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Creating a Joomla website with a PostgreSQL database using the management console

Written by
Updated at November 27, 2024

To create an infrastructure for your Joomla website with a PostgreSQL database using the Yandex Cloud management console:

  1. Prepare your cloud.
  2. Create a VM for Joomla.
  3. Create a PostgreSQL DB cluster.
  4. Install Joomla and additional components.
  5. Configure the Apache2 web server.
  6. Configure Joomla.
  7. Upload the website files.
  8. Configure the DNS.
  9. Test the website.

If you no longer need the resources you created, delete them.

Prepare your cloud

Sign up for Yandex Cloud and create a billing account:

  1. Go to the management console and log in to Yandex Cloud or create an account if you do not have one yet.
  2. On the Yandex Cloud Billing page, make sure you have a billing account linked and it has the ACTIVE or TRIAL_ACTIVE status. If you do not have a billing account, create one.

If you have an active billing account, you can go to the cloud page to create or select a folder for your infrastructure to operate in.

Learn more about clouds and folders.

Make sure the selected folder contains a network with subnets in the ru-central1-a, ru-central1-b, and ru-central1-d availability zones. To do this, select Virtual Private Cloud on the folder page. If the list contains a network, click its name to see the list of subnets. If the subnets or network you need are not listed, create them.

The cost of hosting a Joomla-powered website includes:

Create a VM for Joomla

  1. On the folder page in the management console, click Create resource and select Virtual machine instance.

  2. Under Boot disk image, in the Product search field, enter CentOS Stream and select a public CentOS Stream image.

  3. Under Location, select an availability zone to place your VM in. If you do not know which availability zone you need, leave the default one.

  4. Under Computing resources, navigate to the Custom tab and specify the required platform, number of vCPUs, and the amount of RAM:

    • Platform: Intel Ice Lake.
    • vCPU: 2.
    • Guaranteed vCPU performance: 20%
    • RAM: 1 GB.

    This configuration will be enough for functional testing.

  5. Under Network settings:

    • In the Subnet field, select the network and subnet to connect your VM to. If the required network or subnet is not listed, create it.
    • Under Public IP, keep Auto to assign your VM a random external IP address from the Yandex Cloud pool or select a static address from the list if you reserved one in advance.

  6. Under Access, select SSH key and specify the VM access data:

    • Under Login, enter the username. Do not use root or other names reserved by the OS. To perform operations requiring superuser permissions, use the sudo command.

    • In the SSH key field, select the SSH key saved in your organization user profile.

      If there are no saved SSH keys in your profile, or you want to add a new key:

      • Click Add key.
      • Enter a name for the SSH key.
      • Upload or paste the contents of the public key file. You need to create a key pair for the SSH connection to a VM yourself.
      • Click Add.

      The SSH key will be added to your organization user profile.

      If users cannot add SSH keys to their profiles in the organization, the added public SSH key will only be saved to the user profile of the VM being created.

  7. Under General information, specify the VM name: joomla-pg-tutorial-web.

  8. Click Create VM.

It may take a few minutes to create the VM.

Create a PostgreSQL DB cluster

  1. On the folder page, click Create resource and select PostgreSQL cluster.
  2. In the Cluster name field, enter the cluster name: joomla-pg-tutorial-db-cluster.
  3. Under Host class, select the appropriate host class.
  4. Under Size of storage, specify: 10 GB.
  5. Under Database, specify:
    • DB name: joomla-pg-tutorial-db.
    • Username: joomla.
    • Password: Password you will use to access the DB.
  6. Under Network settings, select the network your VM is connected to.
  7. Under Hosts, add two more hosts in the other availability zones. When creating hosts, do not enable Public access for them.
  8. Click Create cluster.

Creating a DB cluster may take a few minutes.

Install Joomla and additional components

After the joomla-pg-tutorial-web VM's status changes to RUNNING, do the following:

  1. Under Network on the VM page in the management console, find the VM's public IP address.

  2. Connect to the VM via SSH. To do this, use ssh in Linux or macOS, or PuTTY in Windows.

    The recommended authentication method when connecting over SSH is using a key pair. Make sure to configure the generated key pair so that the private key matches the public key sent to the VM.

  3. Download and unpack the Joomla archive:

    sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/
curl https://downloads.joomla.org/cms/joomla3/3-8-7/Joomla_3-8-7-Stable-Full_Package.tar.gz?format=gz --output Joomla_3-8-7-Stable-Full_Package.tar.gz --location
sudo mv Joomla_3-8-7-Stable-Full_Package.tar.gz /var/www/html/
(cd /var/www/html/ && sudo tar -zxvf Joomla_3-8-7-Stable-Full_Package.tar.gz)
sudo rm /var/www/html/Joomla_3-8-7-Stable-Full_Package.tar.gz
sudo mv /var/www/html/htaccess.txt /var/www/html/.htaccess

  4. Install additional components:

    sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo dnf install https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm
sudo yum -y install --enablerepo remi-modular httpd php php-pgsql php php-common php-mbstring php-zip php-xml nano wget php-json
sudo dnf module enable postgresql:13
sudo dnf install postgresql-server

