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Server Configuration for EspoCRM

EspoCRM can be installed on:

  • Webserver
  • PHP 8.3 - 8.5
  • Database
    • MySQL 8.0 and greater
    • MariaDB 10.3 and greater
    • PostgreSQL 15

In this article:

Recommendations & requirements

PHP requirements

EspoCRM requires PHP with the following extensions:

  • pdo_mysql – for database access;
  • gd (with enabled FreeType support) – to manipulate images and render avatars;
  • openssl – to ensure the highest protection;
  • zip – to be able to upgrade EspoCRM and install extensions;
  • mbstring;
  • iconv;
  • curl – for integrations;
  • xml – for excel export;
  • xmlwriter – for excel export;
  • exif – for a proper orientation of uploaded images;
  • bcmath – arbitrary precision mathematics;

Optional PHP extensions that could be useful:

  • zmq – for WebSocket;
  • pcntl – for parallel job processing and daemon (Unix-like systems only);
  • posix – for Unix-like systems;
  • ldap – for LDAP authentication;
  • ev – for WebSocket, if a large number of connections is expected.

Recommended minimum values in php.ini:

max_execution_time = 180
max_input_time = 180
memory_limit = 256M
post_max_size = 50M
upload_max_filesize = 50M

Database requirements

EspoCRM supports MySQL, MariaDB and PostgreSQL. There are no special requirements – the default settings work fine for EspoCRM.

Server recommendations

Prefer using a VPS or a dedicated server for production EspoCRM instances. Shared hosting typically imposes some limitations. Nevertheless, Espo can run on shared hosting environments quite smoothly.

Required permissions for Unix-based systems

Note

In most cases, permissions are set properly after extracting EspoCRM instance from the zip package. You may only need to set file ownership.

Permissions

A simple setup.

Set files and directories to the following permissions:

  • data, custom, client/custom – all files, directories and subdirectories should be writable (664 for files, 775 for directories, including all subdirectories and files);
  • bin/command – should be executable (754);
  • all other files and directories should be readable (644 for files, 755 for directories).

To set the permissions, execute these commands in the terminal:

cd <PATH-TO-ESPOCRM-DIRECTORY>
find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} + && find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} +;
find data custom client/custom -type d -exec chmod 775 {} + && find data custom client/custom -type f -exec chmod 664 {} +;
chmod 754 bin/command;

Ownership

The simplest setup is when all files are owned and group-owned by the web server user. It can be www-data, daemon, apache, www, etc.

Note

On shared hosts, files usually should be owned and group-owned by your user account.

To set the owner and group-owner, execute these commands in the terminal:

cd <PATH-TO-ESPOCRM-DIRECTORY>
chown -R <OWNER>:<GROUP-OWNER> .;

Permission and ownership recommendations

In production, static application files are typically owned by the deployment user and group-owned under the web server user (e.g. deploy-user:www-data). Writable directories should usually be both owned and group-owned by the web server user.

Example:

  • data/, custom/Espo/Custom/ – www-data:www-data; directories: 770, files: 660;
  • everything else – deploy-user:www-data; directories: 750, files: 640;
  • bin/command – deploy-user:deploy-user; 700 (for running console commands);

Note that this setup implies that upgrades and extensions cannot be installed via the admin UI (should be installed via CLI).

The last 0 in the directory's octal permissions determines that other users cannot access or traverse the directory.

Setting up crontab

More information about jobs in EspoCRM is available here.

Unix-like systems

To setup crontab on Unix-like system, take the following steps:

1. Login as administrator into your EspoCRM instance.

2. Go to the Scheduled Jobs section in the administrator panel (Menu > Administration > Scheduled Jobs) and copy the string for the crontab. It looks like this one:

* * * * * /usr/bin/php -f /var/www/html/espocrm/cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

You might need to replace /var/www/html/espocrm/ with an actual path to your instance.

3. Open a terminal and run this command:

crontab -e -u WEBSERVER_USER

WEBSERVER_USER can be one of the following “www”, “www-data”, “apache”, etc (depends on your webserver).

4. Paste the copied string (from step 2) and save the crontab file (Ctrl + O, then Ctrl + X for nano editor).

Windows

See in a separate article how to set up Cron on Windows.

Configuration instructions for specific web servers

See also