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

1. Ubuntu server up and running
2. Static IP assigned to the server
3. Internet connectivity
4. 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 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 🙂