Business Management System: Install WebERP on Ubuntu 16.04

 

What Is WebERP Accounting and Business Management System

WebWEP is a totally web based accounting and business management system. It is particularly suitable for distributed businesses in wholesale, distribution and manufacturing. WebERP can be customized with third party complementary components and can also function as a web-shop or Retail Management System.

According to the project’s web site “the growth of webERP adoption has been entirely through word of mouth testimony – there has never been a marketing or advertising push to “sell” webERP. Of course there are no funds nor commercial incentive to do so for free software. This growth is built on reputation and solid practical functionality that works as tried and tested by an increasing number of businesses.”

WebERP Main Features

WebERP has many features:

  • Runs on any web-server that can accommodate PHP – can use an ISP instead of having/maintaining own server
  • Minimal use of javascript for maximum compatibility with all web-browsers and web enabled devices. Some small amounts used to improve error-trapping and user interactivity.
  • Produces reports to Portable Document Format – PDF for accurate positioning of text
  • All reports and scripts easily modifiable PHP text
  • All processing on the server and no installation required on client machines
  • Fully utf-8 compliant. PDF reports produced using adobe CIF fonts for lightweight PDFs using utf-8 character set for any language
  • Multi-theme – each user can see the interface in their preferred graphical theme
  • The underlying code of the system is written in a way so as to maximise it’s readability for those new to PHP coding. The idea being that business users will be able to administer and adapt the system to exactly suit their needs.
  • Users can be defined with access to only certain options using a role based model
  • Options applicable to certain roles can be graphically configured and users defined as fulfilling a given role.
  • Incorrect entry of password (more than 3 times) blocks the account until reset by the System Administrator. This prevents password crackers from breaking the security.
  • Pages can be encrypted using SSL and webERP can be configured to only display pages using SSL to ensure that all information passing over the internet is encrypted.
  • Very flexible taxation options suitable for Canada, US, South Africa, UK, Australia, NZ and most other countries
  • Tax rates dependent on the type of product – using tax categories
  • Tax rates dependent on the location of the warehouse dispatched from
  • Tax rates dependent on the location of the customer
  • Multiple taxes payable to different tax authorities
  • Each tax posted to different user-definable general ledger accounts – if linked to AR/AP

In this guide we will show how to install WebERP on an Ubuntu 16.04 server with an installed LAMP stack.

Prerequisites

Install a LAMP stack (you can follow our guide), and then go on with the MariaDB configuration.

MariaDB Configuration

We need to create a new database and user for WebERP. First of all, login to MariaDB shell:

$ mysql -u root -p

Create a new user for WebERP. In this guide we will create the weberp_usr user. Execute the following MariaDB query:

MariaDB [(none)]>CREATE USER 'weberp_usr'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'usr_strong_password';

Next, create a new database. We will name it weberpdb:

MariaDB [(none)]>CREATE DATABASE weberpdb;

Grant all the privileges to weberp_usr user on the new database:

MariaDB [(none)]>GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON weberpdb.* TO 'weberp_usr'@'localhost';

Flush the privileges and close the shell:

MariaDB [(none)]>FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]>EXIT;

At this point, we are ready to install WebERP.

WebERP Installation

Download WebERP

The latest version of WebERP can be downloaded from their official site. We will do it with the following wget command:

$ wget https://excellmedia.dl.sourceforge.net/project/web-erp/webERP4.14.1.zip

Unzip and move the extracted directory to the Apache Web Root directory:

$ unzip webERP4.14.1.zip
# cp -r webERP /var/www/html/weberp

Change the ownership of the weberp directory:

# chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/weberp

Create a new Apache Virtual Host for WebERP

Now, create a new Virtual Host file:

# $EDITOR /etc/apache2/sites-available/weberp.conf

Paste the following content:

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerAdmin admin@example.com
   DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/weberp/"
   ServerName example.com
   ServerAlias www.example.com
   <Directory "/var/www/html/weberp/">
      Options FollowSymLinks
      AllowOverride All
      Order allow,deny
      allow from all
   </Directory>
   ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/weberp-error_log
   CustomLog /var/log/apache2/weberp-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

Save and close the file, and then activate the new virtual host, by executing the following command:

# a2ensite weberp

Restart Apache:

# systemctl restart apache2

Firewall Configuration

On simple HTTP connections, WebERP runs on port 80. Allow this port through the UFW firewall by executing the command:

# ufw allow 80/tcp

And that’s all.

Final Installation Step

The last step is to open a web browser and go to the URL example.com. The browser will redirect to the WebERP Welcome Page. Starting from that page, you can finish the configuration in your browser.

Conclusion

In this guide we have seen how to install WebERP accounting and business management system on a server powered by Ubuntu 16.04 and Apache as web server.

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