Step-By-Step Guide to Setting up A Local SuiteCRM Instance

SuiteCRM is a software fork of the SugarCRM. SuiteCRM is a free and open source Customer Relationship Management Software. It is one of the most popular alternatives to the famous paid SugarCRM and SalesForce.

In order to test SuiteCRM, one can either subscribe for a demo instance which only lasts a couple of days. If more time is required for SuiteCRM testing, there are a couple of options including deploying pre-baked SuiteCRM instances on Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud, and Google Cloud Platform. One can also setup his/her own SuiteCRM instance on either any of these public cloud platforms or on local servers.

In this article, we will deploy a manual SuiteCRM instance on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. We assume that you have a Ubuntu 16.04LTS instance already setup and ready to use.

1. Update all the software packages:

sudo apt-get update

2. Install the required software stack for SuiteCRM. This includes the LAMP stack and some additional PHP modules.

sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-utils libapache2-mod-php php php-common php-curl php-xml php-json php-mysql php-mbstring php-zip php-imap libpcre3 libpcre3-dev zlib1g zlib1g-dev mariadb-server unzip

3. Start the Apache service

sudo systemctl start apache2

4. Start MariaDB service

sudo systemctl start mysql

5. Enable Apache and MariaDB services to automatically start at system boot.

sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo systemctl enable mysql   

6. Secure the MariaDB instance by running the following script. Enter the root password and select options as per requirement.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

SuiteCRM requires the max upload file size to be 6 MB. In order to make this change in PHP open the file /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini with your favorite editor and set upload_max_filesize = 6M.

7. Restart the Apache service.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

8. Create a database that will save all the data related to SuiteCRM.

sudo mysql -u root -p

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE suitecrm;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'bluestack'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'bluestack';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON suitecrm.* TO 'bluestack'@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> exit;

9. Download the latest SuiteCRM files available here. For this blog, we will use the SuiteCRM version 7.10.7

wget https://suitecrm.com/files/160/SuiteCRM-7.10.7/297/SuiteCRM-7.10.7.zip

10. Unzip the downloaded file

sudo unzip SuiteCRM-7.10.7.zip -d /var/www/html/
sudo mv /var/www/html/SuiteCRM-7.10.7 /var/www/html/suitecrm

11. Assign appropriate permission to the unzipped folder

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/suitecrm
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/suitecrm

12. Open your internet browser and enter any of the below URL:

http://<instance-ipv4-address>/suitecrm/install.php
http://localhost/suitecrm/install.php

13. On the first screen, accept the license agreement by checking the checkbox and click on Next.

14. Verify all the system environment parameters and ensure that there are no errors displayed.

15. Enter the database name, hostname, username and password. Also, specify the Admin user details on the right side of the screen.

Note: You can choose to configure the “More Options” section now or leave it out for later.

16. Click next on the screen, make sure there are no errors.

17. Enter the admin credentials on the SuiteCRM login screen.

18. Now you are logged into the SuiteCRM instance and you can now start to configure and use your instance.

19. Setup crontab for SuiteCRM:

sudo crontab -e -u www-data

20. Add the following line:

*    * *    * * cd /var/www/html/suitecrm; php -f cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Conclusion

Many organizations prefer being absolutely sure that they are investing in the right product and that they can ensure full adoption. This is a great way to have a group of people start using SuiteCRM and get a feel of what this powerful platform has to offer. We encourage readers to get started with SuiteCRM and start thinking towards customizing SuiteCRM according to the business and personal needs.