Fat Free CRM Guides

Guides Index ▸

Installation on Linux or Mac OS

Set Up Configuration (Database & Settings)

Fat Free CRM supports PostGreSQL, MySQL and SQLite databases. The source code comes with sample database configuration files, such as:

  • config/database.mysql.yml for MySQL
  • config/database.postgres.yml for PostgreSQL
  • config/database.sqlite.yml for SQLite

Based on your choice of database, create config/database.yml:

cp config/database.mysql.yml config/database.yml
  • Edit config/database.yml and specify database names and authentication details.
  • Then, edit your Gemfile and uncomment only your chosen database.

Install Gem Dependencies

You may need to install some platform specific libraries to satisfy all the gem dependencies.

  • On Centos (RedHat), the following command will install them:
yum install ImageMagick-devel libxml2 libxml2-devel libxslt libxslt-devel
  • or, if you are on a Debian based system:
sudo apt-get install libmagick<notextile><tt>+-dev libxml2 libxml2-dev libxslt1 libxslt1-dev

Run the following command from the application’s root directory:

bundle install --without heroku

Create Database

Now you are ready to create the database:

rake db:create

Configure Application (Optional)

You can configure Fat Free CRM settings, such as your host, base URL, language (locale), menu structures, default colors, and email authentication.

Fat Free CRM settings are stored in three places, and are loaded in the following order:

  1. config/settings.default.yml
  2. config/settings.yml (if exists)
  3. ‘settings’ table in database (if exists)

Settings loaded last have the highest priority, and override any settings from the previous sources.

To override any settings:

  • Create a blank file at config/settings.yml
  • Copy the settings that you want to override from config/settings.default.yml, and configure the values.
  • Commit config/settings.yml to the git repo with the following commands:
git add -f config/settings.yml
git commit -m &quot;Added config/settings.yml&quot;

Example:

If all you want to do is change the language to French, your config/settings.yml file only needs to contain the following line:

:locale: &quot;fr&quot;

Run database migrations and set up an admin user

Run the following rake task:

rake ffcrm:setup

The previous command will migrate the database and prompt you for an admin user name, password and email. If you want to run the setup procedures without any user input, you can use the following (useful for automated server deployments):

rake db:migrate &amp;&amp; rake ffcrm:setup:admin USERNAME=admin PASSWORD=password EMAIL=admin@example.com

Load Demo Data (Optional)

You can test drive Fat Free CRM by loading sample records that are generated on the fly mimic the actual use.

IMPORTANT: Loading demo will delete all existing data from your database.

rake ffcrm:demo:load

Among other things the demo generator creates 8 sample user records with the following usernames: aaron, ben, cindy, dan, elizabeth, frank, george, and heather+. You can log in with any of these names using the name as password. The demo site at http://demo.fatfreecrm.com provides access as a sample user as well.

You can reset the database and reload demo data at any time by using:

rake ffcrm:demo:reload

Run the App

Now you should be able to launch the Rails server and point your web browser to http://localhost:3000

rails server
These guides are maintained by our volunteer community. Please read the Contribution Guide for more information on how you can contribute to the documentation or any other aspect of Fat Free CRM.