In this tutorial, we will walk through the steps to install Kimai, a free and open-source time-tracking software, on Alpine Linux Latest.
Before we proceed with the installation, make sure that you have the following prerequisites:
The first step is to ensure that the system is updated to its latest version. Run the following command:
sudo apk update && sudo apk upgrade
Kimai is a PHP-based application, so we need to install the necessary dependencies including PHP, PHP extensions, Apache webserver, and a database management system.
To install PHP and its extensions, run the following command:
sudo apk add php7 php7-apache2 php7-json php7-session php7-ctype php7-dom php7-gd php7-mbstring php7-mysqli php7-tokenizer php7-xml php7-curl
To install the Apache webserver and MariaDB as the database management system, run the following command:
sudo apk add apache2 apache2-ssl php7-apache2 mariadb mariadb-client
After the installation is complete, start and enable the Apache webserver and MariaDB service so that they start automatically on system boot:
sudo rc-service apache2 start
sudo rc-update add apache2
sudo rc-service mariadb start
sudo rc-update add mariadb
The next step is to download the Kimai archive file from the official website at https://www.kimai.org/download/.
Extract the downloaded archive file to the webroot directory of Apache webserver:
sudo wget https://github.com/kevinpapst/kimai2/releases/download/1.14.1/kimai-1.14.1.zip
sudo unzip kimai-1.14.1.zip -d /var/www/localhost/htdocs/
Next, set the proper permissions of the Kimai directory:
sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/localhost/htdocs/kimai
By default, the Apache webserver listens on port 80. To access Kimai, we need to configure the Apache virtual host.
Create a new Apache virtual host configuration file named kimai.conf:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf.d/kimai.conf
Add the following configuration:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin@example.com
DocumentRoot "/var/www/localhost/htdocs/kimai/public"
ServerName example.com
ErrorLog "/var/log/apache2/kimai-error_log"
CustomLog "/var/log/apache2/kimai-access_log" common
<Directory "/var/www/localhost/htdocs/kimai/public">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Replace the ServerAdmin and ServerName values with your own values.
Save and close the file.
We will now secure the MariaDB installation by running the following command:
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Follow the prompts to set the root user password, remove the anonymous user, disable remote root access, and remove the test database.
Log in to the MariaDB shell:
sudo mysql -u root -p
Create a new Kimai database:
CREATE DATABASE kimai;
Create a new user and grant permissions to the Kimai database:
CREATE USER 'kimai'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON kimai.* TO 'kimai'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Replace the 'password' value with your own password.
Exit the MariaDB shell:
exit
Open a web browser and navigate to http://example.com to access the Kimai installation page.
Follow the prompts to complete the installation, including entering the database details created in Step 6.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Kimai on Alpine Linux Latest. You can now use Kimai to track your time and improve your productivity.
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