How To Install Matomo on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Matomo on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Matomo, previously known as Piwik, is an open-source web analytics software that allows you to track and analyze your website’s visitors and their behavior. It can be used to track website visitors, track user interactions on a website, and generate reports on website traffic, search engine optimization, and conversion rate optimization. Matomo is written in PHP and uses a MySQL/MariaDB database to store data.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Matomo Web Analytics on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• An active internet connection. You’ll need an internet connection to download the necessary packages and dependencies for Matomo.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Matomo on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing LAMP Stack on Ubuntu 22.04.

Before starting this tutorial, the LAMP server must be installed on your server. If you do not have LAMP Stack installed, you can follow our guide here.

Step 3. Installing Matomo Web Analytics on Ubuntu 22.04.

By default, Matomo is not available on Ubuntu 22.04 base repository. Now run the following command below to download the latest stable version of Matomo from the official page of your Ubuntu system:

cd /var/www/
wget https://builds.matomo.org/matomo.zip

Next, unzip the downloaded file:

unzip matomo.zip

We will need to change some folders permissions:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/matomo

Step 4. Configuring MariaDB.

By default, MariaDB is not hardened. You can secure MariaDB using the mysql_secure_installation script. you should read and below each step carefully which will set a root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MariaDB:

mysql_secure_installation

Configure it like this:

- Set root password? [Y/n] y
- Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
- Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
- Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
- Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Next, we will need to log in to the MariaDB console and create a database for Matomo. Run the following command:

mysql -u root -p

This will prompt you for a password, so enter your MariaDB root password and hit Enter. Once you are logged in to your database server you need to create a database for Matomo installation:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE matomo;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'matomo'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-strong-passwd';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, INDEX, DROP, ALTER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES ON matomo.* TO 'matomo'@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> EXIT;

For additional resources on installing and managing MariaDB, read the post below:

• How to install MariaDB on Ubuntu Linux √

Step 5. Configure Apache Virtual Host.

Now create the virtual host configuration file for Matomo:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/matomo.conf

Add the following file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@your-domain.com
    ServerName analytics.your-domain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/matomo/

    <Directory /var/www/matomo>
        DirectoryIndex index.php
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    <Files "console">
        Options None
        Require all denied
    </Files>

    <Directory /var/www/matomo/misc/user>
        Options None
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    <Directory /var/www/matomo/misc>
        Options None
        Require all denied
    </Directory>

    <Directory /var/www/matomo/vendor>
        Options None
        Require all denied
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/matomo_error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/matomo_access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Save and close the file, then restart the Apache webserver so that the changes take place:

sudo a2ensite matomo.conf
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

For additional resources on installing and managing Apache, read the post below:

• How to install Apache on Ubuntu Linux √

Step 6. Secure Matomo with Let’s Encrypt SSL.

First, install the Certbot client using the following command below:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache2

Next, get your SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt by following these steps:

certbot --apache -d analytics.your-domain.com

Let’s Encrypt certificates have 90 days of validity, and it is highly advisable to renew the certificates before they expire. You can test automatic renewal for your certificates by running this command:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Step 7. Configure Firewall.

Now we set up an Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) with Apache to allow public access on default web ports for HTTP and HTTPS:

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 'Apache Full'
sudo ufw enable

Step 8. Accessing Matomo Web Analytics Web Interface.

Once successfully installed, open your web browser and access the Matomo Web UI using the URL https://analytics.your-domain.com. You will be redirected to the following page:

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Matomo. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Matomo Web Analytics on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the Matomo website.