Server Configuration - Mixpost

If you've installed Mixpost as a standalone app or integrated it into an existing Laravel application, there are a few more steps you'll need to take. Installing and configuring some additional software and configuring your server is crucial to get everything running smoothly. We can't stress enough how important this part is, so please make sure not to skip it!

Requirements

Softwares

PHP extensions

These extensions are version-specific for PHP, so if you have PHP 8.2.x installed you would run:

sudo apt install php8.2-curl php8.2-mysql php8.2-bcmath php8.2-gd php8.2-mbstring php8.2-redis php8.2-xml php8.2-zip php8.2-intl

In Plesk, you can install or upgrade PHP via "Tools & Settings -> Plesk -> Updates"

Enabling Specific PHP Functions

In PHP, certain functions are disabled by default for security reasons. To utilize these functions, you need to modify the disable_functions directive in the php.ini file. This guide will walk you through enabling the pcntl_signal and pcntl_alarm functions, which are commonly disabled.

Example before editing:

disable_functions = pcntl_alarm, pcntl_signal, exec, shell_exec

Example after editing:

disable_functions = exec, shell_exec

Default public web root

If you installed Mixpost using the Standalone method you may instruct your web server(Nginx/Apache/Anything else) the default public web root.

You should set the default public web root to the "/public" folder of the Mixpost Standalone project.

Nginx

In Ubuntu/Debian, you can find the:

server {
    listen 80;
    root /var/www/your-mixpost-project/public;
    index index.php index.html;

	// your nginx configs
}

Remember, after making changes to any Nginx configuration file, you should restart the Nginx service to apply the changes.

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Apache

In Ubuntu, you can find the default virtual host: "/etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf".

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@yourdomain.com
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/your-mixpost-project/public"
    ServerName yourdomain.com
    ServerAlias www.yourdomain.com

    <Directory "/var/www/your-mixpost-project/public">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    // your apache configs
</VirtualHost>

Remember, after making changes to any Apache configuration file, you should restart (or reload) the Apache service to apply the changes.

sudo systemctl restart apache2
sudo systemctl reload apache2

Plesk

Open your Plesk panel, then go to “Hosting settings”. Change the “Document root” value to match the “public” folder.

plesk-change-web-root.png

Installing FFmpeg

Mixpost has the ability to generate images from video while uploading a video file. This would not be possible without FFmpeg installed on your server.

You need to follow FFmpeg installation instructions on their official website. Usually, you can install it with:

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

After installation, depending on the operating system, set your paths to the "ffmpeg" and "ffprobe" binary files (not the folder they're in!). Default folder path: /usr/bin/. If FFmpeg is there, there is no need to change it.

If it is somewhere else, navigate to your Mixpost application and put this in your .env file

FFMPEG_PATH=/usr/bin/ffmpeg
FFPROBE_PATH=/usr/bin/ffprobe

Common Plesk problem:

If you get open_basedir errors, you can move "ffmpeg" and "ffprobe" to a folder inside your "httpdocs".

sudo cp /usr/bin/ffmpeg /var/www/vhosts/domain/httpdocs/ffmpeg
sudo cp /usr/bin/ffprobe /var/www/vhosts/domain/httpdocs/ffprobe

And then change your paths in ".env" to:

FFMPEG_PATH=/var/www/vhosts/domain/httpdocs/ffmpeg
FFPROBE_PATH=/var/www/vhosts/domain/httpdocs/ffprobe

Installing Redis

So that the posts can be scheduled, Mixpost puts them in the queue.

To be able to do this, you need to install Redis. Then, you will need to modify the values of the REDIS_* entries in the .env file to make sure they are aligned with your redis instance.

Installing & Configuring Supervisor

Installing Supervisor

You need to configure a process monitor. To install Supervisor on Ubuntu, you may use the following command:

sudo apt-get install supervisor

Configuring Supervisor

Supervisor configuration files are typically stored in the /etc/supervisor/conf.d.

Create the file mixpost-horizon.conf inside of conf.d folder and put this configuration content:

[program:mixpost_horizon]
process_name=%(program_name)s
command=php /path-to-your-project/artisan horizon
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=your_user_name
stopwaitsecs=3600

Once the configuration file has been created, you may update the Supervisor configuration and start the processes using the following commands:

sudo supervisorctl reread
 
sudo supervisorctl update
 
sudo supervisorctl start mixpost_horizon:*

Cron

Add a cron that runs the scheduler every minute:

* * * * * cd /path-to-your-project && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Plesk

In Plesk, the command will look something like:

cd /var/www/vhosts/domain/httpdocs/ && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Replace "domain" with your real domain.

Make sure to set the "Run" to "Cron Style" and insert:

* * * * *

image.png

Other things to consider

Some files that are uploaded, video for example, can be up to 200 mb, by default most web servers have configured a much smaller limit. You will need to check this.

In php.ini:

post_max_size = 220M
upload_max_filesize = 200M

On Ubuntu, you can edit "php.ini":

In the paths above, replace VERSION with the specific version of PHP installed on your system (e.g., 8.1, 8.2).

Then, restart your PHP process. For php fpm, you can restart with:

sudo systemctl restart php8.1-fpm.service
sudo systemctl reload php8.1-fpm.service

For Apache, you can restart with:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

In nginx.conf:

http {
    client_max_body_size 200M;
}

Then, sudo systemctl restart nginx

For Apache, /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.

LimitRequestBody 209715200

Then: sudo systemctl restart httpd