How to Install Invoice Ninja on Ubuntu 16.04

Invoice Ninja is a web-based open source software for invoicing, payments, time tracking and much more. You can create Invoices online in seconds, interact with payments gateways like Stripe, PayPal, WePay, and others. Invoice Ninja can show you a live invoice preview in PDF format. You can change the company logo in templates easily yourself. Invoice Ninja is based on PHP, build with the Laravel Framework and can be installed on Linux and Windows.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to install Invoice Ninja on Ubuntu 16.04. I will use Nginx as the web server and MariaDB as Database system.

Prerequisite

  • Ubuntu 16.04 server.
  • Root privileges.

Step 1 - Install Nginx

In this step, we will install the Nginx web server. Connect to your server with your ssh root account (or login with another user and use 'sudo -s' to become root) and update the repository.

ssh [email protected]
apt-get update

Install Nginx with the apt command below:

apt-get install -y nginx

When the nginx installation is finished, start Nginx and add it to start at boot time.

systemctl start nginx
systemctl enable nginx

Make sure nginx is running. Check the port used by nginx, the default web server port is 80.

netstat -plntu

Nginx installed on Ubuntu 16.04

Step 2 - Install and Configure MariaDB Server

After installing Nginx, we need to install the package mariadb-server on the system. It's available in the Ubuntu repository. Install mariadb-server and its dependencies with the command below.

apt-get install -y mariadb-server

When the installation is done, start the mariadb service and enable it to start at boot time with these systemctl commands.

systemctl restart mysql
systemctl enable mysql

MariaDB is started, now you can set the root password for mariadb with the command below.

mysql_secure_installation

Set your new MariaDB root password.

Set root password? [Y/n] Y
New password:
Re-enter new password:

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y

Next, try to connect with the mysql shell as root user.

mysql -u root -p
TYPE YOUR ROOT PASSWORD

You will see MySQL shell when everything worked correctly.

Now we need to create a new database and a new user for Invoice Ninja. I will create a new database named 'ninjadb', a new user 'ninja' with password 'aqwe123'. Please choose a different and secure password for your installation!

Create them with the mysql query below. Create a new database, create new user and password, grant database to the new user with a password.

create database ninjadb;
create user ninja@localhost identified by 'aqwe123';
grant all privileges on ninjadb.* to ninja@localhost identified by 'aqwe123';
flush privileges;

Install and Configure MariaDB for Invoice Ninja

MariaDB has been installed and a new database and user for Invoice Ninja were created.

Step 3 - Install and Configure PHP7.0-FPM

Invoice Ninja is based on PHP, so we need to install PHP to the system. We will use PHP7.0-FPM for this Invoice Ninja installation.

Install PHP7.0-FPM and other PHP extensions needed by Invoice Ninja with the command below.

apt-get install -y php7.0-fpm php7.0-gd php7.0-xml php7.0-mysql php7.0-zip php7.0-mbstring php7.0-mcrypt php7.0-curl php7.0-gmp

After the installation, go to the PHP configuration directory and edit the php.ini file.

cd /etc/php/7.0/
vim fpm/php.ini

Uncomment the CGI line below and change the value to 0.

cgi.fix_pathinfo=0

Save and exit.

Edit php.ini file in the cli directory.

vim cli/php.ini

Uncomment the CGI line below and change the value to 0.

cgi.fix_pathinfo=0

Save and exit.

Next, start PHP7.0-FPM and enable it to start at boot time.

systemctl restart php7.0-fpm
systemctl enable php7.0-fpm

By default, PHP7.0-FPM is running with a socket file, check it with the command below and you will see the PHP socket file as shown in the screenshot.

netstat -pl

Configure PHP7.0-FPM on Ubuntu 16.04

PHP7.0-FPM and all extensions needed by Invoice Ninja are installed.

Step 4 - Install and Configure Invoice Ninja

In this step, we will download and configure Invoice Ninja. First, install unzip on your system.

apt-get install -y unzip

Go to the '/var/www' directory and download the Invoice Ninja source code with the wget command.

cd /var/www/
wget https://download.invoiceninja.com/ninja-v3.1.0.zip

Extract the Invoice Ninja zip file and go to the 'ninja' directory.

unzip ninja-v3.1.0.zip
cd ninja/

For the Laravel project, we need to install the composer dependency manager for PHP. It's available in the Ubuntu repository, so we can install it with the apt command.

apt-get install -y composer

Next, install Invoice Ninja dependencies with the composer command below.

composer install --no-dev -o
  • --no-dev : Disables installation of require-dev packages
  • -o : Optimize autoloader during autoloader dump

When the dependency installation is done, copy the .env file and edit with vim.

cp .env.example .env
vim .env

Change the value of database settings below.

