Installing Snipe-IT on CentOS 7 and MariaDB

[NashBrydges]

I finally nailed the install to Ubuntu 16.04. It's no single line code and was very manual but I wanted to debug where this was failing and finally figured it out. Here is what I had to do (pardon the elementary nature of the process, I'm still a real Linux noob)...

CAUTION:
These instructions only work for Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial because I deleted all code referencing other builds. If your version is different, make sure to retain what is relevant for your build.

AMATEUR HOUR WARNING
As I mentioned before, as I'm still very new to Linux, If someone here can likely figure out a much better way to get this setup, even better. I hadn't been able to find any instructions on the internet that proved useful even though my google-foo is quite strong, and I was determined to get this setup, if for no other reason than this would be a great learning experience.

• Setup a VM in Hyper-V and completed a fresh install of Ubuntu 16.04 server
• During the install I selected to manually install the necessary packages so this was a minimal server install
• Full update
  sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
• Manually install apache
  sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-utils
• Enable apache to autostart
  sudo systemctl enable apache2
• Set ownership of root directory
  sudo chown www-data /var/www/html/ -R
• Install MariaDB
  sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client
• Enable MariaDB to autostart
  sudo systemctl enable mysql
• Complete MariaDB setup. When prompted, select pwd, remove anonymous, disallow remote root, remove test db and reload db
  sudo mysql_secure_installation
• Install PHP
  sudo apt-get install php7.0-fpm php7.0-mysql php7.0-common php7.0-gd php7.0-json php7.0-cli php7.0-curl libapache2-mod-php7.0
• Enable apache PHP module and restart apache
  sudo a2enmod php7.0
sudo systemctl restart apache2

That got me to my base LAMP install. I was now ready to download Snipe-IT. From the documentation I selected #3 and ran each command one at a time.
sudo wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/snipe/snipe-it/master/install.sh
chmod 744 install.sh

Then before running the final command I decided to examine the "install.sh" contents to see what was happening. Turns out it downloads and calls another script so before running that second script, I wanted to have a look at it so I commented out the final command that executes the second script so it would only download the file to my home directory and set permissions. I then ran the script and got the second script so I could look at it.
sudo ./install.sh

Once I looked in the second script (snipeit.sh) I noticed there is a lot of content that is trying to account for various Linux builds so I went through and deleted everything that didn't have anything to do with my version of Linux in order to simplify the debugging process. I also deleted every code reference to >> /var/log/snipeit-install.log 2>&1 since I had noticed on a previous run that this was causing permissions errors. Rather than have to deal with permissions, I didn't care about saving the install log and instead allowed it to display on the terminal session.

The next error I got was related to the composer where the code was trying to install using sudo (you'll note that this is set at the top of the script). Apparently composer cannot be installed this way. Keep reading for how I addressed that.

I then also removed most references to updates or installing the LAMP stack as I had already done this. Something that kept causing errors in the script even when I chose to run from nothing but a minimal Ubuntu install without apache, mysql or php. I ended-up modifying the script quite a bit, hard-coding some of the variables to make debugging a little easier. This is the final script I had saved as "snipeit.sh"

#!/bin/bash

######################################################
#           Snipe-It Install Script                  #
#          Script created by Mike Tucker             #
#            [email protected]                   #
# This script is just to help streamline the         #
# install process for Debian and CentOS              #
# based distributions. I assume you will be          #
# installing as a subdomain on a fresh OS install.   #
# Right now I'm not going to worry about SMTP setup  #
#                                                    #
# Feel free to modify, but please give               #
# credit where it's due. Thanks!                     #
######################################################

