* Download the [Composer](https://getcomposer.org/download/) PHP package manager inside the project folder.
* Run `./build.sh 1.0.0`, replacing the version with the version number you are going to build (the version number is only used for the generated dist file).
After that, you will have a `shlink_x.x.x_dist.zip` dist file inside the `build` directory.
This is the process used when releasing new shlink versions. After tagging the new version with git, the Github release is created, attaching generated dist file to it.
Despite how you built the project, you are going to need to install it now, by following these steps:
* If you are going to use MySQL or PostgreSQL, create an empty database with the name of your choice.
* Recursively grant write permissions to the `data` directory. Shlink uses it to cache some information.
* Setup the application by running the `bin/install` script. It will guide you through the installation process.
* Configure the web server of your choice to serve shlink using your short domain.
For example, assuming your domain is doma.in and shlink is in the `/path/to/shlink` folder, this would be the basic configuration for Nginx and Apache.
*Nginx:*
```nginx
server {
server_name doma.in;
listen 80;
root /path/to/shlink/public;
index index.php;
charset utf-8;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.1-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include fastcgi.conf;
}
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
}
```
*Apache:*
```apache
<VirtualHost*:80>
ServerName doma.in
DocumentRoot "/path/to/shlink/public"
<Directory"/path/to/shlink/public">
Options FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
AllowOverride all
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
```
* Generate your first API key by running `bin/cli api-key:generate`. You will need the key in order to interact with shlink's API.
* Finally access to [https://app.shlink.io](https://app.shlink.io) and configure your server to start creating short URLs.
**Bonus**
There are a couple of time-consuming tasks that shlink expects you to do manually, or at least it is recommended, since it will improve runtime performance.
Those tasks can be performed using shlink's CLI, so it should be easy to schedule them to be run in the background (for example, using cron jobs):
* Resolve IP address locations: `/path/to/shlink/bin/cli visit:process`
If you don't run this command regularly, the stats will say all visits come from *unknown* locations.
Running this will improve the performance of the `doma.in/abc123/preview` URLs, which return a preview of the site.
## Update to new version
When a new Shlink version is available, you don't need to repeat the whole process yourself.
Instead, get the latest version as explained in previous step, and then, run the script `bin/update`.
The script will ask you for the location from previous shlink version, and use it in order to import the configuration.
It will then update the database and generate some assets.
Right now, it does not import cached info (like website previews), but it will. By now you will need to regenerate them again.
**Important!** It is recommended that you don't skip any version when using this process. The update gets better on every version, but older versions might make assumptions.
## Using a docker image
Currently there's no official docker image, but there's a work in progress alpha version you can find [here](https://hub.docker.com/r/shlinkio/shlink/).
The idea will be that you can just generate a container using the image and provide predefined config files via volumes or CLI arguments, so that you get shlink up and running.
Currently the image does not expose an entry point which let's you interact with shlink's CLI interface, nor allows configuration to be passed.
* **The REST API**. The complete docs on how to use the API can be found [here](https://shlink.io/api-docs), and a sandbox which also documents every endpoint can be found [here](https://shlink.io/swagger-ui/index.html).
However, you probably don't want to consume the raw API yourself. That's why a nice [web client](https://github.com/shlinkio/shlink-web-client) is provided that can be directly used from [https://app.shlink.io](https://app.shlink.io), or you can host it yourself too.
