2.0 - ProcessMaker Debian Installation

Overview

Follow these instructions to install ProcessMaker 2.0 - 2.5 on top of a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack in Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) or later. If installing ProcessMaker 2.8 or later, see these instructions. If using earlier versions of Debian, MySQL has to be upgraded to version 5.1.6 or later.

Before installing checking the installation requirements. After installation, see Additional Server Configuration.

ProcessMaker Installation

In order to have ProcessMaker installed correctly follow the steps listed below.

Step 1: Install MySQL, PHP and Apache

If the LAMP stack isn't already installed, open a shell by going to Applications > Accessories > Terminal. At the command line, switch to the "root" user.

If using Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) or earlier, enter the following command:

If using Debian 7.0 (Wheezy) or later, enter the following command:

Note: If wishing to run ProcessMaker with PHP 5.3, which is the version tested by the ProcessMaker Quality Control team, see Downgrading to PHP 5.3 below.

Enter a password and select the option OK. Then enter the same password a second time, to confirm it.

Install SSH Server and PhpMyAdmin

OpenSSH Server can be installed to allow the ProcessMaker server to be remotely accessed from the command line, which is very useful when executing the processmaker and gulliver commands or conducting administrative tasks. In addition, phpMyAdmin can be installed to easily view the MySQL databases used by ProcessMaker inside a web browser.

To install OpenSSH Server and phpMyAdmin:

If asked which web server PhpMyAdmin should use, press the space bar to select "apache2":

Then, select whether to configure the database with the dbconfig-common package. In most cases, it is easier to select :

When asked for a password to create the MySQL databases, enter the MySQL root password:

Then enter a password which can be used to access the PhpMyAdmin web application:

Reconfirm that password by entering it a second time:

In Debian (Squeeze) 6.0, the Apache configuration file for phpMyAdmin is not automatically included in the list of sites. To add it and restart Apache:

Step 2: Configure PHP

If using PHP 5.3 and later, then no configuration of PHP is required. If using PHP 5.2 which is used in Debian 5.0 (Lenny) and earlier, then PHP's configuration file php.ini needs to be edited to increase the memory limit for each session.

Edit PHP's configuration file php.ini:

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 3: Download & Extract ProcessMaker

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

After the download has finished, decompress the tarball in the directory where ProcessMaker will be installed. ProcessMaker can be installed in any directory which is not publicly accessible to the internet (so do NOT install it in /var/www), but it is generally installed in /opt, since it is an optional program which doesn't come from the standard repositories:

Verify that ProcessMaker was correctly decompressed:

The processmaker directory should contain the following contents:

Set file permissions

Then, issue the following commands as the "root" user so that ProcessMaker can access the necessary files when run by the Apache server:

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

Step 4: MySQL Configuration

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, 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 Debian package, it should automatically start as a service on bootup. If not, then use use update-rc.d to add it as a service:

Step 5: Configure Apache

Edit the ProcessMaker configuration file to fit your environment:

Replace your_ip_address and your_processmaker_domain with the IP address and domain name used by your ProcessMaker server:

Replace your_ip_address 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 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 file /etc/apache2/apache2.conf.

After editing pmos.conf, add it to Apache's list of sites which are available for serving:

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:

If you don't see them in the list, they can be enabled with the a2enmod command:

Note: If using Apache 2.4 (found in Debian Testing/Jessie and Unstable), either enable the filter module:

Or remove the following line from pmos.conf: