SuiteCRM is a free and open-source customer relationship management (CRM) platform that allows businesses to manage their customer interactions, sales, and marketing activities. In this article, we will discuss how to install SuiteCRM on a Rocky Linux 8 system, a community-driven Linux distribution that is built using the Linux From Scratch (LFS) guide.

Before we begin, it is important to note that this guide assumes that you have a working Rocky Linux 8 installation and that you have root privileges on your system.

To start, we will first need to install some dependencies that are required by SuiteCRM. This can be done by running the following command:

rocky-common-dependencies.x86_64

This command will install all of the necessary dependencies, including PHP, MySQL, and Apache, which are required to run SuiteCRM.

Next, we will need to download the latest version of SuiteCRM from the official website. At the time of writing, the latest version is SuiteCRM 7.11.17. You can download the file using the following command:

wget <https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/suitecrm/SuiteCRM%207.11.17/suitecrm-7.11.17.zip>

Once the download is complete, we will need to unzip the downloaded file and move it to the directory where SuiteCRM will be installed. By default, this directory is /var/www/html/suitecrm, but you can choose to install it in a different location if you prefer. To unzip the downloaded file and move it to the installation directory, use the following commands:

unzip suitecrm-7.11.17.zip
mv suitecrm-7.11.17 /var/www/html/suitecrm

Now that the SuiteCRM files are in the correct location, we can create a new database for SuiteCRM to use. This can be done using the mysql command-line client, as shown below:

mysql -u root -p
mysql> CREATE DATABASE suitecrm;
mysql> GRANT ALL ON suitecrm.* TO 'suitecrm'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> QUIT;

In the commands above, we create a new database called suitecrm, grant access to the suitecrm user, and set the password for the user to password. You can choose different names and passwords if you prefer.

Once the database has been created, we can configure SuiteCRM to use it. This is done by editing the config_si.php file in the SuiteCRM installation directory and modifying the following lines:

$sugar_config['dbconfig']['db_host_name'] = 'localhost';
$sugar_config['dbconfig']['db_user_name'] = 'suitecrm';
$sugar_config['dbconfig']['db_password'] = 'password';
$sugar_config['dbconfig']['db_name'] = 'suitecrm';

Make sure to replace the values with the names and passwords that you used when creating the database.

Now we configure Apache2 to run SuiteCRM on Rocky Linux 8, you will need to edit the Apache configuration file, which is typically located at /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.

First, you will need to add the following lines to the end of the file, which will enable the Apache mod_rewrite module, which is required to run SuiteCRM:

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Next, you will need to add a new virtual host to the Apache configuration file, which will define the settings for SuiteCRM. You can do this by adding the following lines to the file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/suitecrm
    ServerName suitecrm.example.com

    <Directory /var/www/html/suitecrm>
        Options -Indexes
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Make sure to replace suitecrm.example.com with the actual hostname or IP address of your server.

Save the changes to the Apache configuration file and restart the Apache web server using the following command:

service httpd restart

Once the Apache web server has been restarted, you should be able to access SuiteCRM at the following URL:

<http://suitecrm.example.com>

This will bring up the SuiteCRM installation wizard, where you can follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Once the installation is complete, you can log in to SuiteCRM using the default username and password, which are admin and password, respectively.

Once you have logged in, you can start using SuiteCRM to manage your customer relationships, sales, and marketing activities. Some of the features that are included in SuiteCRM are the ability to track and manage leads, create and manage customer accounts, and generate reports and analytics.

In conclusion, installing SuiteCRM on Rocky Linux 8 is a straightforward process that only requires a few simple steps. By following the instructions outlined in this guide, you should be able to successfully install and use SuiteCRM on your Rocky Linux 8 system.