Ubuntu: Installing Required Prerequisite Software for Magento CE 1.8 Magento EE 1.13 (or Later)

Overview

This article discusses how to install required prerequisite software for Ubuntu. You must complete these tasks before you install Magento CE 1.8 or later or Magento EE 1.13 or later.

Before you continue, make sure you familiarize yourself with the installation process discussed in Prerequisites.

Updating System Software

It's a good practice to update your repositories and system software, if necessary.

Log in to your Magento server as a user with root privileges and enter the commands shown in this section.

Update repositories:

apt-get update

Optionally upgrade software. This might require a system reboot.

apt-get upgrade

Apache

This section discusses how to install Apache. For more details, you can consult a reference like the Ubuntu site.

Magento requires Apache use server rewrites. You must also specify the type of directives that can be used in .htaccess, which Magento uses to specify rewrite rules.

Installing and configuring Apache is basically a three-step process: install the software, enable rewrites, and specify .htaccess directives.

Installing Apache

Install Apache 2 if you haven't already done so:

apt-get -y install apache2

Enabling Apache Rewrites

Ubuntu 12 (which natively supports Apache 2.2) is different from Ubuntu 14 (which natively supports Apache 2.4).

It's very important you choose a value for AllowOverride that is suited to your deployment. You can use AllowOverride All in development but it might not be desirable in production.

For more information, see one of the following references:

• Apache 2.2
• Apache 2.4

Enabling Apache Rewrites for Apache 2.2

Use this section to enable Apache rewrites and specify .htaccess if you use Apache 2.2, which is supported by the default Ubuntu 12 repository.

1. Open the following file for editing.

   vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

2. Locate the following block.

   <Directory /var/www/>
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
       AllowOverride None
       Order allow,deny
       allow from all
   </Directory>

3. Change the value of AllowOverride to [value from Apache site].

   <Directory /var/www/>
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
       AllowOverride All
       Order allow,deny
       allow from all
   </Directory>

4. Save the file and exit the text editor.
5. Configure Apache to use the mod_rewrite module.
   

   cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled
   ln -s ../mods-available/rewrite.load

6. Restart Apache.
   

   service apache2 restart

Enabling Apache Rewrites for Apache 2.4

Use this section to enable Apache rewrites and specify .htaccess if you use Apache 2.4, which is supported by the default Ubuntu 14 repository.

1. Enter the following command:
   

   a2enmod rewrite

2. Specify the type of directives that can be used in .htaccess.
   For guidelines, see the Apache 2.4 documentation.
   Note that in Apache 2.4, the server's default site configuration file is /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
   For example, you can add the following to the bottom of 000-default.conf:
   

   <Directory "/var/www">
   AllowOverride [value from Apache site]
   </Directory>

   Note: You must change the value of AllowOverride in the directive for the directory to which you expect to install the Magento software. For example, to install in the web server docroot, edit the directive in <Directory /var/www>.
3. Restart Apache:
   service apache2 restart

PHP

Magento CE and EE support the following PHP versions:

• Magento CE 1.6.0.0–1.8.1.0 and Magento EE 1.11.0.0–1.13.1.0 support PHP 5.3 natively. They can be used with PHP 5.4 if you apply the PHP 5.4 patch.
• Magento CE 1.9.0.x and EE 1.14.0.x support PHP 5.4 natively. They are backward-compatible with PHP 5.3
• Magento CE 1.9.1 and EE 1.14.1 support PHP 5.5 natively. They are backward-compatible with PHP 5.4

We recommend you use the most recent PHP version supported by your version of Magento. For example, you should use PHP 5.5 with CE 1.9.1 or EE 1.14.1.

For more information about PHP, see:

• PHP 5.4 changelog
• PHP 5.5 changelog

Check with a system administrator or reference for your version of Ubuntu to see what PHP versions are available.

If you're installing Magento CE 1.9.1 or Magento EE 1.14.1, you can use PHP 5.5; otherwise, we recommend PHP 5.4. For certain versions of CE and EE, a patch is required to use PHP 5.4.

Enter the following command to see what version of PHP is currently running:

php -v

See one of the following sections for more information:

• Upgrading PHP
• Installing PHP
• Installing Required PHP Extensions
• Increasing the PHP memory Limit

Upgrading PHP

To upgrade your version of PHP, see one of the following:

• Upgrade to PHP 5.5: PHP site and dev-metal.
• Upgrade to PHP 5.4: phpave.

Installing PHP

See one of the following sections:

• Installing PHP 5.5 on Ubuntu 12
• Installing PHP 5.4 on Ubuntu 12
• Installing PHP 5.5 on Ubuntu 14

Installing PHP 5.5 on Ubuntu 12

Use the following commands from dev-metal:

add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php5
apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php5

Installing PHP 5.4 on Ubuntu 12

Use the following commands from askubuntu:

add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php5-oldstable
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install php5

Installing PHP 5.5 on Ubuntu 14

Enter the following command:

apt-get -y install php5

Installing Required PHP Extensions

Enter the following command to install PHP extensions required by Magento:

apt-get -y install php5 php5-mhash php5-mcrypt php5-curl php5-cli php5-mysql php5-gd libapache2-mod-php5

Increasing the PHP memory Limit

Increase memory_limit in php.ini to at least 512MB:

1. Open /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini in a text editor.
2. Change memory_limit to:

   memory_limit = 512M

3. Save your changes and exit the text editor.

MySQL

Magento CE and EE support the following MySQL versions:

• Magento CE 1.9.1 and Magento EE 1.14.1 support MySQL versions 5.0.2 through 5.6.x.
  To install MySQL 5.6, see Installing MySQL 5.6.
• Magento CE versions 1.8.0.0–1.9.0.x support MySQL versions 4.1.20–5.5.x.
  To install MySQL version 5.5, see the next section.

Installing MySQL 5.5

Install the MySQL database:

apt-get -y install mysql-client mysql-server

Installing MySQL 5.6

Only Magento CE 1.9.1 and EE 1.14.1 support MySQL 5.6. To install MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 14, see Installing MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 14. To install MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 12, see the next section.

Installing MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 12

To install MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 12, enter the following commands in the order shown:

apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/mysql-5.6
apt-get -y update
apt-get -y install mysql-server

Test the installation by entering the following command:

mysql -u root -p

Messages similar to the following display:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 43
Server version: 5.6.21-1+deb.sury.org~precise+1 (Ubuntu)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql>

Installing MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 14

To install MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 14, enter the following command:

apt-get -y install mysql-server-5.6 mysql-client-5.6

Test the installation by entering the following command:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 45
Server version: 5.6.19-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 (Ubuntu)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql>

Next Steps

After installing the required prerequisite software, continue your installation with Preparing Your Server for Magento CE or EE.