How to install phpipam IP address management application on Ubuntu Server 24

phpipam is an open-source web IP address management application (IPAM). Its goal is to provide light, modern and useful IP address management. It is php-based application with MySQL database backend, using jQuery libraries, ajax and HTML5/CSS3 features. For more information and technical documentation visit https://phpipam.net/

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

• An Ubuntu Server 2024 installation.
• Sudo privileges to execute administrative commands.
• A static IP address configured on your server for consistent network visibility.

Step 1: Update Software Repositories

# apt update

Step 2: Install Available Software Updates

# apt upgrade -y

Step 3: Install Prerequisites

# apt install curl wget zip git -y

Step 4: Install Apache HTTPD and MySQL

# apt install apache2 mariadb-server mariadb-client -y

Step 5: Install PHP Components

# apt install php php-curl php-common php-gmp php-mbstring php-gd php-xml php-mysql php-ldap php-pear -y

Step 6: Configure the MySQL Database and Secure Your Database

Run the security script to set root password and secure your MySQL installation:

# mysql_secure_installation

Step 7: Login to the MySQL Database as the Root User

# mysql -u root -p

Step 8: Create a Database for phpIPAM

Execute the following SQL commands to create a new database and user for phpIPAM:

SQL

> CREATE DATABASE ipam_db;
> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ipam_db.* TO 'ipam_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'ipam_pass';
> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
> EXIT;

Exit to the terminal.

Note: Replace ipam_db, ipam_user, and ipam_password with your preferred database name, username, and password.

Step 9: Download phpIPAM Source Code from GitHub

# git clone https://github.com/phpipam/phpipam.git /var/www/html/phpipam

Note: If the download stops with error fatal: fetch-pack: invalid index-pack output, try the following solutions: (Skip this if the download process finished successfully)

Increase the Git Buffer Size

# git config --global http.postBuffer 157286400

Clone Using HTTP/1.1

# git config --global http.version HTTP/1.1

Clone in Parts

# git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/phpipam/phpipam.git /var/www/html/phpipam
# cd /var/www/html/phpipam
# git fetch --unshallow

Step 10: Navigate to the Directory and Checkout the Latest Release

# cd /var/www/html/phpipam
# git checkout $(git tag --sort=v:refname | tail -n1)

Step 11: Set the Owner of the phpIPAM Directory

# chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/phpipam

Step 12: Copy Sample Config File

# cp /var/www/html/phpipam/config.dist.php /var/www/html/phpipam/config.php

Step 13: Edit Config.php and Change the Values

# nano /var/www/html/phpipam/config.php

Inside the config.php file, update the database connection details:

PHP

$db['host'] = '127.0.0.1';
$db['user'] = 'ipam_user';
$db['pass'] = 'ipam_pass';
$db['name'] = 'ipam_db';
$db['port'] = 3306;

Bellow the database connection, add the following line.

define('BASE', "/phpipam/");

Note: The values for user, pass, and name must be the same as those set during the database configuration.

Step 14: Enable mod_rewrite

# a2enmod rewrite

Step 15: Restart the Apache Service

# systemctl restart apache2

Step 16: Complete the Installation via Web Browser

1. Navigate to http://<phpipam_IP_or_FQDN>/phpipam in your web browser.
2. Click on New phpIPAM installation.
3. Uncheck the Create new database and Set permission to tables.
4. Proceed with Automatic Database Installation using the ipam_db credentials set earlier.
5. Configure the admin login password and finish the installation.

Note: If you want to make server automatically discover nodes after configuration in defined subnets, add the lines bellow to /etc/crontab using nano or any text editor, then run the command to reload crontab service.

*/10 * * * * root /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/scripts/pingCheck.php
*/10 * * * * root /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/scripts/discoveryCheck.php
*/10 * * * * root /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/scripts/resolveIPaddresses.php

Save the file and exit. Run the bellow command to reload cron service

# service cron reload

Note: 10 represents minutes and you can change it to your custom value.