Running Firefly III on Linux [PHP Based Personal Finance Manager]

#FireflyIII #FinanceManager #HomeLab

*** Updated 07/18/2023

Full steps can be found at https://i12bretro.github.io/tutorials/0777.html

What is Firefly III?

"Firefly III" is a (self-hosted) manager for your personal finances. It can help you keep track of your expenses and income, so you can spend less and save more. -[https://docs.firefly-iii.org/firefly-iii/installation/self_hosted/?mtm_campaign=docu-internal&mtm_kwd=self_hosted](https://docs.firefly-iii.org/firefly-iii/installation/self_hosted/?mtm_campaign=docu-internal&mtm_kwd=self_hosted)

## Installation

1. Log into the Linux device
2. Run the following commands in a terminal window:

# update software repositories
sudo apt update
# install prerequisites
sudo apt install curl wget zip lsb‐release apt‐transport‐https ca‐certificates git ‐y
# add the php gpg key
sudo wget ‐O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg
# add the php apt repository
echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release ‐sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list
# update software repositories
sudo apt update
# install available software updates
sudo apt upgrade ‐y
# install Apache HTTPD and MySQL
sudo apt install apache2 mariadb‐server mariadb‐client ‐y
# install PHP components
sudo apt install php libapache2‐mod‐php php8.1‐common php8.1‐mysql php8.1‐xml php8.1‐xmlrpc php8.1‐curl php8.1‐gd php8.1‐mbstring php8.1‐bcmath php8.1‐zip php8.1‐intl php‐sodium ‐y
# install composer
curl ‐sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php ‐‐ ‐‐install‐dir=/usr/local/bin ‐‐filename=composer
# configure the MySQL database
sudo su
mysql_secure_installation

3. Press Enter to login as root
4. Type N and press Enter to not switch to unix socket authentication
5. Type Y and press Enter to set a root password, type the password twice to confirm
6. Type Y and press Enter to remove anonymous users
7. Type Y and press Enter to disallow root login remotely
8. Type Y and press Enter to remove the test database
9. Type Y and press Enter to reload privilege tables
10. Run the following command to login into MySQL:

mysql ‐u root ‐p

11. Authenticate with the root password set earlier
12. Run the following commands to create the Firefly database and database user

CREATE DATABASE firefly;
GRANT ALL ON firefly.* to 'firefly_rw'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'f!r3f1y:)';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
exit

13. Continue with the following commands:

# create the firefly app
sudo composer create‐project grumpydictator/firefly‐iii ‐‐no‐dev ‐‐prefer‐dist /var/www/firefly
# set ownership of the firefly directory
sudo chown ‐R www‐data:www‐data /var/www/firefly
# limit permissions on storage
sudo chmod ‐R 775 /var/www/firefly/storage
# change directory to the application folder
cd /var/www/firefly
# edit the .env file
sudo nano /var/www/firefly/.env

14. Scroll through the .env file and modify the following values

SITE_OWNER=<% admin email address %>
TZ=<% timezone %>
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=firefly
DB_USERNAME=firefly_rw
DB_PASSWORD=f!r3f1y:)

15. Press CTRL+O, Enter, CTRL+X to write the changes
16. Continue with the following commands in terminal

# initialize the database
php artisan migrate:refresh ‐‐seed
php artisan firefly‐iii:upgrade‐database
php artisan passport:install
# create firefly apache configuration
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites‐available/firefly.conf

17. Paste the following configuration into firefly.conf

Alias /firefly "/var/www/firefly/public/"

Options FollowSymlinks Includes ExecCGI
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
Order allow,deny
allow from all

18. Press CTRL+O, Enter, CTRL+X to write the changes
19. Run the following command to enable the Firefly site

# enable rewrite module
sudo a2enmod rewrite
# enable the firefly site
sudo a2ensite firefly
# restart the apache2 service
sudo systemctl restart apache2

20. Open a web browser and navigate to http://DNSorIP/firefly
21. Enter an email address and password > Click Register
22. Welcome to Firefly III

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