Freeside:3:Documentation:Installation

Introduction

Install Freeside on a firewalled, private server, not a public (web, RADIUS, etc.) server.

Prerequisites

Packages

Perl, minimum version 5.8.4
Apache, SSL highly recommended)
mod_perl
- If compiling your own mod_perl, make sure you set the EVERYTHING=1 compile-time option
A transactional database engine supported by Perl's DBI.
- PostgreSQL is recommended (v7.2 or later, v8.1 or later recommended).
- MySQL (v4.1 or later, v5 recommended) is supported. DBIx::DBSchema 0.35 or later is required.

Note: the above only applies to the database used by the Freeside software itself. Freeside can integrate with RADIUS and other servers running a different database than the backend.

TeX (teTeX / TeX Live) and Ghostscript (included with most distributions) (Optional, enables typeset invoices)

Perl modules

Popular modules

These modules are included in most distributions.

libwww-perl (CPAN: "install Bundle::LWP")
DBI
- DBD for your database engine (DBD::Pg for PostgreSQL or DBD::mysql for MySQL)
Date::Manip
DateTime
Frontier::RPC2
GD::Barcode
IPC::Run
IPC::Run3
JSON
MailTools (CPAN: "install Mail::Internet")
MIME::Tools (Note: do not use version 5.423)
Net::SNMP
SOAP::Lite
TimeDate (CPAN: "install Date::Format")
XML::LibXML
XML::Simple

Common modules

These modules are included in many distributions.

Chart (CPAN: "install Chart::Base")
Cache::Cache
DateTime::Format::Strptime
DateTime-Format-Natural
Email::Sender
Email::Sender::Transport::SMTP::TLS
Excel::Writer::XLSX
HTML::Mason
Locale-Codes (CPAN: "install Locale::Country")
Locale::SubCountry
Log::Dispatch
NetAddr::IP
Net::Ping
Net::Ping::External
Number::Format
Spreadsheet::WriteExcel
String::Approx
Text::CSV_XS
Term::ReadKey
Text::Template

Additional modules

Optional modules

Apache::DBI (recommended for better web interface performance)
Fax::Hylafax::Client (only if faxing invoices)
POE (only if using alternate standalone XML-RPC server)
Sys::SigAction (only if port combining with network monitoring)

Note on missing modules

Prerequisites missing from the documentation? Please add them (in the appropriate section).

Download Freeside

Get the source from one of the normal places
- Open source link from the home page
- Anonymous git
Uncompress the tarball

Installation

System User

Add the user and group `freeside' to your system.

Database User

Allow the freeside user full access to the freeside database.

with Postgresql:

[ as postgres/pgsql user ]
$ createuser -P freeside 
Enter password for new role: 
Enter it again: 
Shall the new role be a superuser? (y/n) n
Shall the new role be allowed to create databases? (y/n) y
Shall the new role be allowed to create more new roles? (y/n) n

or with MySQL:

$ mysqladmin -u root password 'set_a_root_database_password'
$ mysql -u root -p
mysql> GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,INDEX,ALTER,CREATE,DROP on freeside.* TO freeside@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'set_a_freeside_database_password';

Database Access

Edit the top-level Makefile:
- Configure the DATASOURCE to your DBI data source
  - Set the DB_TYPE (Pg or mysql)
  - See the DBI manpage and the manpage for your DBD for the exact syntax of your DBI data source.
- Set DB_PASSWORD to the freeside database user's password.

Database

Add the freeside database to your database engine:

with Postgres:

$ su freeside
$ createdb -E UTF8 freeside

or with MySQL:

$ mysqladmin -u freeside -p create freeside

Perl Modules

Build and install the Perl modules:

$ make perl-modules
$ su
# make install-perl-modules

Basic configuration Files

Create the necessary configuration files:

$ su
# make create-config

Invoice Typesetting

If you are using typeset invoices, install fslongtable.sty:

$ su
# make install-texmf

Apache & Web GUI

Configuration
- Enable mod_perl
- Run as User freeside
  - If you have other things being served by Apache on this machine (hopefully internal things), it is recommended to run a separate iteration of Apache as the freeside user.

Edit the Makefile and set FREESIDE_DOCUMENT_ROOT.

To install the web interface, run:

$ su
# make install-docs

Edit the Makefile and set APACHE_VERSION to 1 (mod_perl v1.XX), 1.99 (mod_perl v2 prereleases up to and including 1.999_21, shipped with Debian 3.1, CentOS/RHEL 4, others), or 2 (mod_perl v2 proper and prereleases 1.999_22 and later).

Edit the Makefile and set APACHE_CONF to the location of an Apache include directory (not a file). (If your Apache doesn't have an existing include directory, create one and add a line such as "Include /etc/apache/conf.d" to httpd.conf.)

To install the apache configs, run:

$ su
# make install-apache

Note: Do not attempt to restart Apache (httpd) yet.

Initialize Data

As the freeside UNIX user, run freeside-setup -d your.domain.name to create the database tables and initial data.

$ su freeside
$ freeside-setup -d example.com

Additional System Users

Create the Freeside system users:

$ su freeside
$ freeside-adduser -g 1 fs_queue
$ freeside-adduser -g 1 fs_daily
$ freeside-adduser -g 1 fs_selfservice

Create Freeside Users

Create one or more Freeside users (your internal sales/tech folks, not customer accounts):

$ su freeside
$ freeside-adduser -g 1 username
$ htpasswd /usr/local/etc/freeside/htpasswd username
Password:

Additional users can be added using the same command or from the web interface.

Queue Daemon

freeside-queued was installed with the Perl modules. Start it now and ensure that is run upon system startup (Do this manually, or edit the top-level Makefile, replacing INIT_FILE with the appropriate location on your system and QUEUED_USER with the username of a Freeside user you created above, and run make install-init)

RT

Either install the integrated RT ticketing system, or delete the ticket_system entry from your conf table.

su freeside
psql freeside
delete from conf where name = 'ticket_system';

Finalize

Restart Apache (httpd) and log into the web interface using the username and password you entered above.

Now proceed to the initial administration of your installation.