Configure web server

Next step is to configure web server, so it will serve our website.

There are many possible options to use, but in this tutorial we will just cover the two most populars: 1) apache2 and 2) nginx.

Option 1: apache2

1. Install apache2 with php and all required extensions if you still didn't have.

sudo apt install -y apache2 php php-zip php-xml php-mysql 

2. Edit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default

Set DocumentRoot to path, where you previously downloaded MyAAC.

We did it in /var/www/myaac, so lets point our server to it.

DocumentRoot /var/www/myaac

3. Add following directives between <VirtualHost> block.

<Directory "/var/www/myaac">
        AllowOverride all
        Order Deny,Allow
        Allow from all
        Require all granted
</Directory>

With this we say that we allow all users to access our website, and that we allow customisations through .htaccess files.

4. Restart apache

sudo service apache2 restart

Option 2: nginx

1. Install nginx with php and all required extensions if you still didn't have.

sudo apt install -y nginx php-fpm php-zip php-xml php-mysql 

2. Edit /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Replace content of the file with

server {
	listen 80;
	root /var/www/myaac;
	index index.php;
	server_name your-domain.com;

	# increase max file upload
	client_max_body_size 10M;

	# this is very important, be sure its in your nginx conf - it prevents access to logs etc.
	location ~ /system {
		deny all;
		return 404;
	}

	location /vendor {
		deny all;
		return 404;
	}

	# block .htaccess, CHANGELOG.md, composer.json etc.
	# this is to prevent finding software versions
	location ~\.(ht|md|json|dist)$ {
		deny all;
		return 404;
	}

	# block git files and folders
	location ~ /\.git {
		return 404;
		deny all;
	}

	location / {
		try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
	}

	location ~ \.php$ {
		include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
		fastcgi_read_timeout 240;
		fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
		# for ubuntu 22.04+ it will be php8.1-sock
	}
}

Replace server_name with your domain, and adjust fastcgi_pass to your PHP version.

3. Restart nginx

sudo service nginx restart