Crater is an open-source invoicing app that allows you to manage your invoicing, expenses, and customers. It is built using the Laravel framework and Vue.js. In this tutorial, we will explain the steps to install Crater on Linux Mint.
Before you begin with the installation process, make sure that you have the following prerequisites:
Let's start with the installation process:
The first step is to clone Crater from Github. Open the terminal and navigate to the directory where you want to store the cloned repository.
cd /path/to/directory/
Now, clone the Crater repository by executing the following command:
git clone https://github.com/crater-invoice/crater.git
After cloning the repository, navigate to the project directory and install the dependencies by executing the following command:
cd /path/to/directory/crater
composer install
npm install && npm run dev
Crater requires some environment variables to be set for it to function correctly. Copy the .env.example file to .env by executing the following command:
cp .env.example .env
After copying the file, open it using your favorite text editor and update the following variables:
Save the changes and exit the file.
Create a new database dedicated to Crater by executing the following command:
mysql -u root -p
This will take you to the MySQL console. Enter your root password when prompted. Now, execute the following command to create a new database:
CREATE DATABASE crater_db;
Replace "crater_db" with the name of your database. Next, create a new MySQL user and grant permissions to the database by executing the following commands:
CREATE USER 'crateruser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-password';
GRANT ALL ON crater_db.* TO 'crateruser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Replace "crateruser" with the desired username and "your-password" with your desired password.
Exit the MySQL console by executing the following command:
exit
After creating the database, navigate to the Crater project directory and execute the following command to migrate the database:
php artisan migrate
Finally, start the application by executing the following command:
php artisan serve
This will start the Laravel development server. Open your web browser and navigate to the URL where your application is hosted. You should see the Crater login page.
If you want to deploy Crater on a production server, you should configure a web server like Apache or Nginx to serve the application.
In this tutorial, you learned how to install Crater on Linux Mint Latest. You also learned how to clone the repository, install dependencies, set environment variables, create a database, migrate the database, and start the application. Now, you are ready to use Crater to manage your invoicing, expenses, and customers.
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