How to install Magento 2.4 on Ubuntu with Elasticsearch (step-by-step)

From Magento 2.4, the web install wizard is disabled. All installation steps must be done using command interface, thus things become harder for new users who are not familiar with command lines

In the previous tutorial, we had learned how to install Magento 2.4 on Xampp Localhost on Windows 10. Today, we will go through the steps to install Magento 2.4 with Elasticsearch on live server running on Ubuntu OS (16.04 or 18.04).

Prerequisites

Make sure you are installing Magento 2.4 on a server/VPS that meets Magento 2 system requirements. Below are my recommended server specifications:

• At least 2GB ram (4GB is recommended for better performance with Elasticsearch)
• 3 cores CPU should be OK for small to medium-sized business (You can use this formula to calculate: Number of core = [Number of Expected Requests] / 2) + [Number of Expected Cron Processes]
• PHP memory: 2GB. (You can set this value in etc/php.ini file on your server).

Step 1: Install Apache, Mysql and PHP

To make it simple, in this tutorial, I will go with Apache as webserver, Mysql as database management. There will be other tutorials for Nginx and Mariadb.

Apache

First, we will install Apache web server. Connect to your server using ssh protocol with root access and run this command:

Updates the package lists in the repositories

sudo apt update

Sample output

Install Apache2, the system will ask to coninue yes/no. Input “y” then enter to proceed

sudo apt install apache2

Sample output:

To verify if apache2 was install properly, in your browser, enter your domain or ip address. If the result is apache default page => everything is fine

To enable auto startup for apache, use this command:

systemctl is-enabled apache2

Apache will be automatically started everytime you reboot your server.

Mysql

Next, we will install Database management system for our ubuntu server.

In your ssh client, use this command to install Mysql

sudo apt install mysql-server

Sample output:

In the description, you can see the mysql version is 5.7.

From Magento 2.4, MYSQL 8.0 is recommended, so we will change Mysql version to 8.0 (this step is optional as I have tested Mysql 5.7 and it works seamlessly with Magento 2.4)

Use this command to get MYSQL 8.0 repositories

wget -c https://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql-apt-config_0.8.11-1_all.deb

Next, install and enable MySQL 8.0 with the command:

sudo dpkg -i mysql-apt-config_0.8.11-1_all.deb

In package configuration screen, select Mysql 8 and choose Mysql server & Cluster

Now select OK and execute this command to start installing Mysql

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

Press Y to proceed and set Mysql root password when prompted. Root password grant access to your whole database, so try to set it secured.

Now we will test if mysql is installed properly by running this command:

mysql -u root -p

Next, enter root password. If you see this screen => Mysql was installed properly

Now we will create a user and a database for our new Magento 2.4 website.

After logged into mysql, run these command

Create a new database named: magento2

CREATE DATABASE magento2;

Create a new user: magentip with password = yourpassword

CREATE USER 'magentip'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';

Change the authentication of a database magentip

ALTER USER 'magentip'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'yourpassword';

Grant PRIVILEGES to magentip

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'magentip'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Php

In this step, we will install PHP.

Magento 2.4 require PHP 7.4, so we will install php 7.4 in this tutorial.

Run this line to install php 7.4:

sudo apt install php7.4 libapache2-mod-php php-mysql

Also, this line to install all the required php extensions required to run Magento 2.4

yum -y install php74u-pdo php74u-mysqlnd php74u-opcache php74u-xml php74u-gd php74u-devel php74u-mysql php74u-intl php74u-mbstring php74u-bcmath php74u-json php74u-iconv php74u-soap

Note: If you see the following error while install php

E: Unable to locate package php7.4
E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'php7.4'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'php7.4'

Run these line in advance to update repositories

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt-get update

Next, re-run php installation command and it will work properly

To check php version after installation, use this command

php -v

Sample output:

Step 2: Install and configure Elasticsearch

In this step, we will install Elasticsearch – a required component since Magento 2.4. 

From Magento 2.4, catalog search will no longer use mysql, instead the system will use Elasticsearch by default.

Install Elasticsearch

First, we will install Openjdk11 (Java) as Elasticsearch runs on Java

apt-get install -y openjdk-8-jdk

Next, verify if the java was installed properly and check its version with this syntax

java -version

Now we can start installing Elasticsearch

curl -fsSL https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo apt-key add -

Add Elastic-7.x.list to sources.list.d folder.

echo "deb https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/7.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-7.x.list

Finally, install Elasticsearch:

sudo apt install elasticsearch

Configure Elasticsearch

Now we will configure elasticsearch to make it works on ubuntu

First, add port 8080 to apache listen port file located in: /etc/apache2/ports.conf

Next, create a virtual host file for elasticsearch mydomainelasticsearch.conf in /etc/apache2/sites-available/. The content for this file should be:

<VirtualHost *:8080>
    ProxyPass "/" "http://localhost:9200/"
    ProxyPassReverse "/" "http://localhost:9200/"
</VirtualHost>

Save file and run this command to enable the newly created elasticsearch virtual host file

sudo a2ensite mydomainelasticsearch

Restart apache to apply changes:

sudo service apache2 restart

Now start elasticsearch service to test if it’s working properly

sudo systemctl start elasticsearch

Run this line to verify if elasticsearch is working properly

curl -X GET 'http://localhost:9200'

If elasticsearch is working properly, the result should be like this

{
  "name" : "Magentip",
  "cluster_name" : "elasticsearch",
  "cluster_uuid" : "lwRtnBr-RcO3v3VR0Qh1XQ",
  "version" : {
    "number" : "7.10.0",
    "build_flavor" : "default",
    "build_type" : "zip",
    "build_hash" : "51e9d6f22758d0374a0f3f5c6e8f3a7997850f96",
    "build_date" : "2020-11-09T21:30:33.964949Z",
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : "8.7.0",
    "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "6.8.0",
    "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "6.0.0-beta1"
  },
  "tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
}

Now we have finished installing the required component of Magento 2.4 – Elasticsearch. In the next step we will begin install Magento 2.4 to our server

Step 3: Download Magento 2.4.1

In this tutorial, we will install Magento 2.4 using composer.

