Snipe-IT

Snipe-IT is open source software built on Laravel 5.0.

September 14 2021

Importing assets in Snipe-IT

Jay Singh Open Source, Snipe-IT, Uncategorized 0

In this blog, we will look at how to import assets in Snipe-IT. You can import assets in bulk if required. There are two ways to import assets, first one is through web interface and the second one is command line. Both ways have their pros and cons.

This post is still in development…

Last updated 14th Sept 2021

Let’s have look the difference in a below table:

Web Interface	Command Line
Easy to use, user friendly	Need access to the command line and complex
Good for small files, it chokes while importing large records	Works seamless while importing larger imports
Can’t automate	Automation can be made

Importing through Web Interface

In this section, we will actually go through the steps to import assets through web interface. In order achieve this step you need access to SNIPE-IT’s web interface as an admin.

Login as admin on SNIPE-IT and click on import
Select file and click on import
Click on process and you will see a screen to select different options.
Click on process and importer will redirect the page after process the changes
Assets are imported successfully

What if you would like to update existing assets through CSV? Yes, you can do this. Update any value in the existing used CSV file and then import that file by checking the box “Update Existing Values”.

Update CSV file, in our case I will update just a serial number of SPARE-01
Import the updated CSV file by following the steps 2 to 5 from the first section
Check the updated serial number, it should reflect the changes on the web interface as well

Importing through command line

This is slightly complex than using web interface to import assets. Let’s have a look at the steps which we need to go through.

Login to your SNIPE-IT Server
Save your import file on the server
Open File Explorer and browse to the root directory where SNIPE-IT is installed.
Click on file and open PowerShell as an administrator
Run the following command. There are different switches available to achieve different results.
– Command
– Different Switches
For this test, we will be running the following command. It will import the assets from the mentioned location in the command and it will also output the results in the PowerShell.

Asset import file

Download the file which is used in this example below:

sample-assets.csv Download

February 21 2021

SNIPE-IT Installation on Ubuntu Server (NGINX)

Jay Singh Open Source, Snipe-IT 39

In this blog post, we will look at SNIPE-IT installation on Ubuntu Server with NGINX web server.

Last updated on 9th of March 2021

Check-out step-by-step video demonstration of SNIPE-IT installation.

Requirements for this guide to follow

Ubuntu server up and running
Static IP assigned to the server
Internet connectivity
Logged in with user account created during Ubuntu server installation or Root user (logging in as root not recommended)

1. Connect to Ubuntu server

Highly recommend to use a SSH client for connectivity and it will make easy to copy/paste commands as compare to directly interacting with your Ubuntu server console.
I will be using Putty as SSH client. Here is the direct link to download Putty or you could use your preferred SSH client.

OpenSSH server status/installation

OpenSSH is already installed. You can check SSH server status

sudo service ssh status

If Open SSH server is not installed, you can install it by using the following commands:

sudo apt install OpenSSH-Server

Verify Open SSH server status

sudo service ssh status

Open SSH server’s configuration file is located here, file name is sshd_config. Open SSH should work out of the box, however, you can edit it if needed with your preferred choice of editor

cd /etc/ssh

2. Update/Upgrade installed packages

Update and upgrade installed packages on Ubuntu server. You will need to run this command as sudo and enter ‘y’ when prompted to confirm.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

3. Install NGINX, MySQL, PHP and PHP FPM

Install NGINX
```
sudo apt install nginx
```
Install MySQL
```
sudo apt install mysql-server
```

Install PHP and PHP-FPM

sudo add-apt-repository universe

sudo apt install php-fpm php-mysql

Check versions

MySQL server version
```
sudo mysql -V
```
NGINX version
```
sudo nginx -V
```
PHP Version
```
sudo php --version
```

Test Installation

NGINX: Browse to IP address of your server and you should see NGINX generic web page
MySQL: Run the following command to see the status of MySQL Server
```
sudo service mysql status
```

4. Create a new site and test PHP

In this step, we will create a new site for Snipe-IT, disable default site and test php. Also, we will restart the relevant services. We will come back to this later and update the root folder once SNIPE-IT is downloaded.

