Want your very own server? Get our 1GB memory, Xeon V4, 25GB SSD VPS for £10.00 / month.

Booked Scheduler (formerly known as PHP Schedule It) is an application that can help you manage, book and track resource usage for any size of organisation or group.

Users can easily search for available time for resources that are needed and with a simple beautiful calendar view, everyone can see resource availability at a glance.

Several Booked Scheduler features:

Easy to use and manage
Lots of options and customizations
Pluggable framework
Responsive mobile-first design
Integration with Outlook and Google Calendar
LDAP and Active Directory Support
Flexible reporting system
Fine tuned roles and permission
Powerful open API
User and group quotas
Multiple languages
Detailed credit system

Objective

In this tutorial we’ll learn how to install Booked Scheduler on Ubuntu 14.04. We will also install and configure its prerequisites

Prerequisites

We will install Booked Scheduler in a fresh installation of Ubuntu Server 14.04. We also need these applications to be able to run Booked Scheduler:

Apache 2
MySQL 5
PHP > 5

Update the Base System

Before we install Booked Scheduler, let’s update the system to the latest update.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Install Apache 2

After applying latest update to our base system, Lets’s start installing Apache 2 and its required libraries.

$ sudo apt-get -y install apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-mpm-prefork libaio1 libapache2-mod-php5 libapr1 libaprutil1 libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libhtml-template-perl libmysqlclient18 libterm-readkey-perl libwrap0 ssl-cert tcpd

We can check on the Apache 2 service status using command below:

sudo service apache2 status
 * apache2 is running

We can also check which port Apache 2 is listening on using the command below:

 sudo netstat -naptu | grep apache
tcp6       0      0 :::80                   :::*                    LISTEN      14873/apache2

Install MySQL 5.6

We will install and use MySQL 5.6 as database for Booked Scheduler.

We will use MySQL Server 5.6 since MySQL 5.6 is the most up to date version of MySQL shipped with Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.

$ sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server-5.6

We need to setup MySQL root password. Please input password for MySQL root user.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/c7027ac0-7e31-4da4-a9ef-3dfe937a36f3/1622588448.png” alt=”” />

Verify root password.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/c7027ac0-7e31-4da4-a9ef-3dfe937a36f3/320459047.png” alt=”” />

Securing MySQL Installation

We will secure the MySQL installation by running mysql_secure_installation.

Enter root password that we set on installation

$ mysql_secure_installation 
NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MySQL
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MySQL to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MySQL, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): 
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Since we already have root password set, answer this part with n:

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MySQL
root user without the proper authorisation.

You already have a root password set, so you can safely answer 'n'.

Change the root password? [Y/n] n
 ... skipping.

Remove the anonymous user to improve security. This will make sure only people or applications with the correct username and password are able to login to MySQL. Answer with Y:

By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MySQL without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!

We also want remove root login from remote machine. Answer with Y

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!

Previously the test database was created automatically by MySQL installation, but MySQL 5.6 does not create a test database. We can still choose Y, it will throw error but that’s fine.

By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
 - Dropping test database...
ERROR 1008 (HY000) at line 1: Can't drop database 'test'; database doesn't exist
 ... Failed!  Not critical, keep moving...
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

The last step is to reload MySQL privilege table.

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y
 ... Success!


All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MySQL
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MySQL!


Cleaning up...

Create a Database for bookedscheduler

Now we have a secure MySQL installation, it’s time to create database and user for bookedscheduler itself.

$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password: 
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 58
Server version: 5.6.30-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 (Ubuntu)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql>

Create new database named bookedscheduler using command below

mysql> CREATE DATABASE bookedscheduler;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Create a User for Bookedscheduler

The database for bookedscheduler is ready, let’s create username and password and grant privileges to bookedscheduler database.

Don’t forget to change the password bookedscheduler123secret below with better password.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `bookedscheduler`.* TO 'bookedscheduler'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'bookedscheduler123secret';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

We need to run FLUSH PRIVILEGES command so that the privileges table will be reloaded by MySQL and we can use new credential.

