Cerb6: Web-based Collaboration And Automation Platform

Cerb is a fast and flexible web-based business collaboration and automation platform. Using Cerb, you can remember anything about anyone, collaborate from anywhere, deftly reply to a flood of email, automate, stay informed, capture feedback, track time, flag opportunities, manage tasks, share expert knowledge, and otherwise execute efficiently. To know more features about Cerb visit here.

In this tutorial let us setup Cerb 6 On Debian 7. My test box host name and IP address is server.unixmen.com and 192.168.1.200/24. This setup is same for all Debian/Ubuntu derivatives. Just change the values where appropriate.

Requirements

To install Cerb6 you need the following:

1. LAMP Server

>>> Install LAMP Server On Debian 7 ‘Wheezy’

2. Install Additional PHP Extensions

– curl

– dom

– gd

– imap

– json

– mailparse

– mbstring

– mysql

– pcre

– session

– simplexml

– spl

To install the above extensions, enter the following command in Terminal.

# apt-get install php5-gd php5-imap php-pear php5-dev make php5-mcrypt

Now install mailparse extension using command:

# pecl install mailparse

Then create a file mailparse.ini,

# nano /etc/php5/conf.d/mailparse.ini

and add the line ‘extension=mailparse.so’.

extension=mailparse.so

Open up the ‘php.ini’ file and make sure it has the following settings.

nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

file_uploads = On
[...]
sql.safe_mode = Off
[...]
memory_limit = 32M
[...]
upload_tmp_dir = /tmp

Save and quit the file.

3. Enable Apache mod_rewrite.

# a2enmod rewrite

Restart apache2 service to take effect the changes.

# service apache2 restart

4. Database Configuration

Login to mysql using command:

# mysql -u root -p

Create a database and database user for Cerb6. Here i am going to create a database called ‘cerbdb’ and user ‘cerbuser’ with password ‘debian’.

mysql>  create database cerbdb;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.04 sec)

mysql> GRANT ALL ON cerbdb.* TO cerbuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'debian';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.10 sec)

mysql> flush privileges;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

mysql> exit
Bye

Getting Cerb

Download the latest version from here. Or enter the following command in Terminal to download it.

# wget https://github.com/wgm/cerb6/archive/v6.5.1.zip

Extract it using command:

# unzip v6.5.1.zip

Copy the cerb folder to apache root document.

# cp -R cerb6-6.5.1/ /var/www/cerb

Set write permissions and Ownership to the following folders.

# chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/cerb/.
# chmod -R u+w /var/www/cerb/framework.config.php 
# chmod -R u+w /var/www/cerb/storage/

Begin Installation

Open your browser and navigate to http://domain-name/cerb/install or http://ip-address/cerb/install. If everything setup properly, you should see the following screen. Click Next to continue.

Accept the License agreement.

Enter the database details and click Test Settings.

Enter the website title, default sender and default sender name details as shown in the below figure.

Now setup the Outgoing mail. GMail users please check the following link to setup outgoing email. This is very useful to send mails to your contacts.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/13287?hl=en

Create the administrative account to access Cerb web console.

You’re done now. You have installed evolution version with limited functionality. If you want full version, click on the Register button and enter the details.

Finally delete the install folder and click on Take me there link to access Cerb Administrative console.

# rm -fr /var/www/cerb/install/

After clicking on the Take me there link, you probably will see a screen that saying: “The application is currently waiting for an administrator to finish upgrading. Please wait a few minutes and then try again.”

To make this Cerb server as your administrator system, open up the ‘framework.config.php file’,

# nano /var/www/cerb/framework.config.php

Find the line,

 define('AUTHORIZED_IPS_DEFAULTS', '');

Add your Cerb server IP address as shown below.

define('AUTHORIZED_IPS_DEFAULTS', '192.168.1.13');

Save and exit the file. Restart apache2 service to save the changes.

# service apache2 restart

Now click on Finish the Upgrade button to login to Cerb administrative console.

Enter the Administrative Email and click Continue.

Enter the password and click Sign On.

This is how my Cerb6 Administrative console looks.

Now you’re in business. Before proceeding further, I recommend you to read the Getting Started Guide to learn more about Cerb6.