Create new site with name ams.teknex.com.au, you can update this name if you like to something else
```
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/ams.teknex.com.au
```

Add site content as follows, update Directory if you download Snipe-IT in a different folder and Server Name to your Ubuntu Server’s IP address

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    server_name  172.24.200.95;
    root   /var/www/html;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    
    access_log /var/log/nginx/ams.teknex.com.au.access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/ams.teknex.com.au.error.log;


    location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
      }

    location ~ \.php$ {
         include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
         include fastcgi_params;
         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
         fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    }
}

Line number	Config	Update
5	server_name	Enter your server’s IP Address/Host Name
9	access_log	Update name of your website
10	error_log	Update name of your website
20	location ~ \.php$	Update PHP-FPM version in fastcgi_pass

Easiest way to check PHP-FPM version is by typing the following in the terminal and hit tab. This should populate the value as shown below. For instance if your PHP-FPM version is 7.4 then enter the value as php7.4-fpm.

php-fpm

Enable new site

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/ams.teknex.com.au /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Disable default site

sudo unlink /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Restart Nginx
```
sudo service nginx restart
```

PHP: Create a simple PHP page and browse to IP_Address/phpinfo.php

sudo bash -c "echo -e '<?php\nphpinfo();\n?>' > /var/www/html/phpinfo.php"

Do not proceed further if PHP is not working

5. Download Snipe-IT

Clone recent version of Snipe-IT from GIT into a local folder snipeit.

Working directory is /var/www
```
cd /var/www/
```

Clone Snipe-IT to local folder snipeit

sudo git clone https://github.com/snipe/snipe-it snipeit

Make a copy of .env environmental file

cd /var/www/snipeit

sudo cp .env.example .env

If you like, you can have a quick look inside the .env file with nano editor. We will come back to this file later on. Don’t make any changes to the file and use Ctrl + X to exit
```
sudo nano .env
```

6. Configure MySQL Server

Run MySQL secure installation command line wizard and secure the installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

yes or no, if you would like to install Validate Password Plugin (I selected no for this in my lab environment)
The next part offers you to change the password for the root of MySQL and enter password twice
The next option to remove anonymous users, I will choose Yes
The next option to stop root login remotely, I would go for no
Reload privileges table: Yes
You will see, “All done”, once it is all done

7. Create an initial database and a user

In this step, we will create database, user and grant specific privileges to new user.

Database	snipeit_db
User	snipeit_user
Password	password

Login to MySQL server, provide password for MySQL root user when it prompts
```
sudo mysql -u root -p
```
Create new database snipeit_db
```
CREATE DATABASE snipeit_db;
```

Create new user snipeit_user

CREATE USER 'snipeit_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

Grant permissions to sipeit_user on database snipeit_db

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON snipeit_db.* TO 'snipeit_user'@'localhost';

Verify permissions
```
Show GRANTS FOR 'snipeit_user'@'localhost'; 
```
Flush privileges
```
flush privileges;
```
Quit
```
quit;
```
Restart MySQL service
```
sudo service mysql restart
```
Check MySQL service status
```
sudo service mysql status
```

8. Update .env file

Let’s update .env file with the required information.

cd /var/www/snipeit

sudo nano .env

Update the following:

App_URL
DB_DATABASE
DB_USERNAME
DB_PASSWORD

9. Update folder permissions

Update folder permissions in the Snipe-IT root directory

Working directory is /var/www/snipeit
```
cd /var/www/snipeit
```

Update permissions

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

sudo chmod -R 755 storage

sudo chmod -R 755 public/uploads

10. Download Composer

Working directory is logged in user’s home directory. In my case it is /home/snipeit

sudo curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

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

11. Install PHP dependencies

There are a number of PHP dependencies, ensure these all are successfully installed.
Working directory: Home directory of logged in user

sudo add-apt-repository universe

sudo apt-get install -y git unzip php php-curl php-mysql php-gd php-ldap php-zip php-mbstring php-xml php-bcmath php-tokenizer

12. Install Composer

Working directory: /var/www/snipeit

cd /var/www/snipeit

sudo composer install --no-dev --prefer-source

13. Generate App Key for .env file

Run the following command and enter yes when prompted

sudo php artisan key:generate

Verify the key generation

Open .env file and check APP_KEY value

sudo nano .env

14. Update Snipe-IT site

We created a site earlier and in this step we will update the root folder.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/ams.teknex.com.au

Update the root to the following:

/var/www/snipeit/public

Restart the web server

sudo service nginx restart

15. Snipe-IT pre-flight setup

Browse to IP address of your Ubuntu server and you should see the pre-flight page. Follow the prompts and you are done!!

Your feedback is important for us and other users. Leave it in the comments how did you go with your setup 🙂

October 18 2020

Snipe-IT installation on Ubuntu Server

Jay Singh Open Source, Snipe-IT 21

This post is refined version of original LinkedIn post Snipe-IT Configuration On Ubuntu in which we installed step by step Snipe-IT on Ubuntu Server. You would be able to copy all the commands much easier through this post.

Last updated on 14th August 2021
Working Config:
PHP 7.4.3
MySQL 8.0.26
Apache 2.4.41
Snipe-IT 5.1.8 build 6227

Requirements for this guide to follow

Ubuntu server up and running
Static IP assigned to the server
Internet connectivity
Logged in with user account created during Ubuntu server installation or Root user (logging in as root not recommended)

1. Connect to Ubuntu server

OpenSSH server status/installation

OpenSSH is already installed. You can check SSH server status

sudo service ssh status

If Open SSH server is not installed, you can install it by using the following commands:

sudo apt install OpenSSH-Server

Verify Open SSH server status

sudo service ssh status

Open SSH server’s configuration file is located here, file name is sshd_config. Open SSH should work out of the box, however, you can edit it if needed with your preferred choice of editor

cd /etc/ssh

2. Update/Upgrade installed packages

Update and upgrade installed packages on Ubuntu server. You will need to run this command as sudo and enter ‘y’ when prompted to confirm.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

3. Install Apache, MySQL and PHP

You can use a repository like tasksel to install LAMP server components. Otherwise, you can install individual components.
Install Apache, MySQL and PHP using tasksel

sudo apt install tasksel

sudo tasksel install lamp-server

Check versions

MySQL server version
```
sudo mysql -V
```
Apache version
```
sudo apache2 -V
```
PHP Version
```
sudo php --version
```

Test Installation

Apache: Browse to IP address of your server and you should see Apache generic web page
MySQL: Run the following command to see the status of MySQL Server
```
sudo service mysql status
```
PHP: Create a simple PHP page and browse to IP_Address/phpinfo.php
```
sudo bash -c "echo -e '<?php\nphpinfo();\n?>' > /var/www/html/phpinfo.php" 
```

4. Download Snipe-IT

Clone recent version of Snipe-IT from GIT into a local folder snipeit.

Working directory is /var/www
```
cd /var/www/
```

Clone Snipe-IT to local folder snipeit

sudo git clone https://github.com/snipe/snipe-it snipeit

Make a copy of .env environmental file

cd /var/www/snipeit

sudo cp .env.example .env

If you like, you can have a quick look inside the .env file with nano editor. We will come back to this file later on. Don’t make any changes to the file and use Ctrl + X to exit
```
sudo nano .env
```

5. Configure MySQL Server

Run MySQL secure installation command line wizard and secure the installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

yes or no, if you would like to install Validate Password Plugin (I selected no for this in my lab environment)
The next part offers you to change the password for the root of MySQL and enter password twice
The next option to remove anonymous users, I will choose Yes
The next option to stop root login remotely, I would go for no
Reload privileges table: Yes
You will see, “All done”, once it is all done

6. Create an initial database and a user

In this step, we will create database, user and grant specific privileges to new user.

Database	snipeit
User	mysqlsnipeit
Password	snipeit

Login to MySQL server, provide password for MySQL root user when it prompts
```
sudo mysql -u root -p
```
Create new database snipeit
```
CREATE DATABASE snipeit;
```

Create new user mysqlclient

CREATE USER 'mysqlsnipeit'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'snipeit';

Grant permissions to mysqlsnipeit on database snipeit

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON snipeit.* TO 'mysqlsnipeit'@'localhost';

Verify permissions
```
Show GRANTS FOR 'mysqlsnipeit'@'localhost'; 
```
Flush privileges
```
flush privileges;
```
Quit
```
quit;
```
Restart MySQL service
```
sudo service mysql restart
```
Check MySQL service status
```
sudo service mysql status
```

