2.0 - ProcessMaker CentOS/RHEL Installation

Overview

Follow these instructions to install ProcessMaker 2.0 - 2.5 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)/CentOS 5 or later. If installing, ProcessMaker 2.8 or later, see these instructions. Before installing ProcessMaker, check the Installation Requirements to determine whether your server meets the necessary hardware and software requirements. Ensure you have an Internet connection to download any necessary third-party components that your ProcessMaker installation might require. After installation, see Additional Server Configuration.

Step 1: Configure SELinux

If ProcessMaker is installed in the /opt directory, it is necessary to either configure SELinux to allow Apache to read/write to the directory where ProcessMaker is installed or simply disable SELinux.

Configuring SELinux

To configure SELinux, so that Apache can read/write to the /opt/processmaker directory. first login as "root" and issue the following commands from the terminal:

Then, configure Apache so it is able to send email:

If needing to run ProcessMaker on any port other than the default ports of 80, 443, 488, 8008, 8009 and 8443, then SELinux needs to be configured to allow another port to be used. For example, if using port 8080:

Disabling SELinux

SELinux causes so many problems, that it often easier to simply disable it. To permanently disable SELinux, edit the SELinux configuration file:

In the config file, set the following parameter:

Then, restart the server, so SELinux will be permanently disabled.

If needing to temporarily disable SELinux, in order to debug a problem, login as the "root" user and issue the command:

To temporarily enable SELinux:

Step 2: Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP

If Apache, MySQL or PHP are not already installed, then switch to the root user:

Then use yum to install Apache, MySQL and PHP:

Follow the instructions on the screen to install the Apache web server.

Next, install the PHP modules needed by ProcessMaker:

php-mcrypt is not in CentOS's standard repositories. However, it is in Fedora's EPEL repository.

Install the EPEL Repo:

For 32 bit:

For 64 bit:

Then it is possible to execute:

After changing the PHP configuration, restart the Apache service (or reboot the machine).

To check if all the PHP modules were installed, run the following command:

In addition, phpMyAdmin can be installed to easily view the MySQL databases used by ProcessMaker inside a web browser. For some versions of RHEL/CentOS, phpMyAdmin will need to be manually installed.

Step 3: Configuring PHP Settings

If using PHP 5.3 and later, then no configuration of PHP is required. If using PHP 5.2 which is used in Red Hat/CentOS 5.10 and earlier, then PHP's configuration file php.ini needs to be edited to increase the memory limit for each session.

Open the php.ini file with a plain text editor, which is located at:

Each ProcessMaker session needs a minimum of 128MB RAM to run properly, so set the memory_limit to 128M or greater:

Note: The value set for the memory_limit in php.ini should be the same value set in the System interface (or in the env.ini file).

If the php.ini file has been modified, make sure that file_uploads and short_open_tag have been enabled:

If planning on uploading large files, as Input Documents while running processes, the max_post_size and upload_max_filesize should be increased to more than the default 2MB. For instance, if planning on uploading files as large as 24MB, then:

Step 4: Download & Extract ProcessMaker

Go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/processmaker/files and download a recent version of ProcessMaker. The versions are numbered according to the pattern MAJOR.MINOR.REVISION, such as 2.0.45. Download the processmaker-2.X.X.tar.gz file.

Note: Some older versions of ProcessMaker offered rpm files, but it is recommended to install from the tar.gz file if planning on installing in a directory other than /opt or doing an additional installation of ProcessMaker.

It is recommended to install ProcessMaker under the /opt directory, since it is an add-in application which doesn't come from the standard repositories. Nonetheless, ProcessMaker can be installed in any directory, except directories such as /var/www which are publicly accessible to the internet, since that would be a security hole.

Download the latest ProcessMaker tarball from http://sourceforge.net/projects/processmaker/files and save it to the server where ProcessMaker will be installed. Use the tar command to decompress the tar.gz file in the /opt directory (or where ever installing ProcessMaker):

This will create a new processmaker directory, containing all the ProcessMaker files and subdirectories.

Set File Permissions

After installing the ProcessMaker files either from the RPM package or from the tarball, make the following subdirectories writable for the "apache" user, so ProcessMaker can write to certain directories:

If installing ProcessMaker 2.5.0 or later, also give write permissions to generate Output Documents:

Step 5: MySQL Configuration

Before using MySQL, use mysql_secure_installation to set up a secure database environment. Login as the "root" user and issue the following command:

Then follow the wizard to configure MySQL:

Enter the MySQL root password:

Then it is possible to change the MySQL root password:

Then, it will ask about removing anonymous users:

Then it will ask about disabling root login:

Then, it is possible to change the MySQL database name:

Finally, reload privileges tables:

User other than root

The MySQL "root" user should already have all the necessary privileges to setup the ProcessMaker databases. If planning on using a MySQL user other than "root" to set up the ProcessMaker databases, then follow the steps below to grant a MySQL user superuser privileges to create and update databases. Login to MySQL:

Enter the root password for MySQL.

Once in MySQL, give the user which will be running ProcessMaker superuser privileges to create create and modify MySQL databases:

Replace USER with the name of your MySQL user and PASSWORD with the password for that user. (If that user doesn't already exist, he/she will be automatically created with the above grant command. If you are running ProcessMaker on a different server than your MySQL server, then replace localhost with the domain name or IP address of the server where ProcessMaker is located.

Exit MySQL:

MySQL Configuration Issues

Setting the root Password

If MySQL doesn't have a root password, set one for better security:

If you have forgotten the root password, see these instructions to reset it.

Starting as a Service

When logging into MySQL, if the following error message appears:

Then, MySQL needs to be started as a service:

If MySQL was installed from its Red Hat/CentOS package, it should automatically start as a service on bootup. If not, then use use chkconfig to add it as a service:

Step 6: Apache Configuration

Copy ProcessMaker's sample configuration for Apache to conf.d directory:

Edit the ProcessMaker configuration file pmos.conf:

Modify the file to fit your environment:

Replace your_ip_adress with the IP number or domain name of the server running ProcessMaker. If only planning on running and accessing ProcessMaker on your local machine, then use the IP address "127.0.0.1". If using ProcessMaker on a machine whose IP address might change (such as a machine whose IP address is assigned with DHCP), then use "*", which represents any IP address. If not using the standard port 80, then it is necessary to also specify the port number.

If your DNS or /etc/hosts file has a defined domain for ProcessMaker, then use that domain for your_processmaker_domain. Otherwise, use the same IP address for your_processmaker_domain as was used for your_ip_address.

For example, if running ProcessMaker on a server at address 192.168.1.100 with a DNS at 123.456.7.89:

For example, if ProcessMaker is installed in the /user/fred directory on your local machine at port 8080 with an dynamic IP assigned by DHCP:

Note: It is also possible to define the virtual host for ProcessMaker directly in the Apache configuration by inserting the above VirtualHost definition in the Apache configuration file found at /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.

ProcessMaker needs to use the expires, rewrite, deflate and vhost_alias modules in the Apache 2 web server. Check to see whether these modules are enabled, by opening the Apache configuration file found at /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf. The following 4 lines should be found in the list of Apache modules to load:

Note: If using Apache 2.4 (which is found in CentOS/Red Hat 7.0), either include the filter module:

Or remove the following line from pmos.conf: