How to Install X-Cart 5 on FreeBSD 12

X-Cart is an extremely flexible open-source eCommerce platform with tons of features and integrations. This guide describes the process of installing X-Cart 5 on a FreeBSD 12 LTS Vultr instance, using Nginx as the web server and MariaDB as the database server.

Requirements

• PHP version 7.2 or higher
• PHP extensions: pdo, phar, mysql, mbstring, curl
• MySQL version 5.7.7 or higher or MariaDB equivalent
• Nginx

Before you begin

Check the FreeBSD version.

uname -ro
# FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE-p2

Ensure that your FreeBSD system is up to date.

freebsd-update fetch install
pkg update && pkg upgrade -y

Install the necessary packages.

pkg install -y sudo vim unzip curl wget bash socat git

Create a new user account with your preferred username. We will use johndoe.

adduser

# Username: johndoe
# Full name: John Doe
# Uid (Leave empty for default): <Enter>
# Login group [johndoe]: <Enter>
# Login group is johndoe. Invite johndoe into other groups? []: wheel
# Login class [default]: <Enter>
# Shell (sh csh tcsh nologin) [sh]: bash
# Home directory [/home/johndoe]: <Enter>
# Home directory permissions (Leave empty for default): <Enter>
# Use password-based authentication? [yes]: <Enter>
# Use an empty password? (yes/no) [no]: <Enter>
# Use a random password? (yes/no) [no]: <Enter>
# Enter password: your_secure_password
# Enter password again: your_secure_password
# Lock out the account after creation? [no]: <Enter>
# OK? (yes/no): yes
# Add another user? (yes/no): no
# Goodbye!

Run the visudo command and uncomment the %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL line, to allow members of the wheel group to execute any command.

visudo

# Uncomment by removing hash (#) sign
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Now, switch to your newly created user with su.

su - johndoe

NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.

Set up the timezone.

sudo tzsetup

Install PHP

Install PHP, as well as the necessary PHP extensions.

sudo pkg install -y php72 php72-mbstring php72-tokenizer php72-pdo php72-pdo_mysql php72-openssl php72-hash php72-json php72-phar php72-filter php72-zlib php72-dom php72-xml php72-xmlwriter php72-xmlreader php72-curl php72-session php72-ctype php72-iconv php72-gd php72-simplexml php72-zip php72-filter php72-tokenizer php72-calendar php72-fileinfo php72-intl php72-phar php72-soap php72-xmlrpc php72-opcache php72-mysqli php72-bcmath php72-gmp php72-exif php72-imap php72-pecl-APCu

Check the version.

php -v
# PHP 7.2.28 (cli) (built: Feb 22 2020 01:13:39) ( NTS )

Check installed PHP extensions.

php -m

# mbstring
# curl
# gd
# PDO
# mysqli
# openssl
# . . .

Soft-link php.ini-production to php.ini.

sudo ln -s /usr/local/etc/php.ini-production /usr/local/etc/php.ini

Enable and start PHP-FPM.

sudo sysrc php_fpm_enable=yes
sudo service php-fpm start

Install MariaDB

Install MariaDB.

sudo pkg install -y mariadb102-client mariadb102-server

Check the version.

mysql --version
# mysql  Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.2.31-MariaDB, for FreeBSD12.0 (amd64) using readline 5.1

Start and enable MariaDB.

sudo sysrc mysql_enable="yes" 
sudo service mysql-server start

Run the mysql_secure_installation script to improve the security of your MariaDB installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Log into MariaDB as the root user.

sudo mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:

Create a new MariaDB database and user and remember the credentials.

CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit;

Install Nginx

Install Nginx.

sudo pkg install -y nginx

Check the version.

nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.16.1

Enable and start Nginx.

sudo sysrc nginx_enable=yes
sudo service nginx start

Configure Nginx for use with the X-cart.

sudo vim /usr/local/etc/nginx/xcart.conf

And populate the file with the below config.

server {
  listen 80;
  listen [::]:80;
  root /usr/local/www/xcart;
  index index.php index.html index.htm;
  server_name example.com;
  location @handler {
    index cart.php;
    rewrite ^/sitemap.xml(\?.+)?$ /cart.php?target=sitemap;
    rewrite ^/(.*)$ /cart.php?url=$1 last;
  }
  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ @handler;
  }
  location ~ \.php$ {
    try_files $uri @handler;
    fastcgi_split_path_info  ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
  }
}

Save the file and exit with Colon+W+Q.

Now we need to include xcart.conf in the main nginx.conf file.

Run sudo vim /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf and add the following line to the http {} block.

include xcart.conf;

Test the configuration.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo service nginx restart

Install X-Cart

Navigate to the /usr/local/www directory.

cd /usr/local/www

Download the most recent release of X-Cart to your local workstation from https://www.x-cart.com/download.html.

Upload the X-Cart package to your server using SFTP. See our SFTP instructions here. Place the file in your /var/www/ directory. In this example, the filename is x-cart-5.4.0.10-en.tgz, yours may be different.

Extract the X-Cart package.

sudo tar -xzpf x-cart-5.4.0.10-en.tgz
sudo rm x-cart-5.4.0.10-en.tgz

Change ownership of the /usr/local/www/xcart directory to www.

sudo chown -R www:www /usr/local/www/xcart

Navigate to example.com/install.php in your web browser and follow the instructions to finish the installation.