How to install Crater on FreeBSD Latest

Crater is an open-source invoicing application that simplifies the process of creating and managing invoices for businesses. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the installation process of Crater on FreeBSD Latest.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure that your FreeBSD system meets the following requirements:

• A running instance of FreeBSD Latest
• Basic knowledge of command line interface
• Access to a terminal application

Step 1: Install Apache and PHP

To run Crater, we need to install Apache and PHP on our system. To do so, open a terminal and enter the following commands:

sudo pkg install apache24
sudo pkg install php74 php74-extensions

This will install Apache and PHP dependencies on your system.

Step 2: Install MySQL Server

Next, we need to install a MySQL server for Crater. To do so, enter the following command:

sudo pkg install mysql80-server

Once the installation completes, start MySQL with the following command:

sudo service mysql-server start

Step 3: Install Composer

Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. We need to install it to download Crater dependencies. To do so, enter the following command:

sudo pkg install composer

Step 4: Download Crater

Now, we can download the Crater source code from its GitHub repository. To do so, enter the following command:

cd /usr/local/www/
sudo git clone https://github.com/crater-invoice/crater

Step 5: Install Crater

To install Crater, switch to the crater directory and run the composer command. Enter the following commands:

cd /usr/local/www/crater
sudo composer install
sudo cp .env.example .env
sudo php artisan key:generate

The above command will install all the required dependencies and generate the key required for Crater.

Step 6: Configure Crater .env file

Now, we need to configure Crater's environment file. To do so, open the .env file and edit the following values:

DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=crater
DB_USERNAME={your-mysql-username}
DB_PASSWORD={your-mysql-password}

Replace your-mysql-username and your-mysql-password with your MySQL username and password.

Step 7: Update File Permissions

To allow Apache to access the Crater files, we need to update the file permissions. To do so, run the following command:

sudo chown -R www:www /usr/local/www/crater

Step 8: Configure Apache

We need to configure Apache to serve Crater. To do so, open the /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf file and append the following lines:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/usr/local/www/crater/public/"
    ServerName your-domain.com
    ErrorLog "/var/log/httpd-error.log"
    CustomLog "/var/log/httpd-access.log" combined
    <Directory "/usr/local/www/crater/public/">
        Options All
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Replace your-domain.com with your actual domain name.

Step 9: Restart Apache

To apply the Apache configuration changes, we need to restart Apache:

sudo service apache24 restart

Step 10: Access Crater

Crater is now installed and ready to use. Access it by visiting your domain name in a web browser:

http://your-domain.com

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have shown you how to install Crater on FreeBSD Latest. The steps provided here should be enough to get you started with Crater, but you can find more detailed information in the official Crater documentation.