  5. Get and configure the SSL certificate:

    sudo mkdir ~apache/.postgresql
sudo wget "https://crls.yandex.net/allCLCAs.pem" -O ~apache/.postgresql/root.crt
sudo chmod 0600 ~apache/.postgresql/root.crt
sudo chown -R apache:apache ~apache/.postgresql

Configure the Apache2 web server

  1. Perform the basic configuration of Apache2:

    sudo chown -R apache /var/www/html/

  2. Specify the virtual host settings in the Apache2 configuration file. You can edit files in the nano editor:

    sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/joomla.conf

    Edit the file as follows:

    <VirtualHost *:80 [::]:80>
  ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
  DocumentRoot /var/www/html/

  <Directory /var/www/html/>
    DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
    DirectorySlash off
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteBase /
    AllowOverride all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

  3. Restart the web server:

    sudo service httpd restart

  4. Change the settings:

    sudo restorecon -R /var/www/html
sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1

Configure Joomla

Configure Joomla by following this guide on the project website. During the configuration process, you will need the DB connection settings.

  1. Get the addresses of the DB cluster hosts in the management console:

    1. Open the folder where the DB cluster was created and select Managed Service for PostgreSQL.
    2. Select the joomla-pg-tutorial-db-cluster cluster.
    3. Go to the Hosts tab.
    4. In the Host FQDN field, copy the host addresses.

  2. At the Database step, fill in the following fields in the Joomla web installer:

    • Database type: PostgreSQL.

    • DB server name:

      <address_of_host_1>,<address_of_host_2>,<address_of_host_3> port=6432 sslmode=verify-full target_session_attrs=read-write

    • Username: joomla.

    • Password: Enter the DB user's password.

    • DB name: joomla-pg-tutorial-db.

  3. For security reasons, Joomla may ask you to create or delete a special test file. On the VM, go to the /var/www/html/installation folder and create or delete the specified file there.

  4. Create an empty file named configuration.php to safe configuration and configure write permissions for the folder:

    sudo touch /var/www/html/configuration.php
sudo chmod 655 /var/www/html/configuration.php
sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/
sudo restorecon -R /var/www/html

  5. After the installation is completed, delete the installation directory. This is a Joomla security requirement:

    sudo rm -rf /var/www/html/installation

Upload the website files

  1. Under Network on the VM page in the management console, find the VM public IP address.

  2. Connect to the VM via SSH.

  3. Grant your user write access to the /var/www/html directory:

    sudo chown -R "$USER":apache /var/www/html

  4. Upload the website files to the VM via SCP.

    Use the scp command-line utility:

    scp -r <path_to_file_directory> <VM_username>@<VM_IP_address>:/var/www/html

    Use WinSCP to copy the local file directory to /var/www/html on the VM.

Configure the DNS

You need to link the domain name you want to use for your website to the IP address of the created joomla-pg-tutorial-web VM. You can use Yandex Cloud DNS to manage your domain.

The tutorial below describes configuring DNS for the example.com domain name.

Add a DNS zone

To add a public DNS zone:

  1. Open the Cloud DNS section of the folder where you need to create a DNS zone.
  2. Click Create zone.
  3. Specify the DNS zone settings:
    • Zone: example.com.. You can provide you registered domain instead.
    • Type: Public.
    • Name: example-zone-1.
  4. Click Create.

Add resource records

Create DNS records in the public zone:

  1. Under Network on the VM page in the management console, find the VM's public IP address.
  2. Create an A record:
    • Open the Cloud DNS section of the folder containing the example.com DNS zone.
    • Select the example.com DNS zone from the list.
    • Click Create record.
    • Set the record parameters:
      • Name: Leave empty.
      • Type: Keep А as the value.
      • Data: Enter your VM's public address.
      • TTL (in seconds) (record time to live): Keep the default value.
    • Click Create.
  3. Create a CNAME record:
    • Select the example.com DNS zone from the list.
    • Click Create record.
    • Set the record parameters:
      • Name: www.
      • Type: Keep CNAME as the value.
      • Data: Enter example.com.
      • TTL (in seconds) (record time to live): Keep the default value.
    • Click Create.

Delegate the domain name

Delegation is the transfer of authority from the registrar's servers to yours. For a domain, NS resource records are created (ns1.yandexcloud.net and ns2.yandexcloud.net).

To delegate a domain, specify its DNS servers in the registrar's account.

Delegation does not take effect immediately. It usually takes up to 24 hours (86,400 seconds) for internet service providers to update records. This depends on the TTL value which specifies how long domain records are cached.

You can check domain delegation using Whois or the dig utility:

dig +short NS example.com

Result:

ns2.yandexcloud.net.
ns1.yandexcloud.net.

Test the website

To check that the site is up, enter its IP address or domain name in your browser:

  • http://<public_IP_of_VM>
  • http://www.example.com

How to delete the resources you created

To stop paying for the resources you created:

  • Delete the VM.
  • Delete the static public IP if you reserved one.
  • Delete the Managed Service for PostgreSQL cluster.
  • If you used Cloud DNS, delete the DNS records and delete the DNS zone.

See also

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