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DigitalOcean
Server setup summary:
If you don't already have a DigitalOcean account, you can create one here (referral link, you get $200 free credits on sign-up).
1) Create a new droplet.
2) Choose your preferred server location
Normally this should be close to you, or close to where the majority of the tracked users are. A central location such as Amsterdam could also be good.
3) Choose the LAMP image from the Marketplace
DigitalOcean Marketplace - LAMP image
If you are interested you can read more about the DigitalOcean LAMP image here: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/lamp#getting-started
4) Choose the $6/mo plan
If you want you can choose a more powerful server, but the $6/mo should be enough for at least 20-30k monthly visitors. If you want even faster performance, you can go for the $7/mo premium CPUs with NVMe SSD.
You can also change the plan any time after creating the server.
5) Select the preferred authentication method to access the server and the server name. SSH is recommended, but if you are not familiar with SSH you can select one-time password.
6) Select the free "Monitoring and alerting" add-on
This will enable performance graphs in your DigitalOcean dashboard, so you can see the CPU/Memory/Disk/Network usage of the server.
DigitalOcean Enable Monitoring and Alerting
7) Click Advanced Options -> Add Initialization scripts (free)
This is where the magic happens and what automatically installs UXWizz on the server.
You can get the "user data" code by accessing this URL:
(replace YOUR_LICENSE_KEY with your own UXWizz license code)
https://www.uxwizz.com/get-cloud-config?license=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY
NOTE: If you are using the trial version, use this link instead:
https://www.uxwizz.com/get-cloud-config?license=TRIAL
Add the copied code to the text input, it should look something like this:
You can optionally enable backups. You can also do this later, after the server is created.
To recap, those options should be selected:
- 1.Marketplace -> LAMP on 18.04 (or newer) image.
- 2.User data textarea must be filled with the #cloud-config code as explained above.
Everything is done, click Create Droplet.
The server will now be created, it usually takes 4-5 minutes before it can be accessed.
While it's being setup we can add our own domain to point to that IP.
To do this, you have to go add some DNS records to your domain from your domain name registrar.
Add two A records from your domain (or subdomain name) to the IP of your server.
- 1.A analytics.example.com 123.123.456.9
- 2.A www.analytics.example.com 123.456.78.9
The easiest way to access the server is through the web console. Here you can use the password that was set when creating the droplet.
Note that when you type passwords in a console, nothing is displayed but the password is actually typed. When you paste the password from your email you won't see anything, so just paste with it CTRL+V and submit with ENTER.
You should now be able to access UXWizz using the new domain name. It can also be accessed from the server IP.
Now, back to the HTTPS certificate.
While you are in the console, run this command to generate a free HTTPS certificate using certbot:
(replace example.com and www.example.com with the own domains, the same as in step 2)
certbot --apache --agree-tos -d example.com -d www.example.com
There are 3-4 questions you have to respond to in the console after running that command in order for the certificate to be issued.
Done!
You now have a UXWizz instance, running on your own server, on your own domain with a HTTPS certificate.
You might be able to also use this as a guide to add UXWizz on a server from different hosting provider, but the user data (cloud-init) script might not work, as it has some DigitalOcean specific paths.
If you had any issues following this guide, or want to suggest making a similar guide for a different provider (assuming they support premade LAMP images and cloud-init), you can send me an e-mail at support [at] uxwizz.com.
Last modified 3mo ago