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LiteCart is a free e-commerce platform built with PHP, jQuery and HTML5.

Several features of LiteCart:

Simple user interface
High performance
One step checkout
Search engine and mobile friendly
Support add-ons
Unlimited categories and products
ISO-codes
Multiple charset support

You can learn more about LiteCart by visiting the LiteCart Website. You can also see how LiteCart compared to another e-commerce software.

Objective

In this tutorial we’ll learn how-to install LiteCart on Ubuntu 14.04. We will also install and configure its prerequisites

Prerequisites

We will install LiteCart in fresh installation of Ubuntu Server 14.04. We also need these application to be able to run LiteCart:

Apache 2
MySQL 5.5+
PHP 5.3+

Update Base System

Before we install LiteCart, let’s update the system to the latest update.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Install Apache 2

After applying latest update to our base system, Lets’s start installing Apache 2 and required libraries.

$ sudo apt-get -y install apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-mpm-prefork libaio1 libapache2-mod-php5 libapr1 libaprutil1 libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libhtml-template-perl libmysqlclient18 libterm-readkey-perl libwrap0 ssl-cert tcpd

We can check Apache 2 service status using command below:

sudo service apache2 status
 * apache2 is running

We can also check whether Apache 2 is listening on which port using command below:

 sudo netstat -naptu | grep apache
tcp6       0      0 :::80                   :::*                    LISTEN      14873/apache2

Install MySQL 5.6

We will install and use MySQL 5.6 as database for LiteCart.

We will use MySQL Server 5.6 since MySQL 5.6 is the most up to date version of MySQL shipped with Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.

$ sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server-5.6

We need to setup MySQL root password. Please input password for MySQL root user.

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Verify root password.

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Securing MySQL Installation.

We will secure MySQL installation by running mysql_secure_installation.

Enter root password that we set on installation:

$ mysql_secure_installation 
NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MySQL
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MySQL to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MySQL, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): 
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Since we already have root password set, answer this part with n:

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MySQL
root user without the proper authorisation.

You already have a root password set, so you can safely answer 'n'.

Change the root password? [Y/n] n
 ... skipping.

Remove the anonymous user to improve security. This will make sure people or applications have a correct username and password to login to MySQL. Answer with Y

By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MySQL without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!

We also want remove root login from remote machine. Answer with Y.

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!

Previously the test database created automatically by MySQL installation, but MySQL 5.6 does not create a test database. We can still choose Y, it will throw error but that’s fine.

By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
 - Dropping test database...
ERROR 1008 (HY000) at line 1: Can't drop database 'test'; database doesn't exist
 ... Failed!  Not critical, keep moving...
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

The last step is to reload MySQL privilege table.

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!


All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MySQL
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MySQL!


Cleaning up...

Create a Database for litecart

Now we have a secure MySQL installation, it’s time to create database and user for litecart itself.

$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password: 
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 58
Server version: 5.6.30-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 (Ubuntu)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2016, 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>

Create new database named litecart using command below:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE litecart CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Create a User for litecart

The database for litecart is ready, let’s create a username and password and grant privileges to litecart database.

Don’t forget to change the password litecart123secret below with better password.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `litecart`.* TO 'litecart'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'litecart123secret';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

We need to run FLUSH PRIVILEGES command so that the privileges table will be reloaded by MySQL and we can use new credential.

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Exit from MySQL console by typing \q.

mysql> \q

Install PHP 5

The last component that we have to install before we can install litecart is PHP 5. We will install PHP 5 and several common PHP libraries.

$ sudo apt-get -y install php5-cli php5-common php5-json php5-mysql php5-readline

Install additional php libraries:

$ sudo apt-get -y install php5-gd

Restart Apache 2 process so the changes will be applied:

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Install litecart

All prerequisites are already installed. We’re ready to install litecart. The latest stable version of litecart is available LiteCart download page.

At the time of this writing, the latest stable version is version 1.2.9, let’s download litecart compressed file using wget.

