How to Install ERPNext on Ubuntu 22.04

ERPNext is an open-source ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. Frappé Technologies develops the software.

It includes modules like accounting, CRM, purchasing, sales, website, e-commerce, POS, inventory, project management, etc.

This web-based application helps small and medium-sized businesses manage their accounting, sales, purchase, and inventory tasks.

This tutorial will show you how to install ERPNext on Ubuntu 22.04.

Prerequisites

• An Ubuntu 22.04 VPS with at least 2GB of RAM
• root access or a user with sudo privileges
• A fully qualified domain or subdomain name

Step 1: Log in to your server via SSH

First, you will need to log in to your Ubuntu 22.04 VPS via SSH:

ssh root@IP_Address -p Port_number

You will need to replace ‘IP_Address’ and ‘Port_number’ with your server’s respective IP address and SSH port number. Additionally, replace ‘root’ with the username of the system user with sudo privileges.

You can check whether you have the proper Ubuntu version installed on your server with the following command:

# lsb_release -a

It will return an output like this.

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
Release: 22.04
Codename: jammy

In this article, we will use ‘root’ used to execute the shell commands. If you want to use your regular user with sudo privileges to run the commands, make sure to append ‘sudo’ in front of the commands.

Step 2: Update the system

Before starting, let’s ensure that all Ubuntu 22.04 packages installed on the server are up to date. You can do this by running the following commands:

# apt update
# apt upgrade

Step 3. Create System User

In this step, we are going to create a new system user for our ERPNext installation.

# useradd -m -d /opt/erpnext -U -r -s /bin/bash erpnext

Let’s give sudo privileges to the user.

# usermod -aG sudo erpnext

Step 4. Install Dependencies

Several packages will be installed on the system before we can start installing other applications.

# apt install python3-pip python3-dev python3.10-venv python3-testresources libffi-dev libssl-dev wkhtmltopdf gcc g++ make redis-server -y

Step 5. Install NodeJS

First, add the Node Source repository to our Ubuntu 22.04 system with the following command:

# curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | bash -

Then, install NodeJS.

# apt install nodejs -y

Once installed, you can check nodejs and npm with this command:

# node -v; npm -v

Finally, we can install YARN now.

# npm install -g yarn

Step 6. Install MariaDB

We do not need to add the MariaDB repository to our Ubuntu system, and we can install it because MariaDB is already available on the default Ubuntu base repository.

# apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

Let’s modify the default MariaDB configuration file.

# nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Find the string collation-server = utf8mb4_general_ci and replace it with collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci

Then, add the following anywhere under [mysqld]

innodb-file-format=barracuda
innodb-file-per-table=1
innodb-large-prefix=1

To apply the changes, restart the MariaDB server.

# systemctl restart mariadb

Next, we need to create a MySQL root password. Let’s invoke this command.

# mysql_secure_installation

You will be asked a few questions. Answer all prompted questions with YES (Y), and remember your new MySQL root password; you will need this password later.

Step 7. Install ERPNext

We have successfully installed all requirements, and it is time to install ERPNext. In this step, we are going to use the new system user we created earlier in the previous step.

# su - erpnext

The command above means we are switching to user ‘erpnext’. Then edit the .bashrc file.

$ nano ~/.bashrc

Append the following line to the file:

PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin/

Save the file, then activate the environment variable with the following command below:

$ source ~/.bashrc

Next, create a directory for ERPNext with the following command:

$ sudo mkdir /opt/bench

Then, set the ownership to the erpnext user:

$ sudo chown -R erpnext: /opt/bench

At this point, we can go to the directory /opt/bench and clone the bench repository from GitHub:

$ cd /opt/bench
$ git clone https://github.com/frappe/bench bench-repo

Finally, install the bench repo using the pip3 command:

$ pip3 install -e bench-repo

Once installed, initialize the bench directory with the frappe framework using the following command:

$ bench init erpnext

It will take some time to complete, as it will set up a virtual environment, install frappe and initialize bench erpnext. It will show you a successful message once completed.

The next step is to go to erpnext directory and then create a new ERPNext website with the following command:

$ cd /opt/bench/erpnext

$ bench new-site erpnext.yourdomain.com

Make sure to replace yourdomain.com above with your actual domain/subdomain name and your domain or subdomain name’s DNS record is already pointed to your server.

You will be asked for your MariaDB root password and Administrator password for your ERPNext website as shown below:

MySQL root password:

Installing frappe...
Updating DocTypes for frappe : [========================================] 100%
Updating country info : [========================================] 100%
Set Administrator password: 
Re-enter Administrator password: 
*** Scheduler is disabled ***
Current Site set to erpnext.yourdomain.com

Step 8. Configure ERPNext

In this step, we are going to configure Nginx as a reverse proxy.

$ sudo apt install supervisor nginx -y

Now, let’s install the frappe-bench, and run this command below.

$ sudo pip3 install frappe-bench

Next, navigate to /opt/bench/erpnext and set up the production environment:

$ cd /opt/bench/erpnext
$ sudo /opt/erpnext/.local/bin/bench setup production erpnext

Again, it will take some time to complete, as it will configure nginx, redis, and supervisor and run those services.

Finally, you should be able to access ERPNext at http://erpnext.yourdomain.com using any web browser. You will be redirected to the login page.

User administrator as username and password you created earlier to log in.

In this step, you can choose your language, country, timezone, and currency.

Set up a new account and complete the installation.

That’s it! You will be brought to your ERPNext website dashboard.

Of course, you don’t have to install ERPNext on Ubuntu 22.04 if you have an Ubuntu VPS with us. You can ask our support team to install ERPNext on Ubuntu 22.04. They are available 24/7 and will be able to help you with the installation.

If you enjoyed reading this blog post on How to Install ERPNext on Ubuntu 22.04, feel free to share it on social networks or simply leave a comment in the comments section. Also, feel free to check out how to install ERPNext on an older version of Ubuntu – 20.04. Thanks.