Cloud with Zend PHPCloud

This page is a tutorial to explain how to install Dolibarr ERP-CRM on the Zend Cloud Platform, called PHPCloud (http://phpcloud.com).

You can use this platform, however we do not recommand Zend PHPCloud as a production usage for the following reason: For all those reason, we provide tutorial but we recommend using any other platform (For example DoliCloud: http://www.dolicloud.com).
 * Support is not efficient. Dolibarr team has found several bug and problems onto this platform but Zend team does not answered our feedback.
 * You can't make backup of your database, because the binary required for this (mysqldump tool) can't be reach.
 * To access your instance using SFTP, you need a certificate but you can install only one certificate. This mean, you can't ask a thirdparty support team (commercial service or not) to help you (this third party will not be able to install its own certificate to get access to file need to diagnose/fix your problem).
 * Policy of the future of this platform is not clear and Zend does not provide information/guarantee. It's seems this platform is only dedicated to test/development purposes.

= Create an account = Go on https://my.phpcloud.com/ and create your PHPCloud account.

Once account is created and confirmed, be sure your public certificate has been declared. For this go on menu Access Keys and upload your public key.

= Create an instance = Go on https://my.phpcloud.com/, login with your PHPCloud account, then click on Deployed Applications - Add to add a new container.

Provide a name to your container, for example mycontainer and a login/password dedicated to this container. Do not click on Configure outgoing email server (SMTP) for the moment, we will do this later. Click on Create containrer.

After few seconds, your container is ready and a demo web application is available at https://mycontainer.my.phpcloud.com/.

= Submit Dolibarr files = With a SFTP client, connect to your PHPCloud file system. Information to configure your SFTP software is :
 * User name: mycontainer
 * Host name: mycontainer.my.phpcloud.com
 * Port: 22 (this is the default SFTP port and usually there is no need to specify this)
 * RSA Private Key: the path to your private key file (you can download this private key from the "Access Keys" button inside your "My Account" in PHPCloud account)

With this information, you can connect with SFTP to the PHPCloud file system. It contains by default only a directory applications/container-root/public



Upload all files into htdocs directory of Dolibarr package into this public directory.

Once this is done, edit (with your SFTP software) permissions on directory applications/container-root/public/conf to be writable for the group (by default permission are read-write for user and read only for group).

Note: If you edit a file from your SFTP client, group on remote filesystem is modified with group of your users instead of staying the group of web server. This means file could not be reach by your application. If this occurs, delete file and resubmit it. Group owner should be restored to group of web server (id of group must differs from id of user).

= Run Dolibarr install Wizard =

Once all previous steps are done, you can call the page http://mycontainer.my.phpcloud.com/ to run the Dolibarr install wizard.

Let all value detected by default. All you have to provide is:
 * database server: replace localhost with mycontainer-db.my.phpcloud.com
 * database name: mycontainer
 * database user: mycontainer
 * database password: mycontainer password

Note: At the end of install process, if you get a blank page when going on http://mycontainer.my.phpcloud.com/, you must before restart the PHPserver on PHPCloud plateform. For this, login onto PHPCloud, click on link to "mycontainer", then click on Access Zend Server. Click on Button "Restart PHP" at bottom right. After few second, try again to go on Dolibarr with http://mycontainer.my.phpcloud.com/. You should reach the Dolibarr login page.

Note: Login to Zend server does not work correctly sometimes. You are asked a password and go back to login page even if password is correct. If this occurs, after entering password, go again on phpcloud.com, click again on http://mycontainer.my.phpcloud.com/ then on link Access Zend Server. You should reach Zend server with no password asked.

= Outgoing Email Settings = Once dolibarr application is working, to allow your PHP to send emails (using the php function mail), you must configure a SMTP provider. Go into menu Configuration - Outgoings EMails settings, and enter all information for your SMTP provider.

Example to use GMail SMTP server (click twice on image to enlarge):

You can send test to send an email from Dolibarr menu: Home - Setup - EMails