How To Install SuiteCRM on Debian 12

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install SuiteCRM on Debian 12. SuiteCRM stands as a beacon of efficiency and customization in the realm of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions. Designed to cater to sales, marketing, and customer support activities, SuiteCRM is a free, open-source platform that offers extensive customization options to fit the unique needs of businesses.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the SuiteCRM on Debian 12 (Bookworm).

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with the installation of SuiteCRM on Debian 12, ensure you meet the following requirements:

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 12 (Bookworm).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• An active internet connection. You’ll need an internet connection to download the necessary packages and dependencies for SuiteCRM.
• A user account with sudo privileges to execute administrative commands.

Install SuiteCRM on Debian 12 Bookworm

Step 1. Before diving into the installation process, it’s crucial to ensure that your Debian 12 system is up-to-date. This can be achieved with a simple command:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).

A Debian 12 LAMP server is required. If you do not have LAMP installed, Please read our previous tutorial to install LAMP Server on Debian Linux.

Step 3. Installing SuiteCRM on Debian 12.

Download the latest version of SuiteCRM from the official website using wget or curl:

wget https://suitecrm.com/download/144/suite85/563704/suitecrm-8-5-1.zip

Unzip the downloaded file and move it to the Apache web root directory:

unzip suitecrm-8-5-1.zip
sudo mv SuiteCRM-VERSION /var/www/html/suitecrm

Assign appropriate permissions to the SuiteCRM directory:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/suitecrm
sudo find /var/www/html/suitecrm -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo find /var/www/html/suitecrm -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Step 4. Configure MySQL/MariaDB.

Log in to your MySQL/MariaDB shell and create a database and user for SuiteCRM:

mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE suitecrm;
CREATE USER 'suitecrmuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-strong-password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON suitecrm.* TO 'suitecrmuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 5. Configure Apache Virtual Host.

Create a new virtual host configuration for SuiteCRM:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin admin@your-domain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/suitecrm
    ServerName suitecrm.your-domain.com

    <Directory /var/www/html/suitecrm>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/suitecrm_error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/suitecrm_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Enable the new site and Apache rewrite module:

sudo a2ensite suitecrm.conf
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 6. Secure with SSL.

Obtain SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache  
sudo certbot --apache -d suitecrm.your-domain.com

Step 7. Configuring the UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) to secure SuiteCRM.

If UFW is not already installed on your Debian system, you can install it using the following command:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ufw

Before enabling UFW, it’s a good practice to ensure that SSH connections are allowed to prevent being locked out of your server:

sudo ufw allow ssh

Then, enable UFW:

sudo ufw enable

SuiteCRM operates over web protocols. Therefore, you need to allow HTTP (port 80) and HTTPS (port 443) traffic through the firewall:

sudo ufw allow http
sudo ufw allow https

After configuring the necessary rules, check the status of UFW to ensure that the rules are applied correctly:

sudo ufw status verbose

Step 8. Access SuiteCRM Installation Wizard.

Navigate to https://suitecrm.your-domain.comin your web browser and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed SuiteCRM. Thanks for using this tutorial to install the latest version of the SuiteCRM on Debian 12 Bookworm. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official SuiteCRM website.