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How to install the Odoo ERP/CRM platform on Ubuntu Server 20.04
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Adding an ERP/CRM solution to your company workflow can make a huge difference in productivity. Jack Wallen shows you how to deploy the open-source Odoo system to fill this void.

Odoo was once known as Open ERP and TinyERP and served as a complete Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management solution in one powerful, open-source package. Odoo includes all of the features you require for ERP/CRM, such as:
Odoo can be used for retail, services, operations, finance, marketing, development, and more and is scalable and extendable (with thousands of installable apps).
I want to walk you through the installation of Odoo on my go-to server of choice, Ubuntu Server 20.04.
SEE: 40+ open source and Linux terms you need to know (TechRepublic Premium)
The only things you’ll need to make this work are a running instance of Ubuntu Server 20.04 and a user with sudo privileges. That’s it, let’s get to work.
The first thing we’re going to do is install the necessary dependencies. Log into your server and install these packages with:
sudo apt-get install git python3-pip build-essential wget python3-dev python3-venv python3-wheel libxslt-dev libzip-dev libldap2-dev libsasl2-dev python3-setuptools node-less postgresql -y
We need to create a Linux user and a PostgreSQL user. First, create the Linux user with the command:
sudo useradd -m -d /opt/odoo -U -r -s /bin/bash odoo
Next, create the PostgreSQL user with:
sudo su - postgres -c "createuser -s odoo"
We’re now ready to install the system itself. Change to the odoo user with the command:
sudo su - odoo
Next, use git to clone the latest branch of Odoo (at the time of this writing, it’s 15):
git clone https://www.github.com/odoo/odoo --depth 1 --branch 15.0 /opt/odoo/odoo15
Change into the newly created directory with:
cd /opt/odoo
Create a new virtual Python environment with:
python3 -m venv odoo15-venv
Activate the new environment with the command:
source odoo15-venv/bin/activate
Install the required Python modules with the following commands:
pip3 install wheel
pip3 install -r odoo15/requirements.txt
The second command above will take anywhere from 5-10 minutes to complete, so either watch the output fly by or go take care of another admin task. Once the commands are finished, deactivate the environment and exit from the odoo user with:
deactivate
exit
To enable the Odoo add-on system, we need to create a directory to house the downloaded files. Create the directory and give it the necessary permissions with:
sudo mkdir /opt/odoo/odoo15-custom-addons
sudo chown odoo: /opt/odoo/odoo15-custom-addons
Copy the default configuration file into /etc with the command:
sudo cp /opt/odoo/odoo15/debian/odoo.conf /etc/odoo15.conf
Open the config file for editing with:
sudo nano /etc/odoo15.conf
Edit that file so it looks like the following:
[options]
; This is the password that allows database operations:
admin_passwd = PASSWORD
db_host = False
db_port = False
db_user = odoo
db_password = False
addons_path = /opt/odoo/odoo15/addons
Where PASSWORD is a strong/unique password.
Save and close the file.
We now must create a systemd service file with:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/odoo15.service
 </codeIn that file, paste the following:
[Unit]
Description=Odoo15
Requires=postgresql.service
After=network.target postgresql.service
 
[Service]
Type=simple
SyslogIdentifier=odoo15
PermissionsStartOnly=true
User=odoo
Group=odoo
ExecStart=/opt/odoo/odoo15-venv/bin/python3 /opt/odoo/odoo15/odoo-bin -c /etc/odoo15.conf
StandardOutput=journal+console
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save and close the file. Reload the systemd daemon with:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
Start and enable the Odoo service with:
sudo systemctl enable --now odoo15
Odoo is now installed and running on your server. Open a web browser and point it to http://SERVER:8069 (Where SERVER is either the IP address or domain of the hosting server). You will be prompted to fill out information for the creation of a new database (Figure A).
Figure A
Make sure you copy down the random password generated for the database (or opt to use your own password). You might want to also check the box for Demo data (especially if this is your first time using Odoo).
Click Create database and the installation will complete. When it’s finished, you’ll find yourself on the Odoo Apps page (Figure B), where you can begin selecting the apps you want to install to complete your new CRM/ERP solution.
Figure B
One of the first things you’ll want to do is edit the default admin user, which is listed as Mitchel Admin and includes a random photo. To do this, click on the four squares icon in the top left and click Settings. In the resulting window (Figure C), click Manage users.
Figure C
Click on the Mitchel Admin listing and then click Edit. You can now change the name of the admin user, add a photo, and manage the access rights, preferences, and security for the account (Figure D).
Figure D
Congratulations, you have a running CRM/ERP tool that can be expanded to fill many roles for your company.
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How to install the Odoo ERP/CRM platform on Ubuntu Server 20.04
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