7. Update .env file

Let’s update .env file with the required information.

cd /var/www/snipeit

sudo nano .env

Update the following:

App_URL
DB_Database
DB_USername
DB_Password

8. Update folder permissions

Update folder permissions in the Snipe-IT root directory

Working directory is /var/www/snipeit
```
cd /var/www/snipeit
```

Update permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data storage public/uploads

sudo chmod -R 755 storage

sudo chmod -R 755 public/uploads

9. Download Composer

Working directory is logged in user’s home directory. In my case it is /home/snipeit

sudo curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

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

10. Install PHP dependencies

There are a number of PHP dependencies, ensure these all are successfully installed.
Working directory: Home directory of logged in user

sudo add-apt-repository universe

sudo apt-get install -y git unzip php php-curl php-mysql php-gd php-ldap php-zip php-mbstring php-xml php-bcmath php-tokenizer

11. Install Composer

Working directory: /var/www/snipeit

cd /var/www/snipeit

sudo composer install --no-dev --prefer-source

I noticed the following warning when I installed Composer today on 14th August 2021. Even though, this has no impact on the installation whatsoever. I was still able to generate the app key in the next step.

12. Generate App Key for .env file

Run the following command and enter yes when prompted

sudo php artisan key:generate

Verify the key generation

View contents of .env file and check APP_KEY value

sudo cat .env

13. Create a new site for Snipe-IT

In this step, we will create a new site for Snipe-IT, copy default site and remove it as well. Also, we will restart the relevant services.

Create new site with name ams.test.com.conf, you can update this name if you like to something else
```
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/ams.teknex.com.conf
```

Add site content as follows, update Directory if you download Snipe-IT in a different folder and Server Name to your Ubuntu Server’s IP address

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
<Directory /var/www/snipeit/public>
       Require all granted
       AllowOverride All
  </Directory>
   DocumentRoot /var/www/snipeit/public
   ServerName 172.24.39.97
  #Redirect permanent / https://snipeit.your-server-fqdn.com/
       ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/snipeIT.error.log
       CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Enable new site

sudo a2ensite ams.teknex.com.conf

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Restart Apache
```
sudo service apache2 restart
```
Disable default site
```
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
```
Reload Apache service
```
sudo service apache2 reload
```

Copy default site and remove it

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available

sudo cp 000-default.conf 000-default.confTEMP

sudo rm 000-default.conf

Reset associations

sudo phpenmod mbstring

sudo a2enmod rewrite

service apache2 restart

14. Snipe-IT pre-flight setup

Browse to IP address of your Ubuntu server and you should see the pre-flight page. Follow the prompts and you are done!!

Your feedback is important for us and other users. Leave it in the comments how did you go with your setup 🙂

September 30 2020

Snipe-IT Installation On Windows Server

Jay Singh Open Source, Snipe-IT 85

In this detailed tutorial, we will go through all the required steps needed to be performed in order to successfully install Snipe-IT on Windows Server 2019.

This blog is updated on 19th Dec 2021. Make sure you install Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable if you are planning to use PHP Version 7.3 or higher

Software Requirements:

Server 2019 (Server 2016 or 2012 can be used as well): Evaluate Windows Server 2019
Notepad ++
PHP >= 7.4 (7.4 < 8 recommended) Non Thread Safe
C++ 2015-2019
URL Rewrite 2.1
PHP Manager
MariaDB Version 10.0.14
Composer
SNIPE-IT
Check requirements on the official Snipe-IT documents

1. Server 2019 Setup

It can be a virtual machine or a physical server. Make sure you have a static IP address assigned and a working Internet connection.

In our example:

Server Name: AMS-04
IP Address: 10.0.0.2

2. IIS Server and CGI Roles

Let’s add required roles to our server.

Open Server Manager and add IIS Server Role and CGI feature in Applications Development

3. Install Visual C++ 2015-2019

Run downloaded exe file and follow the prompts

4. Install URL Rewrite

Download URL Rewrite 2.1

Run the downloaded exe file. Depends on the download you might need working Internet connection.

5. Install PHP Manager

Download PHP Manager and install it from downloaded msi file.

