How to Install Sentrifugo HRM on Ubuntu 16.04

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Sentrifugo HRM is a free and open source human resource management, (HRM), application. It is a feature-rich and easily configurable application. It is written in PHP and uses MySQL/MariaDB to store its database. You can use Sentrifugo to track the employee's performance, vacation dates, roles, privileges and much more. It comes with a performance appraisal module which helps the HR managers track the performance of the employee over time. It contains numerous features which are required for day to day employee management, such as employee self-service, powerful analytics, easy background checks, leave management, expenses, and asset management.

Prerequisites

• A Vultr Ubuntu 16.04 server instance.
• A sudo user.

For this tutorial, we will use hrm.example.com as the domain name pointed towards the Vultr instance. Please make sure to replace all occurrences of the example domain name with the actual one.

Update your base system using the guide How to Update Ubuntu 16.04. Once your system has been updated, proceed to install the dependencies.

Install Apache

Install Apache.

sudo apt -y install apache2

Start Apache and enable it to automatically run at boot time.

sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl enable apache2

Install PHP

Install PHP along with the modules required by Sentrifugo HRM.

sudo apt -y install php libapache2-mod-php php-gd php-mysql php-mbstring php-curl php-cli php-pear php-dev

Edit the PHP configuration file.

sudo nano /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini

Find the following line. Uncomment and set the appropriate timezone.

date.timezone = Asia/Kolkata
;Replace "Asia/Kolkata" with your appropriate timezone

memory_limit = -1
;This will give maximum available memory to PHP processes.

Install MariaDB

MariaDB is a fork of MySQL. Add the MariaDB repository to your system, as the default Ubuntu repository contains an older version of MariaDB.

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 0xF1656F24C74CD1D8
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64,i386,ppc64el] http://kartolo.sby.datautama.net.id/mariadb/repo/10.2/ubuntu xenial main'
sudo apt update

Install MariaDB.

sudo apt -y install mariadb-server

Provide a strong MySQL root user password when prompted. Start MariaDB and enable it to automatically start at boot time.

sudo systemctl start mariadb
sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Before configuring the database, you will need to secure MariaDB.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

You will be asked for the current MariaDB root password. Provide the password you have set during the installation. You will be asked if you wish to change the existing password of the root user of your MariaDB server. You can skip setting a new password, as you have already provided a strong password during installation. Answer "Y" to all of the other questions that are asked.

Log into the MySQL shell as root.

mysql -u root -p

Provide the password for the MariaDB root user to log in.

Run the following queries to create a database and a database user for the Sentrifugo installation.

CREATE DATABASE hrm_data CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
CREATE USER 'hrm_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON hrm_data.* TO 'hrm_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

You can replace the database name hrm_data and username hrm_user according to your choice. Please make sure to change StrongPassword to a very strong password.

Install Sentrifugo HRM

Download the Sentrifugo HRM zip archive.

wget http://www.sentrifugo.com/home/downloadfile?file_name=Sentrifugo.zip -O Sentrifugo.zip

Install unzip.

sudo apt -y install unzip

Extract the archive.

sudo unzip Sentrifugo.zip -d /var/www

Change the name of the directory and provide the appropriate ownership.

cd /var/www
sudo mv Sentrifugo_*/ sentrifugo/
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/sentrifugo

Create a virtual host

Create a virtual host for your Sentrifugo HRM site.

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

Populate the file.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName hrm.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/sentrifugo
    <Directory /var/www/sentrifugo>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Activate the Virtual Host file.

sudo a2ensite sentrifugo

Restart Apache.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Wrapping Up

Now that you have successfully installed Sentrifugo HRM through the command line, you will need to finish the installation through the web interface. You can access the web installer at http://hrm.example.com. You will see that you have all the prerequisites satisfied to continue web-based installation. Provide the database and SMTP server details. Once you have provided the required database and SMTP server details, the setup will write into the database and a random username and password will be generated. Login to the HRM dashboard and configure the application according to your needs.

Congratulations, you have successfully installed Sentrifugo HRM on Ubuntu 16.04 server.