CubeCart on AWS User Guide

Overview

This image runs CubeCart behind nginx with PHP FPM 8.3 and OPcache enabled, with the mysqli, gd, curl, mbstring, xml, zip and intl extensions that CubeCart needs. MariaDB provides the database, on the same instance and bound to the loopback interface only. A systemd timer runs the CubeCart cron every five minutes for scheduled tasks.

CubeCart 6.7.5 requires HTTPS end to end (it redirects plain HTTP to HTTPS and issues secure session cookies), so the image serves the store over HTTPS on port 443, with plain HTTP on port 80 redirecting to it. A self-signed certificate is generated fresh on the first boot of every instance, so no two instances share a private key. Because it is self-signed, your browser shows a certificate warning until you install a trusted certificate; the HTTPS section below covers switching to a free Let's Encrypt certificate.

The image ships with CubeCart already installed and the setup/ directory removed, so the first request lands directly on a working storefront and you can sign straight in to the admin control panel with no setup wizard to work through. A fresh administrator password and a fresh MariaDB password are generated on the first boot of every deployed instance. Two instances launched from the same Amazon Machine Image never share secrets. The administrator and database passwords are written to /root/cubecart-credentials.txt with mode 0600 so that only the root user can read them.

The CubeCart application code and the storefront document root, including product images, live under /var/www/cubecart on a dedicated EBS volume separate from the operating system disk. The MariaDB data directory sits on its own EBS volume at /var/lib/mysql. Each tier can be resized independently of the others. This image ships the unmodified CubeCart community edition, which is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0, including the "Powered by CubeCart" storefront branding.

Prerequisites

Before you deploy this image you need:

• An Amazon Web Services account where you can launch EC2 instances
• IAM permissions to launch instances, create security groups, and subscribe to AWS Marketplace products
• An EC2 key pair in the target Region for SSH access to the instance
• A VPC and subnet in the target Region, with a security group allowing inbound port 22 from your management network and inbound ports 80 and 443 from the networks your customers will reach the store on
• The AWS CLI (version 2) installed locally if you plan to deploy from the command line

Step 1: Launch the Instance from the AWS Marketplace

Sign in to the AWS Management Console, open the EC2 service, and select Launch instance. Under Application and OS Images choose AWS Marketplace AMIs and search for CubeCart. Select the cloudimg listing and choose Select, then Continue on the subscription summary.

Pick an instance type of m5.large or larger — the CubeCart workload is PHP and MariaDB heavy, and catalog and checkout operations benefit from memory. Choose your EC2 key pair under Key pair (login). Under Network settings select your VPC and subnet, and either create or select a security group that allows inbound port 22 from your management network and inbound ports 80 and 443 from the networks your customers use. Leave the root volume at the default size or larger.

Select Launch instance. First boot initialisation takes a few seconds after the instance state becomes Running and the status checks pass.

Step 2: Launch the Instance from the AWS CLI

The following block launches an instance from the cloudimg CubeCart Marketplace AMI into an existing subnet and security group. Replace <ami-id> with the AMI ID shown on the Marketplace listing, <key-name> with your EC2 key pair name, <subnet-id> with your subnet ID, and <security-group-id> with a security group that opens ports 22, 80, and 443 as described above.

aws ec2 run-instances \
  --image-id <ami-id> \
  --instance-type m5.large \
  --key-name <key-name> \
  --subnet-id <subnet-id> \
  --security-group-ids <security-group-id> \
  --block-device-mappings '[{"DeviceName":"/dev/sda1","Ebs":{"VolumeSize":30,"VolumeType":"gp3"}}]' \
  --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=instance,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=cubecart-01}]'

The command prints a JSON document on success. Note the instance ID, then retrieve its public address once it is running with aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids <instance-id> --query "Reservations[].Instances[].PublicIpAddress" --output text.

Step 3: Connect and Retrieve Initial Credentials

Connect over SSH with the key pair you selected and the public IP address from step 2. The SSH login user depends on the operating system of the AMI variant you launched:

Connect with ssh -i <path-to-key.pem> ubuntu@<instance-public-ip>, substituting your key path and the instance's public IP address.

The per instance administrator password is written to a root only file on first boot. Read it with:

sudo cat /root/cubecart-credentials.txt

The file lists the storefront URL, the admin control panel URL, the administrator username (admin) and password, and the MariaDB database name, user and password. Store the administrator password in your password manager and treat this file as sensitive.

