Crater is a free, open-source invoicing tool that helps you to create, send and manage invoices. In this tutorial, we will guide you on how to install the Crater invoicing tool on OpenSUSE latest version.
Firstly, before we begin the installation of Crater, we need to install some packages on OpenSUSE that are required for Crater.
To do this, open the terminal and type in the following command:
sudo zypper install apache2 mysql-server php7 php7-mysqlnd php7-json php7-mbstring
Composer is a package manager for PHP applications. We need to install it on OpenSUSE to install the Crater tool.
To install Composer, run the following command in the terminal:
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
Once the installation is complete, verify the installation by typing composer in the terminal.
Next, we will download the latest version of Crater from Github. To do this, run the following command in the terminal:
sudo git clone https://github.com/CRATER-INVOICE/CRATER.git /var/www/htdocs/crater
This will clone the latest Crater version to the /var/www/htdocs/crater directory.
Once we have downloaded the Crater folder, we need to create a new MySQL database for Crater.
Run the following command to login to the MySQL server as the root user:
sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter the MySQL root password and then create a new database by typing the following command:
CREATE DATABASE craterdb;
Next, we need to create a new user and assign it to the newly created craterdb database:
CREATE USER 'crateruser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'newpassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON craterdb.* TO 'crateruser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Replace 'newpassword' with a strong password that you can remember.
Exit the MySQL client by typing exit on the terminal.
Navigate to the /var/www/htdocs/crater directory and run the following command:
sudo composer install
This will install all the dependencies required by the Crater invoicing tool.
Create a copy of the .env.example file and rename it to .env using the following command:
sudo cp .env.example .env
Next, open the .env file using a text editor and fill the required fields:
APP_URL=http://localhost:8000
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=craterdb
DB_USERNAME=crateruser
DB_PASSWORD=newpassword
MAIL_DRIVER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
MAIL_PORT=587
MAIL_USERNAME=
MAIL_PASSWORD=
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=tls
Save and close the file.
Run the following command to generate a new application key:
sudo php artisan key:generate
To create the Crater invoice tables, run the following command:
sudo php artisan migrate
This will create the required database tables.
Next, run the following command to populate the database with initial data:
sudo php artisan db:seed
To start the apache server, enter the following command on the terminal:
sudo systemctl start apache2
Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost/crater/public. You will be redirected to the Crater dashboard page.
In this tutorial, we have shown you how to install and setup Crater invoicing tool on OpenSUSE latest version. You can now use Crater to create, send, and manage your invoices effectively.
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