First, we will start installing Magento 2 on Apache; later, we will do the same with NGINX. Throughout this recipe, you can use PHP-FPM or HHVM. For now, we will focus only on PHP-FPM.

Installing Composer is pretty straightforward. For the rest of the recipes, we will be installing Composer in the /usr/local/bin directory. This way, we can use it system-wide. Run the following command on the shell in the /usr/local/bin directory:

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

If you have not installed curl yet, you may need to run the following command on the shell:

apt-get -y install curl

To check whether Composer is working fine, run the following command:

mv composer.phar composer
./composer

You will get the following output:

While we will be using a search-friendly URL in Magento, we need to enable the Apache mod_rewrite module before we can continue. Run the following code on the shell:

a2enmod rewrite

Restart your Apache server to complete the new configuration. Run the following code on the shell:

service apache2 restart

If you see the following output on your screen, everything is correct:

root@mage2cookbook:/var/www/html# a2enmod rewrite
Enabling module rewrite.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
service apache2 restart

wget https://github.com/magento/magento2/archive/2.0.0.zip
wget https://github.com/magento/magento2/archive/2.0.0.tar.gz

Now let's set the ownership and permissions:

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html
find . -type d -exec chmod 770 {} \; && find . -type f -exec chmod 660 {} \; && chmod u+x bin/magento

Now we use Composer to resolve all of our dependencies. Run the following command on the shell:

cd /var/www/html/ && composer install

    - The requested PHP extension ext-gd * is missing from your system.

    - The requested PHP extension ext-curl * is missing from your system.

    - The requested PHP extension ext-intl * is missing from your system.

During the installation process, you will get a notice to create a GitHub OAuth token. The download rate limit is pretty small. Copy the URL from your shell window in your browser, log in at GitHub, or create an account and token:

Copy the generated token in the command prompt of your current shell window and the token will be saved for future reference in /root/.composer/auth.json. You can continue the rest of the installation.

Next, we will be using the setup wizard to continue the rest of the installation. In Chapter 2, Magento 2 System Tools, we will be using the shell installation method. Go to your favorite browser and run the following URL:

http://mage2cookbook.com/setup

As a result, we will get the following screen:

Now click on Agree and Setup Magento.

Let's start analyzing the readiness of your setup. Click on the Next button:

Magento 2 now will check your hosting setup for the correct PHP version, PHP modules, PHP settings, and file permissions, as shown in the following screenshot:

Continue the installation flow and commit your database credentials in the following screen:

In Step 3, we will set up our store address and administrator address. In Advanced Options, we are able to pick HTTPS, Apache rewrites, encryption key, and where to store the session key:

Step 4 gives you the opportunity to choose your time zone, currency, and language. In Magento 2, there is a brand new option to pick which modules need to be installed. You can easily select them by just clicking the checkbox, as shown in the following screenshot:

In Step 5, you can choose your username and password:

Now we are almost there; the final Step 6 will start installing our Magento 2 environment:

The installation step is really fast in Magento 2 and is done within a minute depending on your server. If you get an error in the console screen, such as a missing database, create one via the shell with the following command:

mysql –u root –p
create database magento;

Installation of Magento 2 can be seen in the following screenshot:

Congratulations, you have successfully installed Magento 2. You will be given administrative information on your login and store address.

For security reasons, you may want to alter the write permissions of your /app/etc directory to only read permissions with the following command:

chmod -R 440 /var/www/html/app/etc

Now we will focus on the configuration of Magento 2 on NGINX. We don't need to reinstall Magento 2; we just need to alter the current NGINX setup with the appropriate setting.

Now, let's go to the NGINX configuration directory and update default.conf in /etc/nginx/conf.d. Open the default.conf file and change it with the following settings:

upstream fastcgi_backend {
  server  127.0.0.1:9000;
}
server {
  listen       80;
  server_name  yourdomain.com;

  set $MAGE_ROOT /var/www/html;
  set $MAGE_MODE developer;

  include /var/www/html/nginx.conf.sample;

  access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
  error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

  location ~ /\.ht {
    deny  all;
  }
}

As you can see, we are now using an upstream and set $MAGE setting and have removed the fastcgi_pass.

However, the most important element is the Magento 2 nginx.conf.sample file, which is in the root directory of your Magento 2 instance. For now, it is easy to include this directory but not advised on a production level. It's best that you copy this file to your NGINX configuration directory and store it there. Don't forget to change the following setting:

include /var/www/html/nginx.conf.sample;

Save your configuration and run the following command to check whether your settings are correct. If not, change your configuration:

nginx -t

If your syntax is okay and the test is successful, then restart your NGINX server. Don't forget to stop your Apache server. Run the following command on the shell:

service apache2 stop && service nginx start

To check whether you are running NGINX, use the following command:

curl -I http://mage2cookbook.com/
root@mage2cookbook:~# curl -I http://mage2cookbook.com/HTTP/1.1 200 OKServer: nginx/1.9.6

Congratulations, you just finished the installation of Magento 2 on NGINX.