Installation

Manual installation

Requirements

Make sure the server hosting Betterprotect supports the following:

PHP

• php7.3 or higher
• php7.3-curl
• php7.3-json
• php7.3-mysql
• php7.3-opcache
• php7.3-readline
• php7.3-gd
• php7.3-mbstring
• php7.3-xml
• php7.3-ldap

Database

• MariaDB 10.1 or higher (MySQL should work as well)

Web server

• Apache, Nginx or IIS (with Websocket Proxy support, e.g. proxy_wstunnel)

Installation on Debian Buster with Apache and MariaDB

Dependencies

apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-php7.3 php7.3-curl php7.3-json php7.3-mysql php7.3-opcache php7.3-readline php7.3-gd php7.3-mbstring php7.3-xml php7.3-ldap mariadb-server supervisor

Database

Secure your database server:

mysql_secure_installation

Create a database:

mysql -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE betterprotect;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON betterprotect.* TO 'betterprotect'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-secret-password-here';

We will need the password later.

Webserver

Adjust the marked path if necessary:

<VirtualHost *:443>
  ServerName betterprotect.contoso.com

  # !!! Adjust the path if required !!!
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/betterprotect/public"

   # !!! Adjust the path if required !!!
  <Directory "/var/www/betterprotect/public">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted
  </Directory>

   # !!! Adjust the path if required !!!
  ErrorLog "/var/log/apache2/betterprotect_ssl_error_ssl.log"

  # !!! Adjust the path if required !!!
  CustomLog "/var/log/apache2/betterprotect_ssl_access_ssl.log" combined

  SSLEngine on
   # !!! Adjust the path if required !!!
  SSLCertificateFile      "/etc/ssl/apache2/publicCert.pem"

   # !!! Adjust the path if required !!!
  SSLCertificateKeyFile   "/etc/ssl/apache2/privateKey.pem"
  SSLCACertificatePath    "/etc/ssl/certs"

  <Location "/ws">
    ProxyPass ws://localhost:6001/
    ProxyPassReverse ws://localhost:6001/
  </Location>

  # !!! Adjust the path if required !!!
  <Directory /var/www/betterprotect/public>
    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
      <IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
        Options -MultiViews
      </IfModule>

     RewriteEngine On

     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
     RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ / [L,R=301]

     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
     RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]

     RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
     RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
   </IfModule>
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Location "/ws"

This part is important for the bidirectional communication between Betterprotect and the client. Betterprotect uses Websockets to inform the user about the current status of background tasks. Apache works as a reverse proxy for the websocket server.

Download & Extract

cd /var/www
wget https://github.com/Hank-IT/Betterprotect/releases/download/v1.5/betterprotect-production-65-d9d353244d32a619b3ae2cc6ab0dca7e93d3eed5.tar.gz
gunzip betterprotect-production-65-d9d353244d32a619b3ae2cc6ab0dca7e93d3eed5.tar.gz
tar -xvf betterprotect-production-65-d9d353244d32a619b3ae2cc6ab0dca7e93d3eed5.tar

Releases

Always check the release tab on the Github repository for the current version, as the link here might be outdated. The one looking like this is required: "betterprotect-production-65-d9d353244d32a619b3ae2cc6ab0dca7e93d3eed5.tar.gz". This is a fully build release, including all dependencies.

Setup Betterprotect

cp .env.example .env
vi .env

Adjust the following settings in your .env file:

Setting	Description
APP_URL	The root URL of your Betterprotect installation.
APP_DOMAIN	The domain of your Betterprotect instalation.
DB_HOST	The IP or name of your database host.
DB_PORT	The port on which your database is listening.
DB_DATABASE	The name of the database you created earlier.
DB_USERNAME	The username of the user you created earlier.
DB_PASSWORD	The password of the user you created earliuer.

Generate the secret key, which is used for encryption of passwords:

php artisan key:generate

Setup Supervisor

Betterprotect uses a background worker for long running tasks. Supervisor is used to start and monitor the process.

Create the config for the queue worker /etc/supervisor/conf.d/betterprotect-worker.conf with the following content:

[program:betterprotect-worker]
process_name=%(program_name)s_%(process_num)02d
command=php /var/www/betterprotect/artisan queue:work --tries 3 --timeout 120 database --queue task
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=www-data
numprocs=4
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/var/www/betterprotect/storage/logs/betterprotect-worker.log

Create the config for the websocket server /etc/supervisor/conf.d/betterprotect-websocket.conf with the following content:

[program:betterprotect-websocket]
process_name=%(program_name)s_%(process_num)02d
command=php /var/www/betterprotect/artisan websocket:serve
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=www-data
numprocs=1
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/var/www/betterprotect/storage/logs/betterprotect-websocket.log

Restart supervisor to start the processes:

systemctl restart supervisor

Create a user

php artisan user:create

You successfully installed Betterprotect 😄