$ wget -c "https://www.litecart.net/downloading?version=2.0&action=get" -O litecart-2.0.zip

Extract the downloaded file using unzip. If your system don’t have unzip yet, you can install unzip using command below:

$ sudo apt-get -y install unzip

Extract litecart using unzip:

$ unzip litecart-2.0.zip -d litecar

Move litecart directory to Apache directory.

$ sudo mv litecart /var/www

Change ownership of the litecart directory to the www-data user and group.

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/litecart

The LiteCart files are ready, now let’s create a Apache Virtual Host configuration to serve litecart.

Configure Apache Virtual Host for http Only

Create new apache configuration file on /etc/apache2/sites-available/litecart.conf with contents below.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName litecart.exampleserver.xyz

    DocumentRoot /var/www/litecart/public_html

    <Directory /var/www/litecart/public_html>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/litecart.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/litecart.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Don’t forget to change litecart.exampleserver.xyz above with the domain name that you use for your litecart installation.

Enable the site using a2ensite command.

$ sudo a2ensite litecart

We need to enable mod_headers since LiteCart require this module to be enabled.

$ sudo a2enmod headers

Restart apache2 process so it read the new virtualhost configuration and reload modules.

$ sudo service apache2 restart

LiteCart Setup Wizard

Open your LiteCart URL and you will be redirected to LiteCart installer. LiteCart only have a one page installer with multiple sections.

The first section is system requirements check, we should already have passed all requirements by now.

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The next section is file and directory permission check. We should also get all OK.

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Next is installation parameters. We can enter database name and credentials that we created before.

We also need to define store information like Name, Email, Country and TimeZone

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Last section is to define administration folder and credentials. Click Install Now.

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We will get warning that all existing tables will be overwritten. Click Ok

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Installation is complete we can click link to Administration area.

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We can login using admin credential we created on installation wizard.

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Now we get LiteCart administration dashboard.

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We can visit our LiteCart homepage to see our new site.
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Secure installation

To secure our LiteCart installation we need to remove install directory.

$ rm -rf /var/www/litecart/public_html/install

Configure https only site for litecart

Secure connection is now a requirement for web application. Last step that we will do in this tutorial is changing the connection to only use https.

We assume that you already have SSL certificate and private key.

Let’s create new apache virtual host configuration on /etc/apache2/sites-available/litecart-ssl.conf with contents below.

Don’t forget to change:

ServerName
SSLCertificateFile
SSLCertificateChainFile
SSLCertificateKeyFile

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName litecart.exampleserver.xyz
   Redirect permanent / https://litecart.exampleserver.xyz/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

    ServerName litecart.exampleserver.xyz

    DocumentRoot /var/www/litecart/public_html

    <Directory /var/www/litecart/public_html>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/litecart.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/litecart.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile      /etc/apache2/ssl/litecart.exampleserver.xyz.crt
    SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl/litecart.exampleserver.xyz.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile   /etc/apache2/ssl/litecart.exampleserver.xyz.key

    Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000"

</VirtualHost>

 # intermediate configuration, tweak to your needs
SSLProtocol             all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
SSLCipherSuite          ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS
SSLHonorCipherOrder     on

We will also disable litecart http only virtual host and enable the new virtual host config.

$ sudo a2dissite litecart
$ sudo a2ensite litecart-ssl

The new virtual host configuration need Apache mod_ssl module. We need to enable this module.

$ sudo a2enmod ssl

Now, restart the Apache 2 service so it will reload its configuration. We need to restart instead of reload since we enable new module.

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Extending Litecart

You can visit LiteCart Addons page to get more addons to extend LiteCart.

Summary

In this tutorial we learned how-to install litecart on Ubuntu 14.04.

We installed all the prerequisites, create user and database on MySQL for LiteCart and also configure Apache 2 virtual hosts to be able to serve litecart.

We also configure https settings for litecart so we run LiteCart securely, this increases peoples confidence doing transactions via our e-store.

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