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Self-Hosted on Rocky Linux

Step-by-step installation of ChurchCRM on Rocky Linux (tested on 8.x and 9.x). For Ubuntu/Debian, see Self-Hosted on Ubuntu.

1. Install system packages​

sudo dnf install httpd mariadb mariadb-server unzip
sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb
sudo systemctl enable --now httpd

2. Install PHP 8.4​

Rocky Linux's default PHP is too old. Use the Remi repository:

# Enable EPEL and Remi repos
sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo dnf install https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-$(rpm -E %rhel).rpm

# Switch to PHP 8.4
sudo dnf module reset php
sudo dnf module enable php:remi-8.4
sudo dnf install php php-cli php-fpm php-mysqlnd php-zip php-curl php-gd \
     php-bcmath php-intl php-mbstring php-xml
PHP extensions

All extensions in that last dnf install line are required. The app validates them at every page load and will display a warning if any are missing.

3. Configure MariaDB​

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Then create the database and user:

mysqladmin -u root -p create churchcrm
mysql -u root -p
CREATE USER 'churchcrm'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YourDBPasswordHere';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON churchcrm.* TO 'churchcrm'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

4. Configure Apache​

Create /etc/httpd/conf.d/churchcrm.conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName your-server-hostname
  DocumentRoot /var/www/html

  <Directory /var/www/html/churchcrm>
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

AllowOverride All is required so that ChurchCRM's .htaccess routing rules take effect.

Make sure both services are running:

sudo systemctl enable --now php-fpm
sudo systemctl enable --now httpd

5. Install ChurchCRM​

Download the latest release:

cd /var/www/html
sudo wget https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM/releases/latest/download/ChurchCRM-latest.zip
sudo unzip ChurchCRM-latest.zip
sudo chown -R apache:apache churchcrm
File permissions

See File System Permissions if the app shows permission warnings after install.

6. Open in your browser​

Navigate to http://your-server/churchcrm. The first-run setup wizard will appear. See First Run Configuration for what to expect.

Performance tuning​

For large data operations (imports, backups) the default PHP execution time may not be enough:

# /etc/php.ini
max_execution_time = 300

Restart Apache after changing php.ini: sudo systemctl restart httpd

Firewall​

If you have firewalld enabled, open HTTP (and HTTPS if you've set up SSL):

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=https
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

See Also​