Invoice Ninja is an open source web invoicing application that allows users and busineses to manage their invoices, track expenses and payments and many more. This free open source platform is built on the LAMP or LEMP stack and can a great alternative to your current implementation.
Whether you’re a small or medium-size business, you may find this app useful. It’s designed from the ground up for ease of use to allow business owners create and manage their business invoices and expenses.
If you’re looking for a robust, secure and easy to use invoicing and time tracking system that’s 100% free, you may want to give Invoice a try. This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install InvoiceNinja on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 with Apache2, MariaDB and PHP 7.2 support.
To get started with installing InvoiceNinja, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Install Apache2 HTTP Server on Ubuntu
Apache2 HTTP Server is the most popular web server in use. so install it, since Invoice Ninja needs it.
To install Apache2 HTTP on Ubuntu server, run the commands below.
sudo apt update sudo apt install apache2
After installing Apache2, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Apache2 service to always start up with the server boots.
sudo systemctl stop apache2.service sudo systemctl start apache2.service sudo systemctl enable apache2.service
To test Apache2 setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see Apache2 default test page as shown below. When you see that, then Apache2 is working as expected.
Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server
MariaDB database server is a great place to start when looking at open source database servers to use with Magento. To install MariaDB run the commands below.
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client
After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots.
Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
sudo systemctl stop mysql.service sudo systemctl start mysql.service sudo systemctl enable mysql.service
Run these on Ubuntu 18.04 and 18.10 LTS
sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service sudo systemctl start mariadb.service sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
After that, run the commands below to secure MariaDB server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.
- Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
- Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
- New password: Enter password
- Re-enter new password: Repeat password
- Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
- Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
- Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
- Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y
Restart MariaDB server
To test if MariaDB is installed, type the commands below to logon to MariaDB server
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then type the password you created above to sign on. if successful, you should see MariaDB welcome message
Step 3: Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules
PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories. in order to install it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.
Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.2
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2
sudo apt update
Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.
sudo apt install php7.2 libapache2-mod-php7.2 php7.2-common php7.2-gmp php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-mysql php7.2-gd php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-zip
After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open PHP default config file for Apache2.
sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini
Then make the changes on the following lines below in the file and save. The value below are great settings to apply in your environments.
file_uploads = On allow_url_fopen = On short_open_tag = On memory_limit = 256M upload_max_filesize = 100M max_execution_time = 360 date.timezone = America/Chicago
After making the change above, save the file and close out.
Step 3: Restart Apache2
After installing PHP and related modules, all you have to do is restart Apache2 to reload PHP configurations.
To restart Apache2, run the commands below
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
To test PHP 7.2 settings with Apache2, create a phpinfo.php file in Apache2 root directory by running the commands below
sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
Then type the content below and save the file.
<?php phpinfo( ); ?>
Save the file. then browse to your server hostname followed by /phpinfo.php
/phpinfo.php
You should see PHP default test page.
Step 4: Create Invoice Ninja Database
Now that you’ve installed all the packages that are required for Invoice Ninja to function, continue below to start configuring the servers. First run the commands below to create a blank Magento database.
To logon to MariaDB database server, run the commands below.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then create a database called invoiceninja
CREATE DATABASE invoiceninja;
Create a database user called invoiceninjauser with new password
CREATE USER 'invoiceninjauser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';
Then grant the user full access to the database.
GRANT ALL ON invoiceninja.* TO 'invoiceninjauser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Finally, save your changes and exit.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
Step 5: Download InvoiceNinja Latest Release
To get Invoice Ninja latest release you may want to use Github repository. Install Composer, Curl and other dependencies to get started.
sudo apt install curl git curl -sS | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Apache2 root directory and downaload Invoice Ninja packages from Github.
cd /var/www/html sudo git clone cd /var/www/html/invoiceninja sudo composer install
Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for InvoiceNinja to function.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/invoiceninja/ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/invoiceninja/
Step 6: Configure Apache2
Finally, configure Apahce2 site configuration file for InvoiceNinja. This file will control how users access InvoiceNinja content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called invoiceninja.conf
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/invoiceninja.conf
Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your own domain name and directory root location.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/invoiceninja/public
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
<Directory /var/www/html/invoiceninja/public>
Options +FollowSymlinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Save the file and exit.
Step 7: Enable the InvoiceNinja and Rewrite Module
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below
sudo a2ensite invoiceninja.conf sudo a2enmod rewrite
Step 8 : Restart Apache2
To load all the settings above, restart Apache2 by running the commands below.
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see InvoiceNinja setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.
Then follow the on-screen instructions. you will be asked to input your database configuration, administrative details and other configuration settings. When complete you may sign-in and start using InvoiceNinja. Return to login/ anytime thereafter to sign-in.
Enjoy!
Congratulation! You have successfully installed InvoiceNinja on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 and may work on upcoming 18.10.
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