How to Install Crater on NetBSD

Crater is an open-source invoicing application that is built on Laravel, one of the most popular PHP web application frameworks. In this tutorial, we will go through the steps to install Crater on NetBSD.

Prerequisites

Before we start with the installation process, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

• A server running NetBSD
• Apache or Nginx installed
• PHP 7.2+
• Composer

Step 1: Download and Extract Crater

First, you need to download the latest version of Crater from GitHub. We will use Git to download the code from the repository.

$ git clone https://github.com/crater-invoice/crater.git

After cloning the repository, navigate to the directory where you have downloaded Crater and extract it using the following command.

$ tar -xzf crater-v3.0.3.tar.gz

This will extract the files to a folder named "crater". Rename this folder to "craterapp" and move it to the location where you want to install it.

Step 2: Install Dependencies

Next, we need to install the dependencies required by Crater. Navigate to the "craterapp" folder using the following command:

$ cd /path/to/craterapp

Now, run the following command to install the dependencies using Composer.

$ composer install

This will take some time to complete as it will download and install all the dependencies required by Crater.

Step 3: Configure the Environment

After installing the dependencies, we need to configure the environment by creating the ".env" file. We will use the example ".env" file provided with the Crater repository and make changes to it according to our environment.

$ cp .env.example .env

Open the ".env" file using any text editor and update the following values:

APP_NAME=
APP_URL=http://localhost
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=
DB_USERNAME=
DB_PASSWORD=

Here are the definitions for each value:

• APP_NAME: The name of your application.
• APP_URL: The URL of your application.
• DB_CONNECTION: The type of database connection you are using (MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.).
• DB_HOST: The IP address or hostname of your database server.
• DB_PORT: The port number of your database server.
• DB_DATABASE: The name of the database you want to use.
• DB_USERNAME: The username of the database user.
• DB_PASSWORD: The password of the database user.

Make sure to save the changes when you are done.

Step 4: Migrate the Database

After configuring the environment, we need to migrate the database tables to our database. Run the following command to migrate the database.

$ php artisan migrate

This will create all the necessary tables in our database.

Step 5: Start the Application

Finally, we can start the application using the built-in PHP development server. Run the following command to start the server.

$ php artisan serve --host=127.0.0.1 --port=8000

This will start the application on port 8000. Open your web browser and navigate to "http://localhost:8000" to access the application.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have covered the steps to install Crater on NetBSD. You have learned how to download and extract the code, install dependencies, configure the environment, migrate the database, and start the application. Now, you can use Crater to manage your invoicing needs on NetBSD.

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