# ensure running as root
if [ "$(id -u)" != "0" ]; then
  exec sudo "$0" "$@"
fi
#First things first, let's set some variables and find our distro.
clear

name="snipeit"
si="Snipe-IT"
hostname="$(hostname)"
fqdn="$(hostname --fqdn)"
ans=default
hosts=/etc/hosts
file=master.zip
tmp=/tmp/$name
fileName=snipe-it-master

rm -rf $tmp/
mkdir $tmp


echo "
	   _____       _                  __________
	  / ___/____  (_)___  ___        /  _/_  __/
	  \__ \/ __ \/ / __ \/ _ \______ / /  / /
	 ___/ / / / / / /_/ /  __/_____// /  / /
	/____/_/ /_/_/ .___/\___/     /___/ /_/
	            /_/
"

echo ""
echo ""
echo "  Welcome to Snipe-IT Inventory Installer for Centos and Debian!"
echo ""

#Get your FQDN.

echo -n "  Q. What is the FQDN of your server? ($fqdn): "
read fqdn
if [ -z "$fqdn" ]; then
        fqdn="$(hostname --fqdn)"
fi
echo "     Setting to $fqdn"
echo ""

#Do you want to set your own passwords, or have me generate random ones?
until [[ $ans == "yes" ]] || [[ $ans == "no" ]]; do
echo -n "  Q. Do you want me to automatically create the snipe database user password? (y/n) "
read setpw

case $setpw in
        [yY] | [yY][Ee][Ss] )
                mysqluserpw="$(echo `< /dev/urandom tr -dc _A-Za-z-0-9 | head -c16`)"
                ans="yes"
                ;;
        [nN] | [n|N][O|o] )
                echo -n  "  Q. What do you want your snipeit user password to be?"
                read -s mysqluserpw
                echo ""
				ans="no"
                ;;
        *) 		echo "  Invalid answer. Please type y or n"
                ;;
esac
done

#Snipe says we need a new 32bit key, so let's create one randomly and inject it into the file
random32="$(echo `< /dev/urandom tr -dc _A-Za-z-0-9 | head -c32`)"

#db_setup.sql will be injected to the database during install.
#Again, this file should be removed, which will be a prompt at the end of the script.
dbsetup=$tmp/db_setup.sql
echo >> $dbsetup "CREATE DATABASE snipeit;"
echo >> $dbsetup "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON snipeit.* TO snipeit@localhost IDENTIFIED BY '$mysqluserpw';"

#Let us make it so only root can read the file. Again, this isn't best practice, so please remove these after the install.
sudo chown root:root $dbsetup
sudo chmod 700 $dbsetup

## TODO: Progress tracker on each step

#####################################  Install for Ubuntu  ##############################################

		webdir=/var/www

		#Update/upgrade Debian/Ubuntu repositories, get the latest version of git.
		echo ""
		echo "##  Updating ubuntu in the background. Please be patient."
		echo ""
		apachefile=/etc/apache2/sites-available/$name.conf
		echo "##  Installing packages."

		echo "##  Setting up LAMP."

		sudo apt-get install -y git unzip php php-mcrypt php-curl php-mysql php-gd php-ldap php-zip php-mbstring
		#Enable mcrypt and rewrite
		echo "##  Enabling mcrypt and rewrite"
		sudo phpenmod mcrypt
		sudo phpenmod mbstring
		sudo a2enmod rewrite
		#  Get files and extract to web dir
		echo ""
		echo "##  Downloading snipeit and extract to web directory."
		sudo wget -P $tmp/ https://github.com/snipe/snipe-it/archive/$file
		sudo unzip -qo $tmp/$file -d $tmp/
		sudo cp -R $tmp/$fileName $webdir/$name

		sudo ls -al /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/rewrite.load

		#Create a new virtual host for Apache.
		echo "##  Create Virtual host for apache."
		echo >> $apachefile ""
		echo >> $apachefile ""
		echo >> $apachefile "<VirtualHost *:80>"
		echo >> $apachefile "ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost"
		echo >> $apachefile "    <Directory $webdir/$name/public>"
		echo >> $apachefile "        Require all granted"
		echo >> $apachefile "        AllowOverride All"
		echo >> $apachefile "   </Directory>"
		echo >> $apachefile "    DocumentRoot $webdir/$name/public"
		echo >> $apachefile "    ServerName $fqdn"
		echo >> $apachefile "        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/snipeIT.error.log"
		echo >> $apachefile "        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined"
		echo >> $apachefile "</VirtualHost>"

