How to Install InvoicePlane on Ubuntu 16.04

InvoicePlane is a free, open source invoicing application. Its source code can be found on this Github repository.
In this tutorial, we will teach you how to install InvoicePlane on a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 Vultr instance.
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Requirements

• Nginx
• MySQL version 5.5 or greater
• PHP version 7.0
• The following PHP extensions must be installed and activated:
  • php-gd
  • php-hash
  • php-json
  • php-mbstring
  • php-mcrypt
  • php-mysqli
  • php-openssl
  • php-recode
  • php-xmlrpc
  • php-zlib

Before you begin

Check the Ubuntu version.

lsb_release -ds
# Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS

Create a new non-root user account with sudo access and switch to it.

adduser johndoe --gecos "John Doe"
usermod -aG sudo johndoe
su - johndoe

NOTE: Replace ‘johndoe’ with your username.
Set up the timezone.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Ensure that your system is up to date.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install ‘build-essential’ and unzip packages.

sudo apt install -y build-essential unzip

Install PHP and required PHP extensions

Install PHP and necessary PHP extensions.

sudo apt install -y php7.0 php7.0-cli php7.0-fpm php7.0-gd php7.0-json php7.0-mbstring php7.0-mcrypt php7.0-mysql php7.0-xmlrpc php7.0-common

Check the version.

php -v

Install MySQL

Install MySQL.

sudo apt install -y mysql-server-5.7

Check the version.

mysql --version

Run ‘mysql_secure’ installation script to improve MySQL security.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Connect to the MySQL shell as the root user.

mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:

Create an empty MySQL database and user for InvoicePlane; be sure to remember the credentials.

CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Exit MySQL.
exit

Install Nginx

Install Nginx.

sudo apt install -y nginx

Check the version.

sudo nginx -v

Configure Nginx for InvoicePlane. Run ‘sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/invoiceplane.conf’ and populate the file with the following configuration.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name example.com;
    root /var/www/invoiceplane;
    index index.php index.html;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }
    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        try_files $uri =404;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
    }
}

Activate the new ‘invoiceplane.conf’ configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled directory.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/invoiceplane.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Test the configuration.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Install InvoicePlane

Download the latest stable version of InvoicePlane and extract the archive.

cd /var/www/
sudo curl -O -J -L https://invoiceplane.com/download/v1.5.9
sudo unzip v1.5.9.zip
sudo rm v1.5.9.zip
sudo mv ip invoiceplane

Navigate to the ‘/var/www/invoiceplane’ folder.

cd /var/www/invoiceplane

Make a copy of the ‘ipconfig.php.example’ file and rename the copy ‘ipconfig.php’.

sudo cp ipconfig.php.example ipconfig.php

Open the ‘ipconfig.php’ file and add your URL to it.

sudo vim ipconfig.php

# Something like this
IP_URL=http://example.com

NOTE: Don’t forget to replace the ‘http://example.com’ URL with your own URL.
Change ownership of the ‘/var/www/invoiceplane’ directory to ‘www-data’.

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

Run the InvoicePlane installer from your web browser and follow the instructions.
http://your-domain.com/index.php/setup

Once the installation has finished, you may log into InvoicePlane using the email address and password you have chosen during the installation.
If you want to secure your installation, then you may disable the setup. To do so, replace the line ‘DISABLE_SETUP=false’ with ‘DISABLE_SETUP=true’ in your ‘ipconfig.php’ file.