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Exit from the MySQL console by typing \q:

mysql> \q

Install PHP 5

The last component that we have to install before we can install bookedscheduler is PHP 5. We will install PHP 5 and several common PHP libraries.

$ sudo apt-get -y install php5-cli php5-common php5-json php5-mysql php5-readline

Restart Apache 2 process so the changes will be applied:

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Install bookedscheduler

All prerequisites is already installed. We’re ready to install bookedscheduler.

The latest stable version of bookedscheduler is available Booked Scheduler download page on Sourceforge.

At the time of this writing, the latest stable version is version 2.6.5, let’s download bookedscheduler compressed file using wget.

$ wget -c https://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/project/phpscheduleit/Booked/2.6/booked-2.6.5.zip

Extract the downloaded file using unzip. If your system don’t have unzip yet, you can install unzip using command below:

$ sudo apt-get -y install unzip

Extract bookedscheduler using unzip:

$ unzip booked-2.6.5.zip

Move booked folder to Apache directory:

$ sudo mv booked /var/www/bookedscheduler

Change ownership of bookedscheduler directory to www-data user and group.

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/bookedscheduler

The Bookedscheduler files are now ready, now let’s create Apache Virtual Host configuration to serve bookedscheduler.

Configure Apache Virtual Host for http Only

Create new apache configuration file on /etc/apache2/sites-available/bookedscheduler.conf with contents below.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz

    DocumentRoot /var/www/bookedscheduler

    <Directory /var/www/bookedscheduler>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Don’t forget to change bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz above with the domain name that you use for your bookedscheduler installation.

Enable the site using the a2ensite command.

$ sudo a2ensite bookedscheduler

Reload apache2 process so it read the new virtualhost configuration:

$ sudo service apache2 reload

Configure Booked Scheduler

We need to configure Booked Scheduler before we can use Booked Scheduler.

Copy configuration file.

$ cd /var/www/bookedscheduler/config
$ sudo cp config.dist.php config.php
$ sudo chown www-data:www-data config.php

All configuration below is located on config/config.php file.

Change Default Timezone configuration. Find this line:

$conf['settings']['default.timezone'] = 'America/Chicago';

Replace the value with your preferred Timezone. You can find available options on PHP Timezone documentation page.

Find these lines and fill the variable with your admin email and name.

$conf['settings']['admin.email'] = 'sumodirjo@gmail.com';         // email address of admin user
$conf['settings']['admin.email.name'] = 'Muhammad Panji';

Configure site address. Find this line and change with your Booked Scheduler address

$conf['settings']['script.url'] = 'http://bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz/Web';

Change MySQL database configuration. Find these lines and change it with database name and credential we created on previous step.

$conf['settings']['database']['type'] = 'mysql';
$conf['settings']['database']['user'] = 'bookedscheduler';
$conf['settings']['database']['password'] = '';
$conf['settings']['database']['hostspec'] = '127.0.0.1';
$conf['settings']['database']['name'] = 'bookedscheduler';

Import Database Schema and Data

Most of the configuration is ready now, so let’s import database schema and data.

Go to Booked Scheduler directory

$ cd /var/www/bookedscheduler

Import Database Schema, we will use bookedscheduler credential, you will have to input password.

$ mysql -u bookedscheduler -p bookedscheduler < database_schema/create-schema.sql 
Enter password:

Import Database data, we will also use bookedscheduler credential for this.

