How to Install Traccar on Ubuntu in DigitalOcean with HTTPS SSL

Traccar is a popular open-source GPS tracking platform. In this guide, you will learn how to install Traccar on an Ubuntu server in DigitalOcean and configure it to use a MySQL database.

You can find the guided video here Traccar Installation on YouTube. You might also be interested in how to update Traccar on DigitalOcean.

Traccar Course

Access the Traccar course here: Traccar Course

1. Sign up for DigitalOcean

The first thing you need is a DigitalOcean account. You can sign up using this link to receive $200 in free credit.

Once registered, create a new "droplet" (virtual server instance) with Ubuntu as the operating system. The basic configuration with 1GB of RAM and 1 CPU is sufficient to run Traccar.

2. Install the necessary software

Connect to the droplet via SSH and run the following commands to install the necessary software:

apt update && apt -y install unzip mysql-server

This will install the unzip utility and the MySQL server.

3. Configure the MySQL database

Set up the database with the following commands:

mysql -u root --execute="ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'root'; GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; CREATE DATABASE traccar;"

This sets the root password, grants full permissions to the root user, and creates a new database called "traccar".

4. Download and Install Traccar

Download the latest version of Traccar:

wget https://www.traccar.org/download/traccar-linux-64-latest.zip

Unzip and install:

unzip traccar-linux-*.zip && ./traccar.run

5. Configure Traccar for MySQL

Edit the configuration file to make Traccar use the MySQL database you created:

cat > /opt/traccar/conf/traccar.xml << EOF
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE properties SYSTEM 'http://java.sun.com/dtd/properties.dtd'>
<properties>
    <entry key="config.default">./conf/default.xml</entry>
    <entry key='database.driver'>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</entry>
    <entry key='database.url'>jdbc:mysql://localhost/traccar?zeroDateTimeBehavior=round&amp;serverTimezone=UTC&amp;allowPublicKeyRetrieval=true&amp;useSSL=false&amp;allowMultiQueries=true&amp;autoReconnect=true&amp;useUnicode=yes&amp;characterEncoding=UTF-8&amp;sessionVariables=sql_mode=''</entry>
    <entry key='database.user'>root</entry>
    <entry key='database.password'>root</entry>
</properties>
EOF

6. Start the Traccar Service

Start the Traccar service:

service traccar start

7. Secure Connection

Traccar serves the web interface and API using regular HTTP, without encryption. This guide provides instructions to configure Traccar with HTTPS, using SSL/TLS encryption. The examples are for Ubuntu Linux but can be applied to other platforms. Traccar does not natively support secure connections, so a proxy server, in this case, Apache, is used to tunnel all requests through a secure connection.

Installing and Configuring Apache

1. Install Apache and enable the necessary modules:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/apache2
sudo apt-get install ssl-cert apache2
sudo a2enmod ssl proxy_http proxy_wstunnel rewrite
sudo service apache2 restart

2. Add a new site configuration:

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

Site configuration content:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName demo.traccar.org
    Redirect / https://demo.traccar.org/
</VirtualHost>
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost _default_:443>
        ServerName demo.traccar.org
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        ProxyPass /api/socket ws://localhost:8082/api/socket
        ProxyPassReverse /api/socket ws://localhost:8082/api/socket

        ProxyPass / http://localhost:8082/
        ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8082/

        SSLEngine on
        SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
    </VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

3. Disable the default site and enable the new configuration:

sudo a2dissite 000-default
sudo a2ensite traccar
sudo service apache2 restart

4. Generate a valid SSL certificate using Let's Encrypt:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache
sudo certbot --apache

Traccar in a Subdirectory

To make Traccar available in a non-root path, adjust the proxy configuration and cookie path:

ProxyRequests off

ProxyPass /gps/api/socket ws://localhost:8082/api/socket
ProxyPassReverse /gps/api/socket ws://localhost:8082/api/socket

ProxyPass /gps/ http://localhost:8082/
ProxyPassReverse /gps/ http://localhost:8082/
ProxyPassReverseCookiePath / /gps/

Redirect permanent /gps /gps/

Additionally, recompile the modern application to work correctly in the new path.

8. Common Issues

This section should be updated as needed.

The previous steps should work correctly. However, if you access your droplet’s IP http://000.000.000.00:8082/ and the page does not show up, it’s possible that the service is running but there may be some issues. Try stopping and restarting the service:

service traccar stop && service traccar start

And that's it! Traccar should now be running on port 8082, ready to be configured and used for GPS device tracking.