[Guide] How to Install and Setup ERPNext V15 on Linux Ubuntu (step-by-step instructions)

Guide-to-Install-Frappe-ERPNext-in-Ubuntu-22.04-LTS

A complete Guide to Install Frappe Bench in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and install Frappe/ERPNext Application

Pre-requisites

Python 3.10+
Node.js 18
Redis                                         (caching and real time updates)
MariaDB 10.6.x                                (to run database driven apps)
yarn 1.12+                                    (js dependency manager)
pip 22+                                       (py dependency manager)
wkhtmltopdf (version 0.12.6 with patched qt)  (for pdf generation)
cron                                          (bench's scheduled jobs: automated certificate renewal, scheduled backups)
NGINX                                         (proxying multitenant sites in production)

STEP 1 Update Server

It is always a good idea to upgrade the Ubuntu package if anything is available, run the below command to upgrade and update.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Check the server’s current timezone

date

Set correct timezone as per your region

sudo timedatectl set-timezone "Asia/Kolkata"

You can run the following command to select your timezone.

timedatectl list-timezones

It is always recommended to reboot the server once the upgrade is done.

sudo reboot

STEP 2 Create a new user

I am using erpnext as frappe-user

you should not use frappe or erpnext as a frappe-user on your production server.

sudo adduser erpnext
sudo usermod -aG sudo erpnext
su - erpnext

STEP 3 Install git

Git is the most commonly used version control system. Git tracks the changes you make to files, so you have a record of what has been done, and you can revert to specific versions should you ever need to. Git also makes collaboration easier, allowing changes by multiple people to all be merged into one source.

sudo apt install git -y

STEP 4 Install software-properties-common

Now install the below package to manage the repository, usually, Ubuntu 22.04 has already installed it, but for the safe side, we will run this command.

sudo apt install software-properties-common -y

If prompt for “Override local changes to /etc/pam.d/common-*?” on PAM Configuration, then safely choose “No”.

Add deadsnakes PPA for newer Python versions (Optional)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa -y
sudo apt update

STEP 5 Install python3-dev and python3-venv

Python-dev is the package that contains the header files for the Python C API, which is used by lxml because it includes Python C extensions for high performance.

sudo apt install python3-dev python3-venv -y

STEP 6 Install setuptools, pip and etc. (Python’s Package Manager).

Setuptools is a collection of enhancements to the Python distutils, allowing developers to more easily build and distribute Python packages, especially those that have dependencies on other packages. Packages built and distributed using setuptools appear to the user as ordinary Python packages based on the distutils.

Pip is a package manager for Python. It’s a tool that allows you to install and manage additional libraries and dependencies that are not distributed as part of the standard library.

sudo apt install python3-setuptools python3-pip -y

STEP 7 Install Redis server

Redis can be used to process and analyze data in memory, this is prerequisite for ERPNext.

sudo apt install redis-server -y

STEP 8 install wkhtmltopdf

Wkhtmltopdf is an open source simple and much effective command-line shell utility that enables user to convert any given HTML (Web Page) to PDF document or an image (jpg, png, etc).

sudo apt install xvfb libfontconfig1 fontconfig libxrender1 xfonts-base xfonts-75dpi -y

for amd64

wget https://github.com/wkhtmltopdf/packaging/releases/download/0.12.6.1-3/wkhtmltox_0.12.6.1-3.jammy_amd64.deb && \
sudo dpkg -i wkhtmltox_0.12.6.1-3.jammy_amd64.deb && \
sudo cp /usr/local/bin/wkhtmlto* /usr/bin/ && \
sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/wk*
sudo rm wk* && \
sudo apt --fix-broken install -y

STEP 9 Install MariaDB

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client -y
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Prompt

Enter current password for root (enter for none):   (safely press Enter)
Switch to unix_socket authentication [Y/n]          (Press "Y")
Change the root password? [Y/n]                     (Press "Y")
New password:                                       ("Enter new Password")
Re-enter new password:                              ("Re-enter new Password")
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]                       (Press "Y")
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]                 (Press "Y") //If Press "N" then You want to access the database from a remote server for using business analytics software like Metabase / PowerBI / Tableau, etc.
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]        (Press "Y")
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]                  (Press "Y")

