How to Install Cachet Status Page on Windows VPS

Introduction

Cachet is an open-source status page system that allows you to monitor and communicate the health of your services. In this guide, we will walk you through the steps to install Cachet Status Page on a Windows VPS.

Prerequisites

Before starting the installation, ensure that you have the following requirements:

• A Windows VPS with administrative privileges.
• PHP 7.4 or higher installed on your system.
• MySQL or MariaDB for the database.
• Composer installed on your system.
• Internet access to download necessary packages.

Step 1: Install Required Software

Cachet requires several dependencies, including PHP, Composer, and a database system. Follow these steps:

1. Install PHP: Download and install PHP from the official PHP website: PHP for Windows.
2. Install MySQL or MariaDB: Download and install MySQL or MariaDB. You can get MySQL from MySQL Installer or MariaDB from MariaDB Download.
3. Install Composer: Download and install Composer from the official website: Composer.

Step 2: Download Cachet

Once you have installed the required software, you can now download and set up Cachet on your Windows VPS:

1. Open the Command Prompt or PowerShell on your Windows VPS.
2. Navigate to the directory where you want to install Cachet (e.g., C:\inetpub\wwwroot\cachet).
3. Clone the Cachet repository using Git:

git clone https://github.com/CachetHQ/Cachet.git

1. Navigate into the Cachet directory:

cd Cachet

Step 3: Install Dependencies with Composer

Cachet relies on Composer to manage PHP dependencies. Run the following command to install the dependencies:

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

Step 4: Set Up the Database

Next, you’ll need to set up the database for Cachet:

1. Log into MySQL or MariaDB:

mysql -u root -p

1. Create a new database for Cachet:

CREATE DATABASE cachet;

1. Create a new user and grant privileges:

CREATE USER 'cachetuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON cachet.* TO 'cachetuser'@'localhost';

1. Flush the privileges:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

1. Exit MySQL:

EXIT;

Step 5: Configure Cachet

Cachet requires some configuration to connect to the database and set the app’s environment:

1. Copy the example environment configuration file to create a new .env file:

cp .env.example .env

1. Edit the .env file to set the database connection details. Open the file in a text editor and update the following:

DB_HOST=127.0.0.1

DB_DATABASE=cachet

DB_USERNAME=cachetuser

DB_PASSWORD=your_password

Step 6: Set Up the Cachet Application

Run the following commands to finish setting up Cachet:

1. Generate the application key:

php artisan key:generate

1. Run database migrations to create the necessary tables:

php artisan migrate

1. Seed the database with default data (optional):

php artisan db:seed

1. Set the appropriate file permissions for the Cachet storage directories:

chmod -R 775 storage

chmod -R 775 bootstrap/cache

Step 7: Configure the Web Server

Configure Apache or Nginx to serve Cachet on your Windows VPS:

1. For Apache, configure the httpd.conf or virtual host file to point to the Cachet installation directory:

    DocumentRoot "C:/inetpub/wwwroot/cachet/public"
    ServerName cachet.example.com
    <Directory "C:/inetpub/wwwroot/cachet/public">
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    

                

1. Restart Apache to apply the changes.

Step 8: Access Cachet

Now that everything is set up, you can access Cachet via your browser:

• Go to http:///cachet or http://cachet.example.com if you’ve set up a domain.
• You should see the Cachet status page, and you can log in with the admin credentials you configured during the installation.

Conclusion

You’ve successfully installed Cachet Status Page on your Windows VPS. You can now use it to manage and monitor the status of your services, providing real-time updates to your users.