$ mysql -u bookedscheduler -p bookedscheduler < database_schema/create-data.sql 
Enter password:

Create an Administrator Account

Point our browser to http://<bookedscheduler-address>/Web/register.php

We will register the first user that will be the admin account for Booked Scheduler. The email here should match admin.email value we set on config.php

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/e9857be0-46e1-44a3-9dae-b94a209ea0d4/1462450743.png” alt=”” />

The phone, organisation and position are optional but you have to input captcha security code, then click Register

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/e9857be0-46e1-44a3-9dae-b94a209ea0d4/1666514343.png” alt=”” />

After the admin user created we will be redirected to Booked Scheduler admin dashboard.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/e9857be0-46e1-44a3-9dae-b94a209ea0d4/938223675.png” alt=”” />

Configure Recaptcha (Optional)

We already have Captcha on our registration page, as alternative we can also use reCAPTCHA provided by Google.

Go to the reCAPTCHA site. If you don’t have any site registered you can input Label and domains. Click ** Register**

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/e9857be0-46e1-44a3-9dae-b94a209ea0d4/195927904.png” alt=”” />

After registering a site, you can get a site key and secret key, we need these values to be copied to config.php

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/e9857be0-46e1-44a3-9dae-b94a209ea0d4/212298666.png” alt=”” />

Now open config/config.php file and find the line:

$conf['settings']['recaptcha']['enabled'] = 'false';

Change the value with true:

$conf['settings']['recaptcha']['enabled'] = 'true';

Find lines:

$conf['settings']['recaptcha']['public.key'] = '';
$conf['settings']['recaptcha']['private.key'] = '';

Input site key on public.key and Secret Key on private.key.

Now when we go to http://<bookedscheduler-address>/Web/register.php

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/e9857be0-46e1-44a3-9dae-b94a209ea0d4/202512422.png” alt=”” />

Disable Facebook and Google login (Optional)

Right now the Facebook and Google configured to use Booked Scheduler developer settings. You might want to disable Facebook and Google authentication until you can configure the login to use your apps.

Open config/config.php. Find line

$conf['settings']['authentication']['allow.facebook.login'] = 'true';
$conf['settings']['authentication']['allow.google.login'] = 'true';

Replace the true value above with false.

Configure https only site for bookedscheduler

A secure connection is now a requirement for web applications. The last step that we will do in this tutorial is changing the connection to only use https. We assume that you already have SSL certificate and private key.

Let’s create new apache virtual host configuration on /etc/apache2/sites-available/bookedscheduler-ssl.conf with contents below. Don’t forget to change:

ServerName
SSLCertificateFile
SSLCertificateChainFile
SSLCertificateKeyFile

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz
   Redirect permanent / https://bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

    ServerName bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz

    DocumentRoot /var/www/bookedscheduler

    <Directory /var/www/bookedscheduler>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile      /etc/apache2/ssl/bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz.crt
    SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl/bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile   /etc/apache2/ssl/bookedscheduler.exampleserver.xyz.key

    # Uncomment the following directive when using client certificate authentication
    #SSLCACertificateFile    /path/to/ca_certs_for_client_authentication


    # HSTS (mod_headers is required) (15768000 seconds = 6 months)
    Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000"

</VirtualHost>

 # intermediate configuration, tweak to your needs
SSLProtocol             all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
SSLCipherSuite          ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS
SSLHonorCipherOrder     on

We will also disable bookedscheduler http only virtual host and enable the new virtual host config.

$ sudo a2dissite bookedscheduler
$ sudo a2ensite bookedscheduler-ssl

The new virtual host configuration need Apache mod_ssl. We need to enable this module.

$ sudo a2enmod ssl

Now, restart Apache 2 service so it will reload its configuration. We need to restart instead of reload since we enabled a new module.

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Summary

In this tutorial we learned how to install bookedscheduler on Ubuntu 14.04.

We installed all the prerequisites, created a user and database on MySQL for Booked Scheduler and also configure Apache 2 virtual hosts to be able to serve bookedscheduler.

We also configured https settings for bookedscheduler so user can access booked scheduler over secure connections.

Using booked scheduler will enable your organisation to better utilise all shared resources and make team easily booked and use resources.

Want your very own server? Get our 1GB memory, Xeon V4, 25GB SSD VPS for £10.00 / month.

Get a Cloud Server