Create button, you’ll see the application creation form as the below image. Fill in the required details to create an application, including the Application Name, Primary Domain, and other PHP Settings.

Click the Create Application button.

Note that:

If you want to host Mautic CRM 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.

Step 2: Auto-install Mautic application

From your application panel, access the Auto deploy tab from the sidebar. Now click the Mautic Auto install card like the below image.

It asks to enter Mautic application details in the form. The details include the following-

Admin credential

These details are used for logging in to your Mautic panel as an admin.

• First Name: Enter first name
• Last Name: Enter last name
• Username: Enter username
• Email:You will use this email if you forget your password or want to reset the password.
• Password: Enter admin password

PHP Settings

PHP Version: You can here change the PHP version for your Mautic installation.

Email Configuration

Mail from Name: The name seen when you send an email. Mail from email: The email address from which you send an email. Mail Username: Username of chosen SMTP credential Mail password: Password of chosen SMTP credential Mail port: 25 or 465, or 587 would be recommended for sending an email. Mail Host: Chosen SMTP hostname. For example, smtp.pepipost.com.

After filling up all the details, click the Install Now button.

Step 3: Install SSL Certificate

You can install SSL for your website using just one click. On the application panel, click on the SSL Certificates tab from the sidebar.

You can also use a custom installation method to install SSL certificates. After installing the SSL, check the box Force HTTP to HTTPS to secure the communication between your browser and the website.

Once you are done, access the Application URL on your browser. It redirects to the admin login page. Enter admin credentials to log in to your Mautic admin panel.

And that’s it. You can now use Mautic to create a strong marketing strategy for your business.