Step 4: Verify the Stack is Running

CubeCart is served by three systemd units. Confirm they are active:

systemctl is-active nginx php8.3-fpm mariadb

Each line returns active. You can confirm nginx is listening on the HTTPS port with ss -tlnp | grep ':443', and that PHP is the expected version with php -v (this image ships PHP 8.3).

The CubeCart cron, which processes scheduled tasks, runs every five minutes through a systemd timer:

systemctl status cubecart-cron.timer

Step 5: First Sign In to the Admin Control Panel

Browse to https://<instance-public-ip>/admin.php to reach the admin control panel. Because the certificate is self-signed, your browser shows a security warning the first time — choose to proceed (for example, in Chrome, Advanced → Proceed). Sign in with the username admin and the password from /root/cubecart-credentials.txt.

After signing in you land on the Dashboard, which shows sales figures, recent orders, a store overview and quick tasks. The left-hand menu gives you Customers, Inventory, Reporting, File Manager and Settings. The customer-facing storefront is at https://<instance-public-ip>/ — this is where your customers browse the catalog, add products to the basket and check out.

Step 6: Change the Administrator Password and Set Your Details

While the first-boot password is unique to your instance, you should still set your own. In the admin control panel, open Settings → Administrators, edit the admin user, set your name and email address, and change the password to one you control. CubeCart stores administrator passwords as bcrypt hashes.

Step 7: Set Your Store Name and Core Settings

Open Settings → Store Settings. Set the Store Name, the store email address, and your address, country and default currency. These appear on the storefront, on invoices and in transactional emails. The store URL is pinned on first boot to your instance address; when you move to a custom domain (below), update it here and in /var/www/cubecart/includes/global.inc.php.

Step 8: Build Your Catalog

CubeCart organises your shop with categories and products.

• Categories (Inventory → Categories) group your products — for example Clothing, Accessories, or Downloads.
• Products (Inventory → Products) are what you sell. Add a product, set its name, price, stock and description, assign it to a category, and upload product images.
• Product Options (Inventory → Product Options) define variants such as size or colour.

The image ships with one example category and product so the storefront renders out of the box; delete them once you have added your own.

Step 9: Configure Payment and Shipping

CubeCart processes orders through payment and shipping extension modules.

• Payment gateways (under Manage Extensions → Payment) include PayPal, Stripe, Sage Pay and others. Enable the gateways you use and enter your merchant credentials.
• Shipping modules (Manage Extensions → Shipping) let you charge by weight, price, or a flat rate, or integrate a carrier. Configure the rules that match your fulfilment.

Place a test order end to end before you go live to confirm your payment and shipping configuration.

Step 10: Install a Trusted HTTPS Certificate with Let's Encrypt

The image serves HTTPS with a self-signed certificate so the store works immediately, but browsers show a warning. For production, point a DNS name at the instance's public address and install a free Let's Encrypt certificate. The commands below are illustrative — replace shop.example.com with your domain and run them as root. Because this involves a domain you own and interactive prompts, run them yourself.

Install Certbot and the nginx plugin, then request a certificate. Certbot edits the nginx site in place and reloads nginx:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx

sudo certbot --nginx -d shop.example.com

After the trusted certificate is live, set the store URL to your https://shop.example.com address under Settings → Store Settings, and update $glob['standard_url'] in /var/www/cubecart/includes/global.inc.php to match.

Step 11: Backups and Maintenance

The CubeCart database lives in MariaDB on the /var/lib/mysql volume and the application files and product images under /var/www/cubecart. Back up both. A simple database dump is:

sudo mysqldump --single-transaction cubecart | gzip > cubecart-db-$(date +%F).sql.gz

Take EBS snapshots of the data volumes for point-in-time recovery, and snapshot before any CubeCart version upgrade. Keep the operating system patched with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade.

Step 12: Storage Layout

The application and database tiers are on dedicated EBS volumes, each independently resizable:

df -h /var/lib/mysql /var/www

/var/lib/mysql holds the MariaDB data directory and /var/www holds the CubeCart code, storefront document root and product images. To grow a tier, modify the EBS volume in the EC2 console and then extend the filesystem with sudo resize2fs <device>.

Screenshots

The CubeCart storefront, served over HTTPS on first boot with the Foundation theme, catalog and shopping cart:

A storefront category page, with featured products, best sellers and on-sale listings:

The admin control panel sign-in page:

The admin control panel dashboard after signing in with the per-instance administrator password:

The product inventory — manage the catalog, categories, options, pricing and stock:

Support

This image is backed by 24/7 technical support from cloudimg, covering CubeCart deployment, upgrades, catalog and store configuration, payment and shipping modules, themes, email delivery and database administration. Contact support through the channel listed on the AWS Marketplace listing.