Installing SugarCRM OpenSource Edition On Debian 4.0 (Etch)

Version 1.0
Author: Till Brehm <t [dot] brehm [at] projektfarm [dot] com>
Last edited 07/11/2007

SugarCRM is a webbased CRM solution written in PHP. SugarCRM is available as an OpenSource edition and a ClosedSource version. For a detailed overview of the different editions, have a look at the SugarCRM website. In this tutorial I will describe the installation of the OpenSource edition on Debian 4.0. With the modules My Portal, Calendar, Activities, Contacts, Accounts, Leads, Opportunities, Cases, Bugtracker, Documents and Email, SugarCRM OpenSource Edition offers everything that can be expected from a CRM solution.

Install The MySQL Database Server

Log in as root user on the shell on your server.

Install unzip, to be able to unpack the SugarCRM package later:

apt-get install unzip

apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

-> yes

Run the following command:

mysqladmin -u root password yourrootsqlpassword

to set the MySQL root password

Create a MySQL user and database for SugarCRM:

mysql -u root -p

And execute the following commands on the MySQL shell:

CREATE DATABASE sugarcrm;
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON sugarcrm.* TO 'sugarcrm'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'sugarpasswd';
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON sugarcrm.* TO 'sugarcrm'@'localhost.localdomain' IDENTIFIED BY 'sugarpasswd';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
QUIT;

Replace the word sugarpasswd in the above commands with a password of your choice.

Install Apache Webserver And PHP

apt-get install apache2 apache2-doc apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils libexpat1 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-common php5-gd php5-idn php-pear php5-imap php5-mcrypt php5-mhash php5-mysql php5-sqlite php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl php5-curl

Set the PHP memory limit:

Open the file /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini:

vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

and change the line:

memory_limit = 16M
upload_max_filesize = 2M
allow_call_time_pass_reference = On

to:

memory_limit = 64M
upload_max_filesize = 20M
allow_call_time_pass_reference = Off

and restart apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Continue installing libc-client without Maildir support?

-> Yes

Install SugarCRM

mkdir /var/www/crm
cd /tmp
wget http://www.sugarforge.org/frs/download.php/3103/SugarOS-4.5.1e.zip
unzip SugarOS-*
cd SugarOS-Full-*
mv * /var/www/crm/
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/crm

Start the webbased SugarCRM installer by opening the URL in your browser:

http://192.168.0.100/crm/

Select the language:

Accept the License terms:

Check if the prerequisites are met.

If you get a error that MySQL is not available, open the file /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini and add the following line at the end of the file:

extension=mysql.so

and restart apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now enter the username and password that we created above for the SugarCRM database. If you want to have some demo data to play with, enable the Populate Database with Demo Data? checkbox.

Enter a password for the SugarCRM admin user.

Set the locale and currency settings.