SuiteCRM installation in Ubuntu Server 20.04.4 LTS VPS [2022 Guide]

SuiteCRM is an open-source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solution. An application which loads the sales, markets, and services administration of a company. It also helps to organize all the processes concerning these activities translating this into process improvements and time-saving. Learn how to install SuiteCRM on Ubuntu 20.04 here

Note: If can't follow along this process, feel free to reach out to me! (Social media links are attached Below)

Prerequisites

• SSH root access or a regular system user (use sudo) with sudo privileges
• Fully-updated system.

Install Apache Webserver

Install Apache server using this command
apt install apache2

Use These command with SUID permissions to start, enable and restart the apache2 server
systemctl start apache2
systemctl enable apache2
systemctl restart apache2

Go to browser and type server IP or LocalHost, you should be able to view Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page

Install PHP, Composer & extenstions

To install PHP, composer(package manager for PHP) and the required PHP extensions, run the following command:
sudo apt install php composer php-cli php-imagick php-fpm php-mysql php-common php-gd php-imap php-json php-curl php-zip php-xml php-mbstring php-bz2 php-intl php-gmp php-curl php-gd php-zip php-imap php-dom php-intl php-opache php-soap

Install and create database on MySQL server

Install MySQL server
apt install mysql-server

Log In to MySQL server and provide password with following command:
mysql -u root -p

Create a Database for suitecrm using these commands
CREATE DATABASE suitecrm;
CREATE USER 'suitecrm'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON suitecrm.* TO 'suitecrm'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Download SuiteCRM on Ubuntu 20.04 and Configure it

Download the latest stable version by executing the following command on your server.
wget https://github.com/salesagility/SuiteCRM/archive/refs/tags/v7.12.5.zip

Unzip to default directory or subdomain directory
unzip SuiteCRM-8.0.3.zip -d /var/www/html/suitecrm

CD to suitecrm directory Add sub tree to folder
cd /var/www/suitecrm
mkdir cache
mkdir vendor
touch config_override.php

Set correct permissions to Files and Folders:
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/suitecrm/
chmod -R 755 .
chmod -R 775 cache custom modules themes data upload

Install composer packages with this command:
composer install

Add sites-available in apache configurations

Open nano editor using this command:
nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/suitecrm.conf

Add this text into config file

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName suitecrm.example.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/suitecrm/

  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/suitecrm_error.log
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/suitecrm_access.log combined

  <Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>

  <Directory /var/www/suitecrm/>
    Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
  </Directory>

Include /etc/apache2/conf-available/php7.4-fpm.conf

</VirtualHost>

Increase Upload Limit in php configurations

sed -i 's/upload_max_filesize = 2M/upload_max_filesize = 20M/g' /etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini
systemctl restart php7.4-fpm

Now enable suitecrm site:
a2ensite suitecrm.conf

Restart apache server and you are done with CLI
systemctl restart apache2

Fire up your web browser to localhost

You should add subdomain to /etc/hosts if any.

• Accept terms and continue to installation
• Login with database user and pass suitecrm:password
• Create admin user for suitecrm login page.

• Login to admin account it will redirect you to dashboard

As you can see suitecrm is successfully installed in our Ubuntu Server or VPS

Wrapping Up

I hope this tutorial helped you install SuiteCRM on Ubuntu 20.04. You can also check out SuiteCRM user manual to learn how to use it. If you found this post useful, then you can follow me on other social media platform to get more tips and tricks. Take care 🙂