STEP 10 MySQL database development files

sudo apt install libmysqlclient-dev -y

STEP 11 Edit the mariadb configuration (unicode character encoding)

You need to ensure to change the default character set of MySQL or MariaDB to Unicode instead of general. To do this you will need to edit the maria DB configuration file which is in this version located at /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d directory so you can directly edit this or locate the folder and then edit the file by typing the below command.

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Once the file opens you need to locate the line where collation-server says general and you need to modify it to Unicode as below,

collation-server = utf8mb4_general_ci

Modify above as below.

collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci

Now press (Ctrl-X) and Save then exit.

And also locate my.cnf and edit the below configuration.

sudo nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Make sure your configuration has the below lines in the file.

[mysqld]
character-set-client-handshake = FALSE
character-set-server = utf8mb4
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
bind-address = 127.0.0.1

[mysql]
default-character-set = utf8mb4

Now press (Ctrl-X) and Save then exit.

Now MySQL or MariaDB setup is now ready, let us now restart this service. You can alternatively reboot as well.

sudo service mysql restart

STEP 12 install Node.js package

sudo apt install curl && \
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/master/install.sh | bash && \
source ~/.profile && \
nvm install 18

Now it has been installed, you can now check the version by typing the below command.

node -v

STEP 13 Install NPM and Yarn

Now we will install Yarn which is a software packaging system developed by Facebook for Node.js, this is open source, so we will install it using npm.

sudo apt install npm
sudo npm install -g yarn

Now our server is ready for the installation of the frappe environment, let us now dive into the frappe environment installation.

STEP 15 Bench Installation

The bench is a Command-line tool to manage Frappe Deployments, this tool has various commands, the frappe uses the bench for the command-line tool as well as for the bench directory, so don’t confuse yourself. We will first install the bench package which will be used to set up a frappe environment, create a site, do backup, change the setup, and so on. In short, Bench provides a user-friendly interface to set up and manage multiple frappe-based applications and sites where erpnext is one of the applications.

Now let us install the bench

sudo -H pip install frappe-bench

It will install a bench and will give you a message that the bench is installed successfully, now you can use various bench commands. Starting with the command “bench”.

STEP 15 Install Frappe-Bench Environment using bench CLI

Let us now create the frappe-bench environment. Here you have to decide the purpose for which you are installing ERPNext, it is just for test or training then you can use the latest version, which will be developing and may not be stable. However you can also use a stable version by choosing a specific version, You can search and learn which is the stable version today.

To choose a specific stable version (for Production) you can use the branch version. I will be using branch version 15 in this installation. You can look for the latest stable release of the frappe environment.

bench init frappe-bench --verbose --frappe-branch version-15

Now frappe bench environment is installed using bench CLI.

Now you can use various bench commands by changing the directory. So you can need to change the directory.

cd frappe-bench

Once you type “bench” you will see the various commands that bench cli has. Don’t worry, we will not be using all the commands, we just need to install EPRNext but have a quick look at these commands.

STEP 16 ERPNext Installation on Frappe Environment

make sure that your working directory is frappe-bench.

Now you need to get the app from the frappe repository, have two options, either clone the latest development package, which is not stable currently, or install the stable package. I have given both options for you to choose from.

Frappe and ERPNext version would be same for a proper installation. We will be installing ERPNext Version 15, for that, We will be using the below command.

bench get-app erpnext --branch version-15

Payments app is mandatory from ERPNext version-15.

bench get-app payments --branch version-15

From any of the options, it will clone the next application into the app’s directory of the frappe-bench directory. You don’t need to do anything with the directories. Just ensure that erpnext is available in the directory.

Now you have the application installed in your environment. The next step is to install the application on-site, but before that, we need to create a new site.

