How to Install Snipe-IT on Ubuntu 16.10

Snipe-IT is a free and open source web application for IT assets management. It is written on the Laravel 5.2 framework and uses MySQL to store its data. Snipe-IT is a complete and comprehensive solution for assets management, software license management, and much more.

In this tutorial, you will learn to install Snipe-IT on Ubuntu 16.10.

Prerequisites

• A Vultr Ubuntu 16.10 server instance.
• A sudo user.

Step 1: System update

Before installing any packages on the Ubuntu server instance, it is recommended to update the system. Log in using the sudo user and run the following commands to update the system.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Step 2: Install Apache web server

Install the Apache web server.

sudo apt-get -y install apache2

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

sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl enable apache2

Step 3: Install PHP 5.6

Snipe-IT is compatible with any version of PHP greater than 5.5.9. Since PHP 5.5 has reached end of life, you can install PHP 7. Run the following command to install PHP 7 with the modules required by Snipe-IT.

sudo apt-get -y install php php-pdo php-mbstring php-tokenizer php-curl php-mysql php-ldap php-zip php-fileinfo php-gd php-dom php-mcrypt

Step 4: Install MariaDB

MariaDB is a fork of MySQL. Install it using following command.

sudo apt-get -y install mariadb-server

Start MariaDB and enable it to automatically start at boot time.

sudo systemctl start mysql
sudo systemctl enable mysql

Secure your MariaDB installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

You will be asked for the current MariaDB root password. As we have just installed MariaDB, its root password has not been set. Press the enter key to proceed. Set a strong root password for your MariaDB server and answer Y to all of the other questions asked. The questions asked are self explanatory.

Step 5: Create database for Snipe-IT

Log into the MariaDB shell as its root user using the following command.

mysql -u root -p

Provide the password for the MariaDB root user.

Run the following queries to create a database and a database user for Snipe-IT.

CREATE DATABASE snipeit_data;
CREATE USER 'snipeit_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON snipeit_data.* TO 'snipeit_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Make sure that you use a semicolon at the end of each query above. You can replace the database name “snipeit_data” and username “snipeit_user” according to your needs. Be sure to change “StrongPassword” to a very strong password.

Step 6: Install Composer

Install Composer using the following command. Composer is a dependency manager for PHP.

cd ~
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Step 7: Install Snipe-IT

First, install Git.

sudo apt-get -y install git

Switch to Apache’s web-root folder and clone the latest version of Snipe-IT.

cd /var/www/
sudo git clone https://github.com/snipe/snipe-it snipe-it

Create the .env file from example file provided.

cd /var/www/snipe-it
sudo cp .env.example .env

Edit the .env file.

sudo nano .env

Find the following lines and edit the values according to instructions provided.

APP_URL=null       #Provide your domain name or IP address here
APP_TIMEZONE='UTC' #Change it according to your country

DB_DATABASE=null   #Provide the database name you created earlier
DB_USERNAME=null   #Provide database user's username 
DB_PASSWORD=null   #Provide the DB user's password

Leave the default values for all of the other parameters. Save the file and exit the text editor.

Provide the appropriate ownership and file permissions.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data storage public/uploads
sudo chmod -R 755 storage
sudo chmod -R 755 public/uploads

Install PHP dependencies using Composer.

sudo composer install --no-dev --prefer-source

Generate the “APP_Key“.

sudo php artisan key:generate

Step 8: Create virtual host

Run the following command to create a virtual host for your Snipe-IT site.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/snipeit.example.com.conf

Add the following lines into the file, then save the file.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName snipeit.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/snipe-it/public
    <Directory /var/www/snipe-it/public>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Activate the configuration and enable mod_rewrite using the following commands.

sudo a2ensite snipeit.example.com.conf
sudo a2enmod rewrite

Restart Apache.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 9: Finish installation

Your Snipe-IT installation is now complete. You can finish configuring Snipe-IT through your web browser. Navigate to the following link, replacing snipeit.example.com with the IP address of your Vultr VPS.

http://snipeit.example.com

Thank you for reading. This concludes the tutorial.