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EspoCRM is an open source web application that allows people to enter, see and evaluate all company relationships including people, projects and opportunities in an easy and intuitive interface.

EspoCRM is used by more than 20,000 companies in 163 countries. It can be used in any industry from Wholesale and retail trade, E-Commerce, Banking to Healthcare and Insurance.

Several advantages of EspoCRM are:

Web based CRM. One version for all your devices.
Free of charge and open source CRM distributed under GPLv3.
Tested with most hosting providers.
New features every 2 months.
Responsive Design and latest Web Technologies.
Lightning fast.
No user limitation.
Easy to customize.
Open architecture for third party integration via API.

You can learn more about EspoCRM by visiting the EspoCRM website.

Objective

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

Prerequisites

We will install EspoCRM in fresh installation of Ubuntu Server 14.04. We also need these application to be able to run EspoCRM:

Apache >= 2.2.1
MySQL >= 5.1
PHP >= 5
Additional PHP 5 libraries
- php5-gd
- php5-curl
- php5-imap

Update Base System

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

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

Install Apache 2

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

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

We can check Apache 2 service status using command below:

sudo service apache2 status
 * apache2 is running

We can also check whether Apache 2 is listening and on which port using 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 EspoCRM.

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 libmysqlclient18 libdbd-mysql-perl

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

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Verify root password.

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Securing MySQL Installation

We will secure the MySQL installation by running mysql_secure_installation.

Enter the 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 the 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 people or application have correct username and password 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 created automatically by MySQL installation, but MySQL 5.6 does not create 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 Espocrm

Now we have a secure MySQL installation, time to create database and user for espocrm 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 a new database named espocrm using the command below:

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

Create a User for Espocrm

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

Don’t forget to change the password espocrm123secret below with better password.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `espocrm`.* TO 'espocrm'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'espocrm123secret';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

We need to run the 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 MySQL console by typing \q.

mysql> \q

Install PHP 5

The last component that we have to install before we can install espocrm 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 libapache2-mod-php5

Install additional php libraries.

$ sudo apt-get install php5-gd php5-curl php5-imap

Enable the IMAP module:

$ sudo php5enmod imap

EspoCRM use .htaccess and utilize mod_rewrite to works. We also need to enable mod_rewrite by executing command below:

$ sudo a2enmod rewrite

Restart the Apache 2 process so the changes will be applied:

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Install Espocrm

All prerequisites are already installed. We’re ready to install espocrm. The latest stable version of espocrm is available EspoCRM download page.

At the time of this writing, the latest stable version is version 4.5.1, let’s download espocrm compressed file using wget.

$ wget -c https://www.espocrm.com/downloads/EspoCRM-4.5.1.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 espocrm using unzip.

$ unzip EspoCRM-4.5.1.zip

Move the EspoCRM-4.5.1 directory as espocrm on Apache directory.

$ sudo mv EspoCRM-4.5.1 /var/www/espocrm

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

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

The Espocrm files is ready, now let’s create Apache Virtual Host configuration to serve espocrm.

Configure Apache Virtual Host for http Only

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

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

    DocumentRoot /var/www/espocrm

    <Directory /var/www/espocrm>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
        php_value max_execution_time 180
        php_value max_input_time 180
        php_value memory_limit 256M
        php_value post_max_size 20M
        php_value upload_max_filesize 20M
    </Directory>

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

</VirtualHost>

On the configuration above, we also override the default value for several php settings to follow espocrm recommendation

max_execution_time to
max_input_time to 180
memory_limit to 256M
post_max_size to 20M
upload_max_filesize to 20M

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

Enable the site using a2ensite command.

$ sudo a2ensite espocrm

Reload the apache2 process so it reads the new virtualhost configuration:

$ sudo service apache2 reload

EspoCRM Setup Wizard

Now point your browser to EspoCRM URL. We will be redirected to the installation wizard. On the first page we can set installation language. Click Next.

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Step 2 is the license agreement. You can read the rest of GNU GPL Version 3 that EspoCRM use, tick on I Accept the agreement checkbox and click Next

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The next step is database credentials. Input name of the database and credentials that we already created, Click Test Connection

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If the database name and credentials are correct it will show All Settings are correct. Now click Next

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This is requirements checking, we should already get all OK by now. Click Next.

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Administrator setup for EspoCRM. Input username, password and password confirmation, then click Next.

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This step is system settings, customize the system settings to match your requirements.

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This step is the SMTP server configuration that will be used by EspoCRM. We will skip this step and click Next.

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Installation is complete, we will configure cron jobs on the next section.Click Go to EspoCRM.

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After successful login we will go to EspoCRM dashboard.

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Setting Cron for EspoCRM

Now add this job to root crontab jobs.

* * * * * cd /var/www/espocrm; /usr/bin/php -f cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Configure https only site for espocrm

A secure connection is now a requirement for web application. 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/espocrm-ssl.conf with contents below. Don’t forget to change:

ServerName
SSLCertificateFile
SSLCertificateChainFile
SSLCertificateKeyFile

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

<VirtualHost *:443>

    ServerName espocrm.exampleserver.xyz

    DocumentRoot /var/www/espocrm

    <Directory /var/www/espocrm>
        Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
        php_value max_execution_time 180
        php_value max_input_time 180
        php_value memory_limit 256M
        php_value post_max_size 20M
        php_value upload_max_filesize 20M        
    </Directory>

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

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile      /etc/apache2/ssl/espocrm.exampleserver.xyz.crt
    SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl/espocrm.exampleserver.xyz.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile   /etc/apache2/ssl/espocrm.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 espocrm http only virtual host and enable the new virtual host config.

$ sudo a2dissite espocrm
$ sudo a2ensite espocrm-ssl

The new virtual host configuration need Apache mod_ssl and mod_headers modules. We need to enable those modules.

$ sudo a2enmod ssl
$ sudo a2enmod headers

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

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Summary

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

We installed all the prerequisites, create user and database on MySQL for EspoCRM and also configure Apache 2 virtual hosts to be able to serve espocrm.

We also configure https settings for espocrm so we run EspoCRM securely. This ensure your team accesses customer data securely.

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