title	description	author	tags	date_published
Setting up Joomla! on Compute Engine	Learn how to get Joomla! running on a virtual machine instance on Compute Engine.	jimtravis	Compute Engine, SendGrid, Joomla	2017-01-17

Contributed by Google employees.

Get Joomla! running on an Ubuntu virtual machine instance on Compute Engine with the LAMP stack installed.

Alternatively, you can use options from the Cloud Marketplace to deploy a Joomla! stack automatically.

Objectives

Set up the virtual machine
Download Joomla!
Set up the database
Run the web-based setup
View your Joomla! site
Send email from Joomla!

Prerequisites

Select or create a Google Cloud project.
Enable billing for your project.

Costs

This tutorial uses billable components of Google Cloud, including Compute Engine.

Use the pricing calculator to generate a cost estimate based on your projected usage.

Setting up the virtual machine

First, deploy the LAMP development stack by using Cloud Marketplace. Select Ubuntu and use the default options.

Make a note of the MySQL root password. You can return to the Deployment Manager page in the Cloud Console to see the password or any other deployment information at any time.

Test Apache and PHP

Get the external IP address of your instance from the VM instances page in the Cloud Console.
In the External IP column, copy the external IP address for your LAMP server name.
In a browser, enter your external IP address to verify that Apache is running:
```
http://[YOUR_EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS]
```
You should see the Apache test page. Make sure that you don't use the https protocol specifier, because HTTPS is not configured.

Connect to your instance

You can connect directly to your instance using SSH from Cloud Console or using the gcloud compute ssh command, which is part of the Cloud SDK. This tutorial demonstrates the steps in the Cloud Console.

In the Cloud Console, go to the VM instances page.
In the list of virtual machine instances, click the SSH button in the row of the instance to which you want to connect.

Downloading Joomla!

Download the Joomla! package file to your virtual machine instance, unpack the files, and change the required ownership and permissions settings.

In the SSH console window, change directory to the web root:
```
cd /var/www/html
```
Remove the default index.html file:
```
sudo rm index.html
```
Download the package for Joomla! version 3.9.23:
```
sudo wget https://downloads.joomla.org/us/cms/joomla3/3-9-23/Joomla_3-9-23-Stable-Full_Package.tar.bz2
```
If you want to use a different version, you can find the links to available versions on the Joomla! Downloads page.

Extract the files from the archive that you downloaded:

sudo tar -xvjf Joomla_3-9-23-Stable-Full_Package.tar.bz2

Change the ownership of the web server root directory so that Apache can access files:
```
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/
```
Change the permissions on the files and directories:
```
sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
sudo find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
```
These settings enable owners to read and write files and to read, write, and execute in the directories. Non-owners can read files and read and execute in the directories.
Install sendmail if it's not installed on your Linux distribution:
```
sudo apt install sendmail -y
```

Setting up the database

Create a MySQL database for Joomla! and then grant permissions to a non-root user account that Joomla! can use to access the database. You can see the MySQL administrator password on the Deployment Manager deploy page after your LAMP stack is deployed.

Create the new database:
```
mysqladmin -u root -p create joomla
```
In this example, the database is named joomla.
Log in to the MySQL console:
```
mysql -u root -p
```
Enter the MySQL administrator password, when prompted.
Set the permissions on the database for the MySQL user account used by Joomla!:
```
CREATE USER 'YOUR_USERNAME'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YOUR_PASSWORD';
GRANT ALL ON joomla.* TO 'YOUR_USERNAME'@'localhost';
```
Replace YOUR_USERNAME and YOUR_PASSWORD in the commands above with your values.
Exit the MySQL console.
```
exit
```

Running the web-based setup

You can complete the Joomla! setup in your browser.

Browse to the Joomla! setup page by entering the external IP address for your site. Refresh if you still see the Apache test page.
Enter the required information on the Configuration tab and then click Next.
On the Database tab, enter the information about the MySQL account that you previously created. Be sure to use the same account name, password, and database name that you provided when you set the database permissions. Click Next when you're done.
On the Overview tab, select an option for sample data. For a production site, you'll probably want to accept the default value of None.
In the Email configuration setting, click Yes if you want Joomla! to send you an email containing your site settings.
To complete the setup, click Install.
When the setup is done, click Remove installation folder to clean up the setup files.

Viewing your Joomla! site

You can browse to your Joomla! site by entering the IP address for your site.

Sending email from Joomla!

Compute Engine doesn't allow outbound connections on ports 25, 465, and 587. To send email from your instances, you must use a partner service, such as SendGrid. SendGrid offers customers of Compute Engine free or paid packages with costs that vary by monthly email volume.

Getting a SendGrid account

Use SendGrid's Google partner page to create an account. Note that Google will be compensated for customers who sign up for a paid package.

For more details about sending email, see Sending email from an instance.

Configuring Joomla! to use SendGrid

Use the Joomla! control panel to configure email settings in Joomla!:

To browse to the control panel, enter your site's external IP address and append /administrator to the URL. You might need to log in.
In the left-side navigation menu, click Global under Configuration. Alternatively, select Global Configuration under the top System menu.
Select the Server tab, in the Mail Settings section, verify that Send Mail is set to Yes.
In the Mailer list, select SMTP.
Change From email to contain a valid email address from your site's domain.
In SMTP Authentication select Yes.
In SMTP Port enter 2525.
Enter the username and password for your SendGrid account.
In SMTP Host enter smtp.sendgrid.net.
Click Save & Close.

Sending a test email message

You can send an email message from Joomla! to test your SendGrid integration. You must create a user and then send a private message to the user.

In the Joomla! control panel main page, in the left-side navigation, click User.
On the User page, click New.
Use the form to provide details about the user. The email address must be different from the one you used for your administrator account.
On the Assigned User Groups tab, select Administrator.
Click Save & Close.
In the menu bar, select Components > Messaging > New Private Message.
For Recipient, click the button and then select the new user that you added previously.
Enter a subject and a message and then click Send.

If sending the email message fails, log in to SendGrid website and verify that your SendGrid account is active. It's possible that activating the account can take some time. You can also check SendGrid's email activity page to see whether your email message was blocked for some reason.

Next steps

Set up a host name for your website.
Read the Joomla! documentation.
Try out other Google Cloud features. Have a look at the tutorials.

The Joomla! name, logo and related trademarks are the property of Open Source Matters, Inc. and have been used with permission.

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