Photo7 Installation Guide

This guide walks you through installing and running the Photo7 photography portfolio + print shop on your server or local machine.

1) Requirements

• PHP 8.0+ with extensions: pdo_mysql, curl, gd (for thumbnails), exif, mbstring, json, fileinfo.
• MariaDB/MySQL 10.x or newer.
• Apache or Nginx serving the public/ directory as the web root. (Apache .htaccess is included.)
• Composer is not required; the app is plain PHP.

2) Get the Code

git clone <your-repo-url> photo7
cd photo7

3) Create Database

mysql -u root -p -e "CREATE DATABASE photo7 CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;"
mysql -u root -p photo7 < sql/schema.sql

4) Configure Connection & App Settings

1. Copy config/config.php if needed and set DB credentials:

   return [
       'db' => [
           'host' => '127.0.0.1',
           'port' => 3306,
           'name' => 'photo7',
           'user' => 'photo7_user',
           'pass' => 'secret',
       ],
       'app' => [
           'name' => 'Photo7',
           'url' => 'https://your-domain.test',
           'admin_email' => 'you@example.com',
           'timezone' => 'UTC',
           'debug' => false,
       ],
       'mail' => [
           'to' => 'you@example.com',
       ],
       'openai' => [
           'api_key' => '',
           'model' => 'gpt-4o-mini',
       ],
   ];
         

2. Set 'url' to your public base URL.
3. Optional: add PayPal keys and OpenAI key in the admin Settings later.

5) File Permissions

• Ensure the web server can write to:
  • public/uploads/ (for photos and generated variants)
  • storage/ (for mail/spam logs)
• Example (adjust user/group to your environment):

  mkdir -p public/uploads storage
  chown -R www-data:www-data public/uploads storage
  chmod -R 775 public/uploads storage

6) Configure Virtual Host

Point your vhost to public/.

Apache

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName photo7.test
    DocumentRoot /path/to/photo7/public
    <Directory /path/to/photo7/public>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Nginx (PHP-FPM)

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name photo7.test;
    root /path/to/photo7/public;
    index index.php;

    access_log /var/log/nginx/photo7.access.log;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx/photo7.error.log;

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

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock; # adjust to your PHP-FPM socket
        fastcgi_read_timeout 60s;
    }

    location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|webp|svg|ico|css|js|woff2?)$ {
        expires 30d;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate";
    }
}

7) Create the First Admin User

1. Start your web server and browse to /admin/setup.
2. Fill in the admin email/password to create the first admin account.
3. After setup, log in at /admin/login.

8) Verify Key Features

• Upload a test album and photos via /admin/albums > Upload.
• Check EXIF/metadata extraction on a photo page.
• Confirm search and tag pages load.
• If shop is enabled:
  • Add print sizes and shipping zones in Settings.
  • Enter PayPal client/secret and set sandbox/live mode.
  • Add an item to cart and open checkout to confirm the PayPal button appears.

9) Optional: Performance & Assets

• Enable OPcache for PHP.
• Use HTTPS in production (Let’s Encrypt).
• Set debug to false in config for production.

10) Troubleshooting

• Blank pages or 500 errors: check web server error log and storage/ logs.
• Metadata missing: ensure PHP exif and gd are enabled; confirm uploads are JPEG/PNG/WebP.
• Map missing: ensure outbound access to OSM tiles; no API key is needed.
• PayPal button missing: verify PayPal client/secret and that the shop is enabled in Settings.

That’s it! You should now have Photo7 running with admin access, uploads, search, tags, and (optionally) the print shop.