How To Install vTiger CRM on Debian 11

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install vTiger CRM on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Vtiger CRM is a popular Customer Relationship Management web application which can help enterprises grow sales, deliver customer service, and increase profits. The vTiger CRM provides two different solutions, the vTiger CRM cloud solution that you can pay for all management and additional features, and the vTiger CRM open-source version that you can self-hosted on your server.

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 vTiger CRM on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 11 (Bullseye).
• 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).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install vTiger CRM on Debian 11 Bullseye

Step 1. Before we install any software, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing the LAMP stack.

A Debian 11 LAMP server is required. If you do not have LAMP installed, Please read our previous tutorial to install LAMP Server on Debian 11.

Step 3. Installing vTiger CRM on Debian 11.

By default, vTiger CRM is not available on Debian 11 base repository. So, now run the following command below to download the latest stable version of vTiger CRM from the official page on your Debian system:

cd /var/www/
wget https://onboardcloud.dl.sourceforge.net/project/vtigercrm/vtiger%20CRM%207.4.0/Core%20Product/vtigercrm7.4.0.tar.gz

Next, extract the downloaded file using the below command:

tar -xzvf vtigercrm7.4.0.tar.gz

We will need to change some folder permissions:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data vtigercrm

Step 4. Configuring MariaDB.

By default, MariaDB is not hardened. You can secure MariaDB using the mysql_secure_installation script. You should read and below each step carefully which will set the root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MariaDB:

mysql_secure_installation

Configure it like this:

- Set root password? [Y/n] y
- Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
- Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
- Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
- Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Next, we will need to log in to the MariaDB console and create a database for vTiger CRM. Run the following command:

mysql -u root -p

This will prompt you for a password, so enter your MariaDB root password and hit Enter. Once you are logged in to your database server, you need to create a database for vTiger CRM installation:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE vtigerdb;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'vtiger_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-strong-password';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON vtigerdb.* to vtiger_user@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> exit

Step 5. Configuring Apache Virtual Host.

Since we are using Apache as our web server for the Vtiger CRM, now create a new virtual host configuration /etc/apache2/sites-available/vtigercrm.conf use your favorite text editor:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/vtigercrm.conf

Add the following file:

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

     <Directory /var/www/vtigercrm/>
          Options FollowSymlinks
          AllowOverride All
          Require all granted
     </Directory>

     ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/your-domain.com_error.log
     CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/your-domain.com_access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Save and close, then restart the Apache webserver so that the changes take place:

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

Step 6. Installing the Let’s Encrypt certificates.

First, install Certbot to your Debian system using the following command below:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache

After that, generate the certificates using the following command:

sudo certbot --apache -d [your-domain.com]

You will then be prompted to enter an email address for the certificate. After you have entered that you must agree to the T&C’s and decide if you want to share your email address with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This last step is optional. Once successfully, Reload Apache again to load all the new configurations.

Step 7. Configure Firewall.

Now we set up an Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) with Apache to allow public access on default web ports for HTTP and HTTPS:

sudo ufw allow 'Apache Full'
sudo ufw enable

Step 8. Accessing vTiger CRM Web Interface.

Once successfully installed, now open a web browser and go to https://your-domain.com and you will see the following screen starting the installer.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed vTiger CRM. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the latest version of vTiger CRM on Debian 11 Bullseye. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official vTiger CRM website.