First, run this command to download composer installer

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer -o composer-setup.php

Next, install composer 1.10.16 using this command

sudo php composer-setup.php --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer --version=1.10.16

Important note: Magento 2.4 does not support Composer 2, so we will install composer 1.10.16

If you see this error during installation:

- Root composer.json requires magento/composer-root-update-plugin ~1.0 -> satisfiable by magento/composer-root-update-plugin[1.0.0]. 
- magento/composer-root-update-plugin 1.0.0 requires composer-plugin-api ^1.0 -> found composer-plugin-api[2.0.0] but it does not match the constraint.

That means you need to downgrade composer 2 to composer 1 to continue the installation. Run this command to downgrade composer 2 to composer 1 if you installed composer 2 by mistake:

composer selfupdate --1

composer

composer create-project --repository-url=https://repo.magento.com/ magento/project-community-edition magento2

- magento/product-community-edition 2.4.1 requires ext-bcmath * -> the requested PHP extension bcmath is missing from your system.
Problem 2
- phpunit/phpunit 9.5.2 requires ext-dom * -> the requested PHP extension dom is missing from your system.
- magento/product-community-edition 2.4.1 requires ext-pdo_mysql * -> the requested PHP extension pdo_mysql is missing from your system.

The error message indicates that your server are missing bcmath and dom php extensions. We will resolve this by installing the missing extensions

apt-get install php7.4-{mysql,gd,curl,intl,bcmath,ctype,dom,iconv,mbstring,simplexml,soap,xsl,zip}

Restart apache2 to apply changes

service apache2 restart

Step 4: Set folders permission

Before installing Magento 2.4, we will set proper folder permission first.

Go the folder you want to install Magento 2, for example: /var/www/html/mywebsite.com

cd /var/www/html/mywebsite.com

Chmod cache and static content folder

find var generated vendor pub/static pub/media app/etc -type f -exec chmod g+w {} +

Change owner of website folder

sudo chown -R :www-data . 

Change access permission of bin/magento folder

sudo chmod u+x bin/magento

Step 5: Install Magento 2.4.1

Everything is ready, now we will run the final command to install Magento 2.4

First, change the current directory to your website folder (this is also where you downloaded Magento 2 data in step 3)

cd /var/www/html/mywebsite.com

Run this command to start installing Magento 2.4

bin/magento setup:install \
--base-url=http://mywebsite.com \
--db-host=localhost \
--db-name=magento2 \
--db-user=magentip \
--db-password=youmysqlpassword \
--admin-firstname=Admin \
--admin-lastname=Admin \
--admin-email=admin@admin.com \
--admin-user=admin \
--admin-password=admin123 \
--language=en_US \
--currency=USD \
--timezone=America/Chicago \
--use-rewrites=1

Replace the following information with your information

--base-url : your domain, eg: mywebsite.com. You can change this base URL later if you make mistake. Read this tutorial to learn how to change base URL in Magento 2

--db-host : Database host, input localhost if you follow my tutorial

--db-name : name of the database we created in step 2

--db-user : name of the database user we created in step 2

--db-password : password of your mysql user

Now composer will start installing Magento 2.4. The process will take a while (approximately 20 minutes)

When everything is done you will see this

Congratulation, Magento 2.4 was successfully installed to your ubuntu server.

• Now you can access your store at this url: http://mywebsite.com
• Admin url: http://mywebsite.com/admin

If you see a blank page on your new website, don’t worry, read this tutorial to learn how to fix blank page in Magento 2.4

Troubleshoot admin login authentication error

You may see this error when you go to admin dashboard page

Failed to send the message. Please contact the administrator 
You need to configure Two-Factor Authorization in order to proceed to your store's admin area 
An E-mail was sent to you with further instructions

This error happened because since Magento 2.4, Two-Factor Authorization is enabled by default.

There are 2 ways to fix this:

• Method 1: Disable Two-Factor Authorization
• Method 2: Install and enable Two-Factor Authorization

Method 1:

If you don’t need Two-Factor Authorization, run this command to disable it

php bin/magento module:disable Magento_TwoFactorAuth

Sample output:

Now go to admin dashboard and the error should be fixed

Method 2

If you wish to use two-factor authorization, follow these step to enable this feature

First, run this command to force Magento 2.4 to use Google as the Two-factor authorization provider

bin/magento config:set twofactorauth/general/force_providers google

Next, generate a Base32-encoded string for the OTP secret key. You can use some online tool for this. For example: https://emn178.github.io/online-tools/base32_encode.html

Input a normal password like: mypassword and you will receive a Base32-encoded string like this: NV4XAYLTON3W64TE

Next, we will add the secret encoded OTP key to Google Authenticator with this command

bin/magento security:tfa:google:set-secret admin NV4XAYLTON3W64TE

Now open Google Authenticator App on your mobile: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.authenticator2&hl=en&gl=US and add new key: NV4XAYLTON3W64TE

After you add the new key, you will see Authenticator code in your application once you login to Magento 2 dashboard

Enter the code you you receive in authenticator app to login to admin dashboard

Wrapping up

I hope this detailed step-by-step tutorial will be helpful for users who are having trouble installing Magento 2.4. If you face any problems during installation process, please drop a comment below (better with image describing your problem). I will be happy to help!

Good luck with Magento 2.4 installation on Ubuntu!