		echo "##  Setting up hosts file."
		echo >> $hosts "127.0.0.1 $hostname $fqdn"

		sudo a2ensite $name.conf

		cat > $webdir/$name/.env <<-EOF
		#Created By Snipe-it Installer
		APP_TIMEZONE=$(cat /etc/timezone)
		DB_HOST=localhost
		DB_DATABASE=snipeit
		DB_USERNAME=snipeit
		DB_PASSWORD=$mysqluserpw
		APP_URL=http://$fqdn
		APP_KEY=$random32
		EOF

		# Setup Mysql, then run the command.
		/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation
		echo "##  Creating MySQL Database and user. "
		echo "##  Please Input your MySQL/MariaDB root password: "
		mysql -u root -p < $dbsetup

		echo "##  Securing Mysql"

		# Have user set own root password when securing install
		# and just set the snipeit database user at the beginning

echo ""
echo ""
echo "##  Cleaning up..."
rm -f snipeit.sh
rm -f install.sh
rm -rf $tmp/
echo "##  Done!"
sleep 1

This got me about 90% of the way there. I then had to run the following commands one at a time (note that composer is not run from the elevated command)

cd /var/www/snipeit
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
php composer.phar install --no-dev --prefer-source

To finish it off, I set the required permissions.

sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/snipeit/storage
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/snipeit/storage/private_uploads
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/snipeit/public/uploads
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/snipeit
sudo service apache2 restart

Because I'm using this internally, I edited the sites-available/snipeit.conf file as follows...

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
    <Directory /var/www/snipeit/public>
        Require all granted
        AllowOverride All
   </Directory>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/snipeit/public
    ServerName snipeit.domain.com
    ServerAlias XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX #This is the server IP address
    ServerAlias localhost
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/sniptit.error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/snipeit.access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

The installation will have created a .env file in your root folder however, I figured out that this file was incomplete. So I added the missing values based on documentation for Snipe-IT and this is the resulting /var/www/snipeit/.env file...

#Created By Snipe-it Installer
# --------------------------------------------
# REQUIRED: BASIC APP SETTINGS
# --------------------------------------------
APP_TIMEZONE=Canada/Eastern 
#The above is set during install
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_LOCALE=en
APP_URL=http://snipeit.domain.com 
#This has to be exactly the correct FQDN to get to your Snipt-IT install. If you are using local IP address only then this must be in the IP address format like http://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
APP_KEY=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
#The above is set during install

# --------------------------------------------
# REQUIRED: DATABASE SETTINGS
# --------------------------------------------
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=snipeit
DB_USERNAME=XXXXXXXXX
#The above is set during install
DB_PASSWORD=XXXXXXXXXXXX
#The above is set during install
DB_PREFIX=null
DB_DUMP_PATH='/usr/local/bin'

# --------------------------------------------
# REQUIRED: OUTGOING MAIL SERVER SETTINGS
# --------------------------------------------
MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=outlook.office365.com 
#This is correct if you are using Office 365 for your email
MAIL_PORT=587
MAIL_USERNAME=XXXXXXXXXXX 
#Mail username, usually same as email address
MAIL_PASSWORD=XXXXXXXXXXX 
#Your email password
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=TLS
[email protected]
[email protected]

# --------------------------------------------
# REQUIRED: IMAGE LIBRARY
# This should be gd or imagick
# --------------------------------------------
IMAGE_LIB=gd

# --------------------------------------------
# OPTIONAL: SESSION SETTINGS
# --------------------------------------------
SESSION_LIFETIME=12000
EXPIRE_ON_CLOSE=false
ENCRYPT=false
COOKIE_NAME=snipeit_session
COOKIE_DOMAIN=null
SECURE_COOKIES=false

Once that was updated, I rebooted the server for good measure and was able to navigate to my server IP address http://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX and was presented with the Pre-flight & Setup screen.

