How to Setup ERPNext v15 on Ubuntu 24.04 & 22.04

ERPNext is a popular open-source Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that helps businesses manage operations like accounting, inventory, sales, and human resources in a unified platform. The latest release of version 15 offers enhanced features and improved performance.

This tutorial will help you build a powerful ERP system tailored to your business needs.

Step 1: Set Up the erpnext User

The very first task is to create a dedicated user for your ERP application. We never recommend running this as root.

sudo adduser erpnext
sudo usermod -aG sudo erpnext
su - erpnext

Step 2: Install System Dependencies

ERPNext requires multiple dependencies to be installed on the system. Use the following commands to install required packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y python3-dev python3-pip python3-venv git mariadb-server redis-server wkhtmltopdf curl nginx
sudo systemctl start mariadb redis-server
sudo systemctl enable mariadb redis-server

The next step is to secure the MariaDB installation. Make sure to set up a password for the MariaDB root account.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Install Supervisor via pip to avoid pkg_resources warnings:

sudo pip3 install supervisor --upgrade
sudo pip3 install setuptools==80.4.0

Create a basic Supervisor config:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/supervisor/conf.d
sudo nano /etc/supervisor/supervisord.conf

Add the following configuration to the file:

[supervisord]
nodaemon=false
pidfile=/run/supervisord.pid
logfile=/var/log/supervisor/supervisord.log
loglevel=info

[unix_http_server]
file=/var/run/supervisor.sock

[supervisorctl]
serverurl=unix:///var/run/supervisor.sock

[rpcinterface:supervisor]
supervisor.rpcinterface_factory = supervisor.rpcinterface:make_main_rpcinterface

[include]
files = /etc/supervisor/conf.d/*.conf

Save and close the file.

Then start the supervisor process:

sudo /usr/local/bin/supervisord -c /etc/supervisor/supervisord.conf

Step 3: Install Frappe Bench

Frappe Bench is a command-line utility that helps you install, update, and manage multiple sites for Frappe applications on *nix systems for development and production use.

Use the following command to install the Bench CLI:

sudo pip3 install frappe-bench --upgrade

Initialize a new Bench directory:

cd /home/erpnext
bench init frappe-bench --frappe-branch version-15
cd frappe-bench

This creates:

frappe-bench/
├── apps/          # App repositories
├── sites/         # Site configs
├── config/        # Supervisor/Nginx configs
├── env/           # Python virtual env
├── logs/          # Logs
└── www/           # Public files

Step 4: Install ERPNext and Other Apps

bench get-app erpnext https://github.com/frappe/erpnext --branch version-15

Step 5: Create a New Site

Create a site named www.mydomain.com:

bench new-site www.mydomain.com

Enter the MySQL root password.
Set a strong Administrator password (used for web interface login).

Install apps on the site:

bench --site www.mydomain.com install-app erpnext

Step 6: Configure Supervisor

Explicitly set up Supervisor for the Bench environment:

bench setup supervisor --yes

This generates /home/erpnext/frappe-bench/config/supervisor.conf with groups like frappe-bench-web, frappe-bench-workers, and frappe-bench-redis.
It links the config to /etc/supervisor/conf.d/frappe.conf.

Reload Supervisor:

sudo supervisorctl reread
sudo supervisorctl update

Step 7: Configure for Development or Production

Development:

Add to /etc/hosts:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add:

127.0.0.1    www.mydomain.com

Start the development server:

bench start

Now, you can access: http://www.mydomain.com:8000 and log in with Administrator and the password set.

Production: For the production envrionemnt, we need to configure Nginx and Supervisor to keep application running in background.

sudo bench setup production erpnext

This sets up Nginx and ensures Supervisor is linked correctly. Now reload services:

sudo supervisorctl reread
sudo supervisorctl update
sudo supervisorctl restart all
sudo systemctl restart nginx

You can also configure Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate with the following command:

sudo bench setup lets-encrypt www.mydomain.com

Ensure DNS has an A record for www.mydomain.com pointing to your server’s IP.
Access: https://www.mydomain.com

Verify Supervisor (production):

sudo supervisorctl status

Expect:

frappe-bench-web:frappe-bench-frappe-web     RUNNING   pid 1234, uptime 0:01:00
frappe-bench-web:frappe-bench-node-socketio  RUNNING   pid 1235, uptime 0:01:00
...

Step 8: Set Permissions

Finally make sure all the files have the correct permissions.

sudo chown -R erpnext:erpnext /home/erpnext/frappe-bench
sudo chmod -R 755 /home/erpnext/frappe-bench

Conclusion

By following these steps, you’ve successfully installed and configured ERPNext Version 15 on your server, ready for either development testing or full production deployment. Remember to regularly update your installation using bench update to benefit from the latest improvements and security patches.