Test PHP Manager Installation

6. PHP Installation

Download PHP , In this tutorial I have used 7.3.7 Non Thread Safe x64
Check what version is required from SNIPE-IT PHP requirements
Create a new folder “PHP” in the System Drive. In the most cases it is C: Drive.

Copy all data from original downloaded folder PHP.7.*.* to C:PHP

Open IIS Server Manager
Click on your Server Name and you will see the following Window.
Double click on PHP Manager and register new PHP-CGI.EXE. You will find PHP-CGI.EXE file in C:\PHPPHP-CGI.EXE. Follow the steps below to accomplish this task.

Test PHP Installation

There are two ways in which PHP could be tested.

First Method (this test will be enough)

It can be tested within IIS Manager.

Second method

A separate text file you could create within c:\inetpub\wwwroot > name it phpinfo.php > Edit with notepad and add this content without quotation marks

“<?php phpinfo(); ?>“

You might need to restart your IIS Server through IIS Server Manager is some cases before you open http://localhost/phpinfo.php

Enable/Disable PHP Extensions

Open IIS Manager
Click on your Server Name > Open PHP Manager
Disable following extensions leave other enabled extensions as enabled

php_gettext.dll

php_soap.dll

php_xmlrpc.all

Enable following extensions in addition to already enabled extensions

php_exif.dll

fileinfo.dll

php_pdo_mysql.dll

php_ldap.dll

After enabling and disabling, you will end up with the following extensions.

7. MariaDB installation

SNIPE-IT Requirements – SNIPE-IT recommends 10.0.14.
MariaDB Download
Download msi file

Run downloaded msi file and follow the prompts

Database Setup

Double click on HeidiSQL shortcut or search it in the Start Menu > Applications
Start a new session and use root credentials to login

Create a new database, name it snipeit

2. Create New User

Create a new user, name it snipeit

Change user permissions and provide full access to database snipeit

8. Configure Snipe-IT Root Folder

Download the latest version of Snipe-it

Extract the files from the zip folder

Create a new folder c:\inetpub\wwwroot\snipeit

Copy all files and folders from downloaded snipeit to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\snipeit

9. Update environmental file

Find DB Dump Path (It will be needed in the .env file)

Follow the below steps to find the DB_DUMP_PATH

Find where MariaDB is located, in my case, it is C:\Program FilesMariaDB\10.0\bin.
To find MariaDB bin folder location, open Command Prompt as administrator and run the following command without quotations:

“cmd /c for %A in (“C:\Program Files\MariaDB 10.0\bin”) do @echo %~sA”

cmd /c for %A in ("C:\Program Files\MariaDB 10.0\bin") do @echo %~sA

The output would be the DB_DUMP_PATH, copy that path. In my case, it was the following

C:PROGRA~1MARIAD~1.0bin

Save this output in a text file as below

'C:\\PROGRA~1\\MARIAD~1.0\\bin'

Open .env.example with Notepad++, .env file is located in the Snipe-IT root folder

Update required fields as shown in the screenshot
– APP_URL
– DB_DATABASE
– DB_USERNAME
– DB_PASSWORD
– DB_DUMP_PATH

Save that file as .env

10. Install Composer

Download Composer exe file

Copy that file to Snipeit root directory, c:\intepub\wwwroot\snipeit

Run Composer exe file > Leave Developer Mode unchecked > Browse to PHP root directory as discussed in step number 5 > Select PHP.exe file > Follow the prompts and finish

Open Command Prompt (this might not work in PowerShell) as an administrator in the Snipe-IT root directory and run the following command (this step requires Internet connectivity, make sure you test it before hand)

composer install

11. Generate App Key

Open command prompt as an administrator in the Snipe-IT root directory and run the following command

php artisan key:generate

Open .env file with Notepad++ and you would see App Key populated in the .env file automatically as shown in the above screenshot

12. Create a new website

Open IIS Manager
Update Bindings of Default Web Site

Create new website

Open IIS Server Manager and enter the details as shown in the screenshot below and click OK to start the website immediately.

Update Handler Mappings

In IIS Manager, click on Sites and double click on newly created site SNIPE IT
Double Click on Handler Mappings
Update the settings as shown in the screenshot