monica/docs/installation/debian.md

Running it on Debian Stretch

1. Install the required packages:

sudo apt install apache2 mariadb-server php7.0 php7.0-mysql php7.0-xml \
    php7.0-intl php7.0-mbstring git curl

2. Clone the repository

You may install Monica by simply closing the repository. Consider cloning the repository into any folder, example here in /var/www/monica directory:

sudo git clone https://github.com/monicahq/monica.git /var/www/monica

You should check out a tagged version of Monica since master branch may not always be stable. Find the latest official version on the release page

cd /var/www/monica
# Clone the desired version
sudo git checkout tags/v1.6.2

3. Change permissions on the new folder

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/monica

4. Install nodejs (this is needed for npm)

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_9.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

5. Install composer

Download and install the binary by following the Command-line installation of composer.

Move it to the bin directory.

sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

6. Setup the database

First make the database a bit more secure.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Next log in with the root account to configure the database.

sudo mysql -uroot -p

Create a database called 'monica'.

CREATE DATABASE monica;

Create a user called 'monica' and its password 'strongpassword'.

CREATE USER 'monica'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strongpassword';

We have to authorize the new user on the monica db so that he is allowed to change the database.

GRANT ALL ON monica.* TO 'monica'@'localhost';

And finally we apply the changes and exit the database.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

7. Configure Monica

cd /var/www/monica then run these steps with sudo:

1. cp .env.example .env to create your own version of all the environment variables needed for the project to work.
2. Update .env to your specific needs. Don't forget to set DB_USERNAME and DB_PASSWORD with the settings used behind.
3. Run composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist --no-suggest --optimize-autoloader --no-dev --ignore-platform-reqs to install all packages.
4. Run npm install to install all the front-end dependencies and tools needed to compile assets.
5. Run npm run production to compile js and css assets.
6. Run php artisan key:generate to generate an application key. This will set APP_KEY with the right value automatically.
7. Run php artisan setup:production to run the migrations, seed the database and symlink folders.
8. Optional: run php artisan passport:install to create the access tokens required for the API (Optional).

8. Configure cron job

As recommended by the generic installation instructions we create a cronjob which runs artisan schedule:run every minute.

For this execute this command:

sudo crontab -e

And then add this line to the bottom of the window that opens.

* * * * * sudo -u www-data php /var/www/monica/artisan schedule:run

9. Configure Apache webserver

We need to enable the rewrite module of the Apache webserver:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Edit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf file.

• Update DocumentRoot property to:

DocumentRoot /var/www/monica/public

• and add a new Directory directive:

<Directory /var/www/monica/public>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Finally restart Apache.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Monica will be up and running to http://localhost.