Configure the Magento application
Now that you’ve finished installing the Magento application, you need to configure it. This topic provides some recommended configuration settings for Magento; the list is not complete so watch this space.
Set up cron
cron—the UNIX task scheduler—is critical to Magento’s day-to-day operations. It schedules things like reindexing, newsletters, e-mails, sitemaps, and so on.
Immediately after finishing your Magento installation, set up a crontab for the Magento file system owner.
Prerequisites
Magento uses cron for two sets of tasks, and for each, cron can run with a different configuration:
-
PHP command-line configuration: The general cron job that reindexes indexers, generates e-mails, generates the sitemap, and so on.
You can find the command-line configuration using the command
php --ini
. -
Web server PHP plug-in configuration: Two other cron jobs are used by the Component Manager and System Upgrade utilities.
You can find the web server plug-in configuration using
phpinfo.php
.
- To avoid issues during installation and upgrade, we strongly recommend you apply the same PHP settings to both the PHP command-line configuration and to the PHP web server plug-in’s configuration. For more information, see Required PHP settings.
-
In a multi-node system, crontab can run on only one node.
This applies to you only if you set up more than one webnode for reasons related to performance or scalability.
Find the PHP binary and php.ini path
To display the path to your PHP binary, enter
which php
A sample result follows:
/usr/bin/php
Create the cron job
To create a cron job for the Magento file system owner, enter the following command as a user with root
privileges:
crontab -u <Magento file system owner user name> -e
For example,
crontab -u magento_user -e
A text editor displays. (You might need to choose a text editor first.)
* * * * * <path to php binary> <magento install dir>/bin/magento cron:run | grep -v "Ran jobs by schedule" >> <magento install dir>/var/log/magento.cron.log * * * * * <path to php binary> <magento install dir>/update/cron.php >> <magento install dir>/var/log/update.cron.log * * * * * <path to php binary> <magento install dir>/bin/magento setup:cron:run >> <magento install dir>/var/log/setup.cron.log
where
<path to php binary>
is the absolute file system path to your PHP binary<magento install dir>
is the directory in which you installed the Magento software; for example,/var/www
| grep -v "Ran jobs by schedule"
filters this message from the log, making any errors easier to spot
The first command (magento cron:run
) reindexes indexers, sends automated e-mails, generates the sitemap, and so on. Usually it’s associated with the PHP command line .ini
file. The other two commands are used by the Component Manager and System Upgrade.
If you're a contributing developer (that is, you cloned the Magento 2 GitHub repository), only the first line applies to you. See the examples that follow for details.
Example 1: Everyone except contributing developers
For example, if the PHP binary is located in /usr/bin
, you installed Magento in /var/www/magento2
, enter
Example:
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/magento2/bin/magento cron:run | grep -v "Ran jobs by schedule" >> /var/www/magento2/var/log/magento.cron.log
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/magento2/update/cron.php >> /var/www/magento2/var/log/update.cron.log
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/magento2/bin/magento setup:cron:run >> /var/www/magento2/var/log/setup.cron.log
Example 2: Contributing developers only (that is, you cloned the Magento 2 GitHub repository):
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/magento2/bin/magento cron:run | grep -v "Ran jobs by schedule" >> /var/www/magento2/var/log/magento.cron.log
The preceding works for contributing developers because if you cloned the GitHub repository you don’t have an update
directory and errors result if you run magento setup:cron:run
. These cron jobs work in the Web Setup Wizard, which contributing developers cannot use for installing or updating the Magento application or components.
Save your changes to the crontab and exit the editor.
For more information about cron, including how to remove a crontab and run cron from the command line, see Configure and run cron.
Security settings
After installation, we recommend the following:
- Make sure your file ownership and permissions are set properly
- We strongly recommend changing the default Admin URL from
admin
to something else - Make sure the
X-Frame-Option
HTTP header is set properly. - Take precautions against cross-site scripting (XSS) by securing your templates
Enable Apache server rewrites
If you use the Apache web server, you must enable server rewrites for pages to display properly. Otherwise, you’ll see pages without styles and other issues.
Section on Apache server rewrites
Caching in a multi-webnode environment
If you have multiple webnodes, you cannot use Magento’s default file caching because there is no synchronization between webnodes. In other words, activity on one webnode is written to that webnode’s file system only. Subsequent activity, if performed on another webnode, can result in unnecessary files being written or can result in errors.
Instead, use Redis for both the default cache and the page cache.
Server settings
This section briefly discusses settings we recommend you consider for the server on which Magento runs. Some of these settings are not directly related to Magento; these are provided as suggestions only.
Log rotation
The UNIX logrotate
utility enables you to administer systems that generate large numbers of log files. It allows automatic rotation, compression, removal, and mailing of log files. Each log file can be handled daily, weekly, monthly, or when the log file exceeds a specified size.
For more information, see one of the following:
Set up iptables rules to enable various Magento services to communicate.
Whether you have one server or many, you must open ports in the firewall to enable Magento services to communicate. For example, if you use the Solr search engine with Magento Commerce, you must enable it to communicate with the web server. If you have multiple web nodes, you must enable them to communicate with each other.
More information:
- Ubuntu: Ubuntu documentation page.
- CentOS: CentOS how-to and CentOS reference page.
Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) rules
We don’t recommend whether or not you use SELinux at all; however, if you use it, you must configure Magento services to communicate with each other similar to configuring iptables.
More information:
- Ubuntu: Debian handbook
- CentOS: CentOS wiki
Set up an e-mail server
Magento requires an e-mail server. We don’t recommend a particular server but you can try any of the following:
- Postfix for CentOS (digitalocean tutorial, CentOS documentation)
- Postfix for Ubuntu (digitalocean tutorial, Ubuntu documentation)
Settings for Magento Commerce only
You can configure the following only if you use Magento Commerce: