Installing Odoo 8 From source in VirtualEnv (Ubuntu)

This article will walk you through installing Odoo 8 from source on an Ubuntu (or other Debian distro) box using the Odoo GitHub Repo.

Foreword ∞

This is meant strictly for development environments, as it installs a lot of headers that are only needed to build the binaries. LasLabs will soon be releasing an Open Source Ansible playbook to take care of the production setups, but for now there are always the Odoo docs.

We will be using a Python Virtual Environment in order to better maintain Odoo specific dependencies alongside other Python apps. Checkout The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Python’s article on VirtualEnvs for more information on VirtualEnv.

Configuration Reference ∞

The following table is a reference of configuration variables, such as users and file directories, that you may want to change in your setup. If you do decide to change something, you’ll need to make sure that you transpose these values for your’s in the steps below.

Ready The Server ∞

1. Standard procedure when beginning any install is to update your package repos and installations

   sudo apt-get update &&
   sudo apt-get -y upgrade

2. Install build dependencies

   sudo apt-get install -y git python-virtualenv postgresql-9.* \
    postgresql postgresql-server-dev-9.* postgresql-client-9.* \
    libxml2-dev libjpeg-dev libldap2-dev libsasl2-dev libxslt1-dev \
    python-dev libtiff5-dev

3. Install newest version of WkHtmlToPdf to circumvent stale repo versions with known issues. Find the latest version on their download page

   sudo wget http://download.gna.org/wkhtmltopdf/0.12/0.12.2.1/wkhtmltox-0.12.2.1_linux-trusty-amd64.deb
   sudo dpkg -i wkhtmltox-0.12.2.1_linux-trusty-amd64.deb
   sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf /usr/bin
   sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/wkhtmltoimage /usr/bin

Configure Database ∞

1. Change to the postgres system user so that we can work with the database

   sudo su - postgres

2. Create the odoo database and user. Save the password that you choose here, we will need it later

   createuser --createdb --username postgres --no-superuser --no-createrole --pwprompt odoo

3. Exit the postgres system user

   exit

Install Odoo ∞

1. Create the Odoo user

   sudo adduser --system --group odoo --home /var/www/odoo

2. Checkout the Odoo 8.0 branch from GitHub into the install directory

   sudo git clone https://www.github.com/odoo/odoo --depth 1 --branch 8.0 --single-branch /var/www/odoo

3. Update owner to Odoo system user

   sudo chown -R odoo: /var/www/odoo

4. Switch to the Odoo system user so that we don’t have to worry about permissions anymore. We need to explicitly define /bin/bash as a shell due to the user not having a shell (this is a good thing)

   sudo su - odoo -s /bin/bash

5. Change to the install directory and create a Python Virtual Environment for dependency isolation

   cd /var/www/odoo &&
   virtualenv ./_venv

6. Edit odoo.py and change the shebang on the top line to use the Python in the VirtualEnv

   #!/var/www/odoo/_venv/bin/python

7. Activate the VirtualEnv, install the Python dependencies, then install Odoo

   source ./_venv/bin/activate &&
   pip install -r ./requirements.txt &&
   pip install ./

8. If you are developing modules and need Odoo to run tests, you will also need anybox.testing.openerp

   pip install anybox.testing.openerp

9. Exit the Odoo user

   exit

Configure Odoo ∞

1. Make the configuration file directory

   sudo mkdir /etc/odoo

2. Copy the sample config to its final location. Update the permissions for security (it will be holding passwords)

   sudo cp /var/www/odoo/debian/openerp-server.conf /etc/odoo/odoo.conf &&
   sudo chmod 640 /etc/odoo/odoo.conf &&
   sudo chown odoo: /etc/odoo/odoo.conf

3. Edit the configuration file, make it look something like the below (adding in your password). The admin_password is used when performing database operations from the database management portal ($ODOO_BASE_URI/web/database/manager) – such as creations, backups, and drops.

   [options]
   admin_passwd = ANOTHER_SUPER_SECRET_PASSWORD_TO_CREATE
   db_host = False
   db_port = False
   db_user = odoo
   db_password = MY_SUPER_SECRET_DATABASE_PASSWORD
   addons_path = /var/www/odoo/addons
   logfile = /var/log/odoo/odoo-server.log

4. Verify that the server runs manually. Use CTRL+C to exit the prompt.

   sudo su - odoo -s /bin/bash
   source /var/www/odoo/_venv/bin/activate
   /var/www/odoo/openerp-server

1. Exit Odoo user session

   exit

Allow Automatic Booting ∞

1. Copy the sample init script to the init folder, and set permissions

   sudo cp /var/www/odoo/debian/init /etc/init.d/odoo &&
   sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/odoo &&
   sudo chown root: /etc/init.d/odoo

2. Make appropriate alterations for our environment by editing /etc/init.d/odoo and replacing the variable declarations at the top with the following instead

   PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
   DAEMON=/var/www/odoo/odoo.py
   NAME=odoo
   DESC=odoo
   CONFIG=/etc/odoo/odoo.conf
   LOGFILE=/var/log/odoo/odoo-server.log
   PIDFILE=/var/run/${NAME}.pid
   USER=odoo
   export LOGNAME=$USER

3. In both the init script and config file, we have a log path defined. It doesn’t exist yet, and the Odoo system user will need read/write access to it

   sudo mkdir /var/log/odoo &&
   sudo chown odoo:root /var/log/odoo

4. Start the server

   sudo /etc/init.d/odoo start

5. Test the server by going to http://ip-or-domain-of-server:8069

• If there are errors, check the logs – less /var/log/odoo/odoo-server.log

1. Stop the server (once everything works)

   sudo /etc/init.d/odoo stop

2. Allow for automatic booting (as described on StackOverflow)

   sudo update-rc.d odoo defaults

3. Start Odoo through system services

   sudo service odoo start

Next Steps ∞

From here you would want to create a database and begin configuring Odoo (http://ip-or-domain-of-server:8069/web/database/manager).

For performance and scalability, it is recommended to run Odoo behind an Nginx proxy (as seen in this article).

Configuration File Reference ∞

Thanks to Luke Branch on the Odoo forums for this:

[options]
## Server startup config - Common options
# Admin password for creating, restoring and backing up databases
admin_passwd = admin
# specify additional addons paths (separated by commas)
addons_path = /opt/odoo/addons
## XML-RPC / HTTP - XML-RPC Configuration
# disable the XML-RPC protocol
xmlrpc = True
# Specify the TCP IP address for the XML-RPC protocol. The empty string binds to all interfaces.
xmlrpc_interface = 127.0.0.1
# specify the TCP port for the XML-RPC protocol
xmlrpc_port = 8069
# Enable correct behavior when behind a reverse proxy
proxy_mode = True
## XML-RPC / HTTPS - XML-RPC Secure Configuration
# disable the XML-RPC Secure protocol
xmlrpcs = True
# Specify the TCP IP address for the XML-RPC Secure protocol. The empty string binds to all interfaces.
xmlrpcs_interface = 
# specify the TCP port for the XML-RPC Secure protocol
xmlrpcs_port = 8071
# specify the certificate file for the SSL connection
secure_cert_file = server.cert
# specify the private key file for the SSL connection
secure_pkey_file = server.pkey
## NET-RPC - NET-RPC Configuration
# enable the NETRPC protocol
netrpc = False
# specify the TCP IP address for the NETRPC protocol
netrpc_interface = 127.0.0.1
# specify the TCP port for the NETRPC protocol
netrpc_port = 8070
## WEB - Web interface Configuration
# Filter listed database REGEXP
dbfilter = .*
## Static HTTP - Static HTTP service
# enable static HTTP service for serving plain HTML files
static_http_enable = False 
# specify the directory containing your static HTML files (e.g '/var/www/')
static_http_document_root = None
# specify the URL root prefix where you want web browsers to access your static HTML files (e.g '/')
static_http_url_prefix = None
## Testing Group - Testing Configuration
# Launch a YML test file.
test_file = False
# If set, will save sample of all reports in this directory.
test_report_directory = False
# Enable YAML and unit tests.
test_disable = False
# Commit database changes performed by YAML or XML tests.
test_commit = False
## Logging Group - Logging Configuration
# file where the server log will be stored (default = None)
logfile = /var/log/openerp/openerp-server.log
# do not rotate the logfile
logrotate = True
# Send the log to the syslog server
syslog = False
# setup a handler at LEVEL for a given PREFIX. An empty PREFIX indicates the root logger. This option can be repeated. Example: "openerp.orm:DEBUG" or "werkzeug:CRITICAL" (default: ":INFO")
log_handler = ["[':INFO']"]
# specify the level of the logging. Accepted values: info, debug_rpc, warn, test, critical, debug_sql, error, debug, debug_rpc_answer, notset
#log_level = debug
log_level = info