Run bench start then open another terminal window, then go to the “frappe-bench” directory and start from there

To create a site, we will use the bench command as below

bench new-site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM

Now site is deployed, by default frappe application will be installed at site. Don’t open the site yet, because we need to install ERPNext to the site.

Make sure your sub-domain properly configured to access this server, where you hosted your domain.

If you have not created subdomain, then create a subdomain (preferred) erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM. Then Change DNS records as below:

Hostname                Type    Value               TTL
erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM      A       ERPNext-Server-IP   1800
www.erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM  A       ERPNext-Server-IP   1800

Run the below command to install ERPNext to the site that you have recently created

bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app erpnext

it will take a few moments to install the erpnext application on your site.

Now as we created a new site, we need to make sure this is our default site, so we have to tell bench to use this site as default by using the below command

bench use erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM
bench start

Now ERPNext is installed on your server and you are ready to configure it. But before configuring there are few more steps in case you want to use this for production.

STEP 17 Production Deployment

We will use an automatic bench set up for production by using the below command.

Automatic Method:

run two times

sudo bench setup production $USER

Manual Method:

Setup Bench Supervisor

In case the supervisor is not installed you can use the below command

sudo apt -y install supervisor
bench setup supervisor
sudo ln -s `pwd`/config/supervisor.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/frappe-bench.conf
Setup Bench NginX
bench setup nginx
sudo ln -s `pwd`/config/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/frappe-bench.conf

Now you will get a message saying that erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM is on port 80

You can simply open erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM in your web browser and check it will work fine.

STEP 18 ERPNext SSL Installation NginX

Now your site is ready, you must configure the SSL certificate, I have explained that in simple steps.

First, we will install spanny package as below

bench config dns_multitenant on
sudo pip install -U pyOpenSSL cryptography
sudo pip install certbot
sudo bench setup lets-encrypt erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM

if getting error like “Some challenges have failed.”, then open port 80 and 443 or try below commands

sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
sudo netfilter-persistent save
sudo systemctl restart nginx

STEP 19 If getting [Error 13] on bench restart (Optional)

error: <class ‘PermissionError’>, [Errno 13] Permission denied: file: /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/supervisor/xmlrpc.py line: 560

sudo addgroup supervisor
sudo usermod -aG supervisor erpnext

After logging-out/logging-in (so that the new group membership takes effect), edit the supervisord configuration file (/etc/supervisor/supervisord.conf) to make the unix_http_server section look as follows

sudo nano /etc/supervisor/supervisord.conf

[unix_http_server]
file=/var/run/supervisor.sock ; (the path to the socket file)
chmod=0760 ; socket file mode (default 0700)
chown=erpnext:erpnext

sudo service supervisor restart
sudo supervisorctl stop all
sudo bench setup production erpnext

STEP 20 If js and css files are not loading on login window, run the following command (Optional)

sudo chmod o+x /home/$USER

if getting spawn error on bench restart

bench setup socketio && \
bench setup supervisor && \
bench setup redis && \
sudo supervisorctl reload

Optional Modules (open new terminal):

bench get-app --branch version-15 india_compliance https://github.com/resilient-tech/india-compliance
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app india_compliance

bench get-app hrms --branch version-15
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app hrms

bench get-app chat
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app chat

bench get-app desk_navbar_extended https://github.com/gavindsouza/desk-navbar-extended
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app desk_navbar_extended

bench get-app persona https://github.com/iptelephony/persona
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app persona

bench get-app print_designer
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app print_designer

bench get-app builder
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app builder

bench get-app --branch version-15 it_management https://github.com/phamos-eu/it_management
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app it_management

bench get-app raven https://github.com/The-Commit-Company/Raven
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app raven

bench get-app helpdesk
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app frappedesk #(Not recommended on same site)

bench get-app insights
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app insights #(Not recommended on same site)

bench get-app drive
bench --site erp.YOURDOMAIN.COM install-app drive #(Not recommended on same site)

Thank You!🙏

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