This article is outdated and may not work correctly for current operating systems or software.
InvoicePlane is a free and open source invoicing application. Its source code can be found on this Github repository. This guide will show you how to install InvoicePlane on a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 Vultr instance.
Nginx
MySQL version 5.5 or greater
PHP version 7.0
The following PHP extensions must be installed and activated:
php-gd
php-hash
php-json
php-mbstring
php-mcrypt
php-mysqli
php-openssl
php-recode
php-xmlrpc
php-zlib
Check the Ubuntu version.
lsb_release -ds
# Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS
Create a new non-root user account with sudo access and switch to it.
adduser johndoe --gecos "John Doe"
usermod -aG sudo johndoe
su - johndoe
NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.
Set up the timezone.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
Ensure that your system is up to date.
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
Install build-essential and unzip packages.
sudo apt install -y build-essential unzip
Install PHP and necessary PHP extensions.
sudo apt install -y php7.0 php7.0-cli php7.0-fpm php7.0-gd php7.0-json php7.0-mbstring php7.0-mcrypt php7.0-mysql php7.0-xmlrpc php7.0-common
Check the version.
php -v
Install MySQL.
sudo apt install -y mysql-server-5.7
Check the version.
mysql --version
Run mysql_secure installation script to improve MySQL security.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Connect to the MySQL shell as the root user.
mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:
Create an empty MySQL database and user for InvoicePlane, and remember the credentials.
CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Exit MySQL.
exit
Install Nginx.
sudo apt install -y nginx
Check the version.
sudo nginx -v
Configure Nginx for InvoicePlane. Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/invoiceplane.conf and populate the file with the following configuration.
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name example.com;
root /var/www/invoiceplane;
index index.php index.html;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_index index.php;
try_files $uri =404;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
}
}
Activate the new invoiceplane.conf configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled directory.
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/invoiceplane.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
Test the configuration.
sudo nginx -t
Reload Nginx.
sudo systemctl reload nginx.service
Download the latest stable version of InvoicePlane and extract the archive.
cd /var/www/
sudo curl -O -J -L https://invoiceplane.com/download/v1.5.9
sudo unzip v1.5.9.zip
sudo rm v1.5.9.zip
sudo mv ip invoiceplane
Navigate to the /var/www/invoiceplane folder.
cd /var/www/invoiceplane
Make a copy of the ipconfig.php.example file and rename the copy ipconfig.php.
sudo cp ipconfig.php.example ipconfig.php
Open the ipconfig.php file and add your URL to it.
sudo vim ipconfig.php
# Something like this
IP_URL=http://example.com
NOTE: Don't forget to replace the http://example.com URL with your own URL.
Change ownership of the /var/www/invoiceplane directory to www-data.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/invoiceplane
Run the InvoicePlane installer from your web browser and follow the instructions.
http://your-domain.com/index.php/setup
Once the installation has finished, you may log into InvoicePlane using the email address and password you have chosen during the installation.
If you want to secure your installation, you may disable the setup. To do so, replace the line DISABLE_SETUP=false with DISABLE_SETUP=true in your ipconfig.php file.