For reference, this is where to find the .env file config details.

Once you're at the pre-flight page and everything is green, you can navigate your way to setting up the db and user and begin to enter your first assets.

Hope this proves useful.

[Jstear]

Is Snipe-IT still recommended?

[NashBrydges]

@Jstear Sadly I just got it installed so can't comment on how effective it will be for me. Will report back when I have more.

[scottalanmiller]

@Jstear said in Installing Snipe-IT on CentOS 7 and MariaDB:

Is Snipe-IT still recommended?

Getting ready to test again. It's certainly recommended to try out, not many products like it out there.

[scottalanmiller]

@sawgwa said in Installing Snipe-IT on CentOS 7 and MariaDB:

@scottalanmiller Any chance you've has an opportunity to look at this?

Getting the VM fired up now.

[jfc]

@scottalanmiller Im new to the forum, any update with Centos 7 and Maria DB installation and configuration? Haven't started since Snipe IT documentation looks confusing and less details for a not so linux expert like me....

[Romo]

@jfc Setup you CentOS 7 vm and only use their install script.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/snipe/snipe-it/master/install.sh
chmod 744 install.sh
./install.sh

It will download everything you need and get you to a working Snipe IT installation, I just setup my own Snipe IT vm like this =).

[hobbit666]

Can't seem to grasp how to upgrade from V2 to V3 as I've used the above method and used the install.sh

So not sure if I should be using GIT to clone the new version and then how to install/move the latest version and what files need editing.

https://snipe-it.readme.io/docs/upgrading

[tiagom]

@Romo said in Installing Snipe-IT on CentOS 7 and MariaDB:

@jfc Setup you CentOS 7 vm and only use their install script.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/snipe/snipe-it/master/install.sh
chmod 744 install.sh
./install.sh

It will download everything you need and get you to a working Snipe IT installation, I just setup my own Snipe IT vm like this =).

Tested on centOS 7 installs great. Wonder how we update.

[Romo]

@tiagom Taken from here https://snipe-it.readme.io/docs/how-to-upgrade:

Upgrading
Updating Snipe-IT should be pretty straightforward. Simply pull down the newest release, copy the files over, and run whatever commands the release notes specify. Your configuration won’t be overwritten, since the .env file isn't checked into version control.

Always backup your database and configuration files before upgrading. We try very hard to make sure that all database changes are non-destructive, but you should always backup beforehand anyway. You will never regret backing up your database. You may regret not doing so, so it’s just better to get into the habit.

Whenever you pull down a new version from master or develop, or when you grab the latest official release, make sure to run the following commands via command line:

php composer.phar install --no-dev --prefer-source
php composer.phar dump-autoload
php artisan migrate
php artisan config:clear
php artisan config:cache
(Developers should remove the --no-dev flag, so they have unit test frameworks and debugging tools.)

Forgetting to run these commands can mean your DB might end up out of sync with the new files you just pulled, or you may have some funky cached autoloader values.

It’s a good idea to get into the habit of running these every time you pull anything new down. If there are no database changes to migrate, it won't hurt anything to run migrations anyway, you’ll just see "Nothing to migrate".

If you have any issues upgrading, check the Common Issues page for a fix. If you don’t see your issue listed there, open an issue on Github and we’ll try to get you sorted out. Be sure to provide the information outlined in the Getting Help section of this site so that we have the info we need to assist you.

[hobbit666]

@Romo said in Installing Snipe-IT on CentOS 7 and MariaDB:

Upgrading
Updating Snipe-IT should be pretty straightforward. Simply pull down the newest release, copy the files over, and run whatever commands the release notes specify. Your configuration won’t be overwritten, since the .env file isn't checked into version control.

That's the first issue I have. I used the install.sh method so how do we download the latest?

Do I GIT the latest into the var/www/snipeit folder?
Do I download a zip/tar and unpack into the folder etc etc.

[Romo]

@hobbit666 You can use either way, they both accomplish the same thing that is downloading the newest source files.

Step 1: Backup your database
While logged in, go to Admin > Backups and generate a new backup. Download that file and keep it somewhere safe, in case you need to restore back to that version if something goes wrong with your upgrade.

Step 2: Backup your old version
The easiest way to do this will be to just rename your old Snipe-IT install directory and create a new, empty directory that uses the old directory name, but you can handle this any way that works for you.

For example, if your Snipe-IT was installed in /var/www/snipe-it, you could rename that directory to /var/www/snipe-it-backup and then create a new directory /var/www/snipe-it.

Step 3: Download/clone the new release
Download the zip from: https://github.com/snipe/snipe-it/archive/master.zip
or
git clone https://github.com/snipe/snipe-it.git

Step 4: Update dependencies
Whenever you pull down a new version, you should update the dependencies via Composer and dump the autoloader.

NOTE: Never run composer as a super-user or Administrator. Always run it as the user that owns the Snipe-IT files. Running composer as a super-user will break things in ways that will be difficult to debug later. Just don't do it.

1st you'll need to install composer into the directory if you don't have it installed globally:

cd <install-dir>
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php 

Noq update dependencies and dump the auto-loader.

php composer.phar install --no-dev --prefer-source
php composer.phar dump-autoload

Step 5: Copy over your configuration settings

IMPORTANT:
This step will only need to be done once, while upgrading to v3.0. Once you've upgraded to v3.0, you won't ever have to do this part again.

Open up your .env file in your new Snipe-IT install directory, and update the configuration placeholders you see there with the values you were previously using in your individual config files.

If you don't have a .env file, just copy the existing .env.example over to .env and use that:

cp .env.example .env

The files you'll be copying from are:

• app/config/app.php
• app/config/production/app.php
• app/config/production/database.php
• app/config/production/mail.php
• app/config/production/session.php

New .env Setting	Old Config File	Old Config File Key	Notes
APP_ENV	N/A	N/A	Set to production
APP_DEBUG	/app/config/production/app.php	debug
APP_KEY	/app/config/production/app.php	key	Make SURE you keep this app key the same from your old version.
APP_URL	/app/config/production/app.php	url
APP_TIMEZONE	/app/config/app.php	timezone
APP_LOCALE	/app/config/app.php	locale
DB_CONNECTION	/app/config/production/database.php	default	This should be mysql
DB_HOST	/app/config/production/database.php	connections-> mysql-> host
DB_DATABASE	/app/config/production/database.php	connections-> mysql-> database
DB_USERNAME	/app/config/production/database.php	connections-> mysql-> username
DB_PASSWORD	/app/config/production/database.php	connections-> mysql-> password
DB_PREFIX	/app/config/production/database.php	connections-> mysql-> prefix
DB_DUMP_PATH	N/A	N/A	Path to your dabase dump binary (such as mysqldump)e.g. '/usr/local/bin'
MAIL_DRIVER	/app/config/production/mail.php	driver
MAIL_HOST	/app/config/production/mail.php	host
MAIL_PORT	/app/config/production/mail.php	port
MAIL_USERNAME	/app/config/production/mail.php	username
MAIL_PASSWORD	/app/config/production/mail.php	password
MAIL_ENCRYPTION	/app/config/production/mail.php	encryption
MAIL_FROM_ADDR	/app/config/production/mail.php	from->address
MAIL_FROM_NAME	/app/config/production/mail.php	from->name
IMAGE_LIB	N/A	N/A	Should be set to gd or imagick, depending on which library you have on your server.
SESSION_LIFETIME	/app/config/production/session.php	lifetime
EXPIRE_ON_CLOSE	/app/config/production/session.php	expire_on_close
ENCRYPT	N/A	N/A	Should be set to true if you wish to encrypt your cookies.
COOKIE_NAME	/app/config/production/session.php	cookie
COOKIE_DOMAIN	/app/config/production/session.php	domain
SECURE_COOKIES	/app/config/production/session.php	secure

Everything else in your .env can be left alone, as they are more advanced settings that are not commonly used.

