Crater is a free, open-source invoicing software. It is developed using Laravel PHP framework and provides a simple and intuitive interface for generating and managing invoices. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Crater on your Arch Linux system.
Before proceeding with the installation, make sure that your system meets the following requirements:
To install required packages for Crater, run the following command in the terminal:
sudo pacman -S apache php php-apache mariadb composer git
Next, install and configure the database server. You can install either MySQL or MariaDB. We will install MariaDB for this tutorial.
To install MariaDB, run the following command:
sudo pacman -S mariadb
Once the installation is complete, start and enable the MariaDB service:
sudo systemctl start mariadb
sudo systemctl enable mariadb
Now, run the following command to secure the MariaDB installation:
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Follow the instructions on the screen and provide a secure password for the root user.
After securing the installation, create a new database for Crater:
sudo mysql -u root -p
MariaDB> CREATE DATABASE crater;
MariaDB> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON crater.* TO 'crateruser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
MariaDB> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB> EXIT;
Replace the username and password with your own values.
Now, install and configure Apache web server to serve Crater.
Install Apache web server:
sudo pacman -S apache
Start and enable the Apache service:
sudo systemctl start httpd
sudo systemctl enable httpd
Open the Apache configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Add the following lines at the end of the file:
<Directory /var/www/html/crater>
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
Save and close the file.
Now, create a new virtual host configuration file for Crater:
sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/crater.conf
Add the following lines to the file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/crater/public
ServerName your_domain.com
<Directory /var/www/html/crater>
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Replace your_domain.com with your own domain.
Save and close the file.
Restart the Apache service to apply the changes:
sudo systemctl restart httpd
Next, install and configure PHP for Crater.
Install PHP and required modules:
sudo pacman -S php php-fpm php-gd php-mysql php-curl php-intl php-json php-mbstring
Enable PHP-FPM service:
sudo systemctl enable php-fpm
Edit the PHP configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/php/php.ini
Uncomment the following lines in the file:
extension=curl
extension=gd
extension=mcrypt
extension=pdo_mysql
extension=intl
Save and close the file.
Restart the PHP-FPM service to apply the changes:
sudo systemctl restart php-fpm
Now, clone the Crater source code from Github:
git clone https://github.com/bytefury/crater.git /var/www/html/crater
Change the ownership of the Crater directory to the Apache user:
sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/crater
Now, navigate to the Crater directory:
cd /var/www/html/crater
Install the required PHP libraries:
sudo composer install --no-dev --no-scripts
Copy the .env.example file to .env:
cp .env.example .env
Generate the application key:
php artisan key:generate
Edit the .env file and update the following settings:
APP_URL=http://your_domain.com
DB_DATABASE=crater
DB_USERNAME=crateruser
DB_PASSWORD=password
Save and close the file.
Run the database migration:
php artisan migrate
Clear the configuration cache:
php artisan config:cache
You have successfully installed and configured Crater on your Arch Linux system.
In this tutorial, we have shown you how to install Crater on your Arch Linux system. Crater is a powerful invoicing application that can help you manage your invoices and payments with ease. With its simple and intuitive interface, you can easily generate invoices, track payments, and manage clients.
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