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Standalone installation

Run the Pelican Panel directly on a web server.

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You should have some basic familiarity with Linux before you proceed!

Requirements​

Operating System (OS)​

The Panel runs on a wide range of operating systems, so pick whichever you are most comfortable using.
This documentation assumes a Debian-based OS with apt.

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SQLite support depends on libsqlite3-0_3.35+ being on the host system.
OS's that do not support SQLite include: Debian 11, Alma Linux 8 or 9, Rocky Linux 8 or 9.

Dependencies​

For the Panel you need to install PHP 8.5 (recommended), 8.4, 8.3 or 8.2, with the following extensions:
gd, mysql, mbstring, bcmath, xml, curl, zip, intl, sqlite3 and fpm.

You will also need a web server. Currently, Apache, NGINX or Caddy are supported.

If you want to use MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL for the panel database make sure to install either MySQL 8+, MariaDB 10.6+ or PostgreSQL 14+. (both client and server!)

Finally, for some commands during the installation you need curl, tar and unzip.

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Please make sure you installed all needed dependencies before continuing!

Download Panel files​

The first step in this process is to create the folder where the panel will live and then move ourselves into that newly created folder.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/pelican
cd /var/www/pelican

Once you have created a new directory to use and moved into it, you'll need to download the Panel files. This is as simple as using curl to download the latest release.

curl -L https://github.com/pelican-dev/panel/releases/latest/download/panel.tar.gz | sudo tar -xzv

Install Composer​

Next we will set up Composer along with the required dependencies.

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
sudo COMPOSER_ALLOW_SUPERUSER=1 composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
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Even though composer might tell you that you have outdated dependencies, do not run composer update!

Web server Configuration​

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When using the SSL (https) configuration you MUST create SSL certificates, otherwise your web server will fail to start. See the Creating SSL Certificates documentation page to learn how to create these certificates before continuing.

php & fpm

If you're not using php8.5, you will need to edit the config file to point to the proper php fpm socket.

The line is highlighted below.

First, remove the default NGINX configuration.

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Now, you should paste the contents of the file below, replacing <domain> with your domain or IP being used in a file called pelican.conf and place the file in /etc/nginx/sites-available/.

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Note: IPs cannot be used with SSL.

/etc/nginx/sites-available/pelican.conf
server_tokens off;

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name <domain>;
    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name <domain>;

    root /var/www/pelican/public;
    index index.php;

    access_log /var/log/nginx/pelican.app-access.log;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx/pelican.app-error.log error;

    # allow larger file uploads and longer script runtimes
    client_max_body_size 100m;
    client_body_timeout 120s;

    sendfile off;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/<domain>/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/<domain>/privkey.pem;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers "ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384";
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    # See https://hstspreload.org/ before uncommenting the line below.
    # add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; preload;";
    add_header X-Content-Type-Options nosniff;
    add_header X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block";
    add_header X-Robots-Tag none;
    add_header Content-Security-Policy "frame-ancestors 'self'";
    add_header X-Frame-Options DENY;
    add_header Referrer-Policy same-origin;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.5-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param PHP_VALUE "upload_max_filesize = 100M \n post_max_size=100M";
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
        fastcgi_intercept_errors off;
        fastcgi_buffer_size 16k;
        fastcgi_buffers 4 16k;
        fastcgi_connect_timeout 300;
        fastcgi_send_timeout 300;
        fastcgi_read_timeout 300;
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

Enabling Configuration​

The final step is to enable your NGINX configuration and restart it.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pelican.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/pelican.conf

You need to restart nginx to load the new config file.​

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Panel Setup​

The core environment is easily configured using a single CLI command & the web installer built into the app.
These steps will cover setting up things such as sessions, caching, database credentials, and email sending.

Running php artisan p:environment:setup will, if it does not exist, auto-create the required .env file and generate a APP_KEY.

sudo php artisan p:environment:setup
BACK UP APP_KEY!

Back up your encryption key (APP_KEY in the .env file). This is used as an encryption key for all data that needs to be stored securely (e.g. api keys). Store it somewhere safe - not just on your server. If you lose it all encrypted data is irrecoverable -- even if you have database backups.

Setting Permissions​

The next step in the installation process is to set the correct permissions on the Panel files so that the web server can use them correctly.

sudo chmod -R 755 storage/* bootstrap/cache/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/pelican

Web Installer​

Once you've set the proper permissions, finish the Panel install via the web installer.
The web installer is located at <domain>/installer or <ip>/installer, e.g. https://panel.example.com/installer

During this step you will choose the default drivers, create the queue worker and create the default admin user.

Want something advanced?

Make sure to read the MySQL guide first if you want to use MySQL/MariaDB instead of SQLite!
If you want to use Redis make sure to read the Redis guide first.