How to Install Matomo Web Analytics on Debian 11

In this article, we will have explained the necessary steps to install Matomo Web Analytics on Debian 11. Before continuing with this tutorial, make sure you are logged in as a user with sudo privileges. All the commands in this tutorial should be run as a non-root user.

Matomo, formerly Piwik, is a free, open-source web analytics software tool. It is used to track your website and give detailed information on your website and its visitors, including the search engines and keywords they used, the language they speak, which pages they like, the files they download and so much more.

Install Matomo Web Analytics on Debian 11

Step 1. The first command will update the package lists to ensure you get the latest version and dependencies.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgradesudoapt install software-properties-common wget

Step 2. Install LAMP stack.

You’re going to need to set Debian up as either a LAMP server. If you haven’t done so already, use our traditional LAMP guide to set up Debian to serve before you continue.

Step 3. Install Matomo on the Debian system.

Installing Matomo on your Debian system is straightforward, All you need to do is open a terminal and run the following command to download the latest release version of Matomo from the Matomo release page:

wget http://builds.matomo.org/matomo-latest.zip

Extract the .zip file into the webroot directory of your system:

unzip matomo-latest.zip
mv matomo /var/www/html/matomo

Then, change ownership of the installation directory:

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/matomo
chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/matomo

Step 4. Creating a Database for Matomo.

Matomo uses the MariaDB database to store all its data. Log in to your MariaDB server with the following command and enter your MariaDB root password:

mysql -u root -p

Once you’re in the MariaDB console, create a new database:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE matomodb;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'matomouser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-password';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON matomodb.* TO 'matomouser'@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> EXIT;

Step 5. Create the Apache Virtual Host for Matomo.

The last part is to create a configuration file or virtual host file for Matomo. So, using your favorite text editor, create the file below:

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

Add the following lines in the configuration file using nano editor:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    ServerName example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/matomo/

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

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

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

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

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

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

</VirtualHost>

Don’t forget to restart Apache and ensure all the alterations are successfully applied:

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

Step 6. Accessing Matomo Web UI.

Finally, steps, open your web browser and type the URL http://example.com. You will be redirected to the Matomo welcome screen:

That’s all you need to do to install Matomo on Debian (Bullseye). I hope you find this quick tip helpful. For further reading Matomo’s web analytics platform on Debian’s system, please refer to their official knowledge base. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below.