DB_DATABASE=ninjadb
DB_USERNAME=ninja
DB_PASSWORD=aqwe123

Save and exit.

environment setup for Invoice Ninja

Next, edit the database configuration in the config directory.

vim config/database.php

We are using MariaDB/MySQL database, go to the MySQL line 55.

'database'  => env('DB_DATABASE', 'ninjadb'),
'username'  => env('DB_USERNAME', 'ninja'),
'password'  => env('DB_PASSWORD', 'aqwe123'),

Replace the password with the one that you have set for the ninja user!

Save and exit.

Invoice Ninja Database Configuration

All configuration files are edited. Next, migrate the database with the command below.

php artisan migrate

You will be asked to run the command, type 'yes' and press Enter.

Invoice Ninja Migrate Database

Next, seed the database with all records.

php artisan db:seed

Type 'yes' and press Enter to confirm.

Invoice Ninja Seed Tables

Generate a new application key for the Laravel project Invoice Ninja.

php artisan key:generate

You will see the application key.

Edit the app.php file with vim.

vim config/app.php

Go to the APP_KEY line 85 and paste the key we generated.

'key' => env('APP_KEY', 'base64:0o5QLWbNeDCNer064+600Hl8oJ20OPCIymadKJQ1RGo='),

Save and exit.

Finally, change the owner of '/var/www/ninja' directory to 'www-data' user and group.

cd /var/www/
chown -R www-data:www-data ninja/

Invoice Ninja is configured and ready for the installation.

Step 5 - Configure SSL and Virtual Host

In this step, we will generate an SSL Certificate file with the OpenSSL command and create new virtual host configuration for Invoice Ninja. If you are on a live server, you can use a free SSL from Let's Encrypt instead of generating a self-signed SSL cert with OpenSSL.

Create a new 'cert' directory for the SSL files.

mkdir -p /etc/nginx/cert/

Run the openssl command below to generate the certificate files.

openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out /etc/nginx/cert/ninja.crt -keyout /etc/nginx/cert/ninja.key

Change the permission of the certificate files to '600'.

chmod 600 /etc/nginx/cert/*

Generate SSL Certificate for Invoice Ninja

Next, go to the Nginx directory and create a new virtual host configuration file named 'ninja'.

cd /etc/nginx/
vim sites-available/ninja

Paste virtual host configuration below.

server {
    # Your Domain Name - hakase-labs.co
    listen      80;
    server_name ninja.co www.ninja.co;

    # Rewrite redirect to https
    add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=2592000;
    rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri? permanent;
}

server {
    # Your Domain Name - hakase-labs.co
    listen      443 default;
    server_name ninja.co www.ninja.co;

    # Enable SSL for Invoice Ninja
    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate     /etc/nginx/cert/ninja.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/cert/ninja.key;
    ssl_session_timeout 5m;

    ssl_ciphers               'AES128+EECDH:AES128+EDH:!aNULL';
    ssl_protocols              TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

    # Invoice Ninja web root files
    root /var/www/ninja/public;

    index index.html index.htm index.php;

    charset utf-8;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location = /robots.txt  { access_log off; log_not_found off; }

    # Access and Error Log for Invoice Ninja
    access_log  /var/log/nginx/ininja.access.log;
    error_log   /var/log/nginx/ininja.error.log;

    sendfile off;

    # Handle PHP Applications
    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_intercept_errors off;
        fastcgi_buffer_size 16k;
        fastcgi_buffers 4 16k;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

Save and exit.

Enable the ninja virtual host and test the Nginx configuration, make sure there is no error.

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/ninja /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t

Now restart the nginx web server.

systemctl restart nginx

Invoice Ninja Virtual Host Installed

The Invoice Ninja virtual host configuration is finished.

Step 6 - Finishing the Installation and Testing

Open your web browser and type in the Invoice Ninja URL: ninja.co. You will be redirected to the https connection and setup page.

Invoice Ninja Installation

Type in the Application Settings, Database Connection, Email Settings, User Details and check the Invoice Ninja TOS.

Invoice Ninja Installation Configuration setup

Click 'Submit' and you will be redirected to the login page of Invoice Ninja.

Type in your email and password, then press 'LOGIN'.

You will see the Invoice Ninja Dashboard.

Invoice Ninja Admin Dashboard

Invoice Ninja Settings Page.

Invoice Ninja Setting Page

Invoice Ninja Installed with Nginx and MariaDB on Ubuntu 16.04.

Reference

Share this page:

4 Comment(s)