Step 6: Move uploaded files and check permissions
Since Laravel's file structure has changed, you're going to need to move a few files around to make sure your uploaded files (logo, uploaded asset files, asset model files, etc) are in their new location.

cp ../snipe-it-backup/app/storage/dumps/* snipe-it/storage/app/backups/
cp ../snipe-it-backup/app/private_uploads/* snipe-it/storage/private_uploads/
cp ../snipe-it-backup/public/uploads/* snipe-it/public/uploads/

Also confirm that your entire storage directory (and subdirectories) is writable by the web server.

Step 7: Migrate the database
Always run your database migrations on any upgrade, as this will make sure your database schema is up to date with what the new code expected.

php artisan migrate

Forgetting to run these commands can mean your DB might end up out of sync with the new files you just pulled, or you may have some funky cached autoloader values.

It’s a good idea to get into the habit of running these every time you pull anything new down. If there are no database changes to migrate, it won't hurt anything to run migrations anyway, you’ll just see "Nothing to migrate".

Step 8: Launch Snipe-IT in a browser
You should be all set now, so just go to your old Snipe-IT URL and make sure everything is working.

[hobbit666]

@Romo said in Installing Snipe-IT on CentOS 7 and MariaDB:

@hobbit666 You can use either way, they both accomplish the same thing that is downloading the newest source files.

Step 1: Backup your database
While logged in, go to Admin > Backups and generate a new backup. Download that file and keep it somewhere safe, in case you need to restore back to that version if something goes wrong with your upgrade.

Thanks Romo will give it a try Monday/Tuesday

[Chatigo]

@NashBrydges Thanks a lot! its the first step by step for amateurs i had see,

[rejivincentc]

@scottalanmiller @brandon.hay I am getting the below error message... Please assist...

[scottalanmiller]

@rejivincentc welcome to the community.

[rejivincentc]

@scottalanmiller Thanks...

I managed to login the snipe-it after that the webpage is blank...

Please assist asap...

[thwr]

Thx for mentioning Snipe-IT, @scottalanmiller. Didn't follow your instructions, because the install script provided by Snipe worked like a charm.

The tool is great, I'm just missing a few things. For example

• Licenses should be treated the same way as assets (Create a "template", create instances of that template).
• Assets can't be checked out to other assets (Notebook docking station -> Notebook).
• Components (or Accessories?) can't have vendors, which is a bit odd.
• Components must have a minimum of 1 unused item or they will generate an alert otherwise. No I don't want to have 1 spare part of every little gadget
• Does not handle floating licenses.
• Licenses can't be upgraded (but you can assign two versions of the same software to the same machine / user which works just fine)
• You can't modify software checkout dates via the GUI

But all in all, it's great. Simplifies tracking of assets and licenses.

[scottalanmiller]

@thwr said in Installing Snipe-IT on CentOS 7 and MariaDB:

Thx for mentioning Snipe-IT, @scottalanmiller. Didn't follow your instructions, because the install script provided by Snipe worked like a charm.

It's been a bit, they've changed a lot because their old script didn't install at all, hence these instructions. Which script did you use?

[rejivincentc]

@scottalanmiller Script used - yum -y install wget firewalld; setenforce 0 && yum -y install epel-release; mkdir -p /var/www/html; cd /var/www/html/; wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/snipe/snipe-it/master/install.sh && chmod 744 install.sh && ./install.sh && cd snipeit; sed -i "s/'timezone' => '',/'timezone' => 'UTC',/" app/config/app.php; php artisan app:install; firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp --permanent; firewall-cmd --reloadrpm

OS -Centos 7
snipe-it-3.4