Installing LAMP and ChurchCRM on Azure

1. On Azure

   1. Click Virtual Machines
   2. Click Create Virtual Machines
   3. Select Ubuntu Server
   4. Select Ubuntu Server 24.04 or latest version and click Create
   • Name: LAMPServer
   • VM disk type: SSD
   • User name: lamp
   • Authentication type: Password
   • Password: ****
   • Resource group: Create new: LAMPServer
   • Location: (whatever is best for you)
   • Click OK
   • Select a size that suits you
   • Click OK
   • Availability set: None
   • Use managed disks: Yes
   • Virtual network: leave as default
   • Subnet: leave as default
   • Public IP address: Static
   • Network security group (firewall): leave as default
   • Enable auto-shutdown: Off
   • Boot diagnostics: Enabled
   • Guest OS diagnostics: Disabled
   • Diagnostics storage account: leave as default
   • Click Create
   5. Click Virtual Machines
   6. Click LAMPServer
   • Take note of the Public IP address

2. Download and install an SSH client (I am using PuTTY)

   1. Enter the Public IP address under “Host Name (or IP address)”
   2. Click Open
   3. Click Yes on the prompt (First time only) and a terminal window will open

3. Login

   1. username: lamp
   2. Password: ****

4. Updates

   1. sudo bash
   2. apt-get update
   3. apt-get -y upgrade
   4. apt-get -y dist-upgrade
   5. apt-get -y autoremove

5. Configuring LAMP

   1. apt-get -y install apache2
   2. apt-get -y install mysql-server
   3. Enter MySQLPassword
   4. Confirm MySQLPassword
   5. apt-get -y install php
   6. apt-get -y install php-curl php-cli php-dev php-gd php-intl php-mcrypt php-json php-mysql php-opcache php-bcmath php-mbstring php-soap php-xml php-zip gettext unzip

6. Allow custom URLs

   1. a2enmod rewrite

7. Create a database

   1. mysql -u root -p
   2. Enter MySQLPassword
   3. CREATE DATABASE churchcrm;
   4. CREATE USER 'churchcrm'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Put\_your\_database\_password\_here';
   5. GRANT ALL ON churchcrm.\* TO churchcrm@'localhost';
   6. exit;

8. Edit 000-default.conf file

   1. Hostname
   • Take note of your hostname
   2. nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
   • Find “#ServerName www.example.com”
   • Remove the # and change www.example.com to the hostname (See step #1)
   • Find “DocumentRoot /var/www/html” and put a forward slash on the end so it looks like this: DocumentRoot /var/www/html/
   3. CTRL+x ; Y ; Enter

9. Edit hosts file

   1. ifconfig
   • Take note of your local IP address
   2. nano /etc/hosts

   • Under 127.0.0.1 localhost put in your local IP address and hostname so it looks like this (yours might be different):

     
     ## Related Pages
     
     - [Prerequisites](How-to-Manually-Upgrade-ChurchCRM.md)
     
     ## Test the System Before Importing Real Data
     
     - Test the system by importing demo data: [Importing Demo Data via Admin Pages](Importing-Demo-Data.md)
     127.0.0.1 localhost
     10.0.0.4 LAMPServer
   3. CTRL+x ; Y ; Enter

10. Edit apache2.conf file

11. nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

• Find:

  <Directory /var/www/>
      Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
      AllowOverride None
      Require all granted
  </Directory>

• Change AllowOverride from None to All

2. CTRL+x ; Y ; Enter
3. Edit php.ini file
4. nano /etc/php/X.X/apache2/php.ini (replace X.X with your PHP version)

• Under "[PHP];"
• Add: register_globals=0;
• Find memory_limit = 128M and change it to 32M
• Find upload_max_filesize = 2M and change it to 24M
• Find post_max_size = 8M and change it to 32M

2. CTRL+x ; Y ; Enter
3. Remove index.html
4. rm /var/www/html/index.html
5. Configure ChurchCRM (USE THIS VERSION!!!)
6. wget https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM/releases/download/2.9.4/ChurchCRM-2.9.4.zip
7. unzip ChurchCRM-2.9.4.zip
8. rsync -av churchcrm/ /var/www/html/
9. chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html
10. chmod -R 755 /var/www/html
11. RESTART the virtual machine
12. On Azure
13. Click Virtual Machines
14. Click LAMPServer
15. Click Networking
16. Click Add inbound port rule

• In the Service drop down select HTTP
• Change the Name to HTTP_in and click OK

5. Click Add outbound port rule

• In the Service drop down select HTTP
• Change the Name to HTTP_out and click OK

6. Click Add outbound port rule

• In the Service drop down select SMTP
• Change the Name to SMTP25_out and click OK

7. Click Add outbound port rule

• In the Service drop down select Custom
• Change the Port ranges to 587
• Change the Name to SMTP587_out and click OK

16. In your browser
17. Enter your public IP address in the URL bar

• You should be greeted with ChurchCRM’s setup page

2. Click Next
3. Click Next
4. Click Next
5. Database Server Name: localhost
6. Database Name: churchcrm
7. user: churchcrm
8. password: ****

• Your MySQL password

9. Click Finish
10. On the login page
11. Username: Admin
12. Password: changeme
13. Click Login
14. Old Password: changeme
15. New Password: ****
16. Update to the latest version
17. Click the Tasks icon in top right corner and click new release
18. follow the prompts