How to Install MyCollab Community Edition on CentOS 7

MyCollab is free, open-source team collaboration software. It is widely used by small and mid-size enterprises for project management and documentation.

In this tutorial we will be installing MyCollab on CentOS 7.

Prerequisites

• A CentOS 7 instance with at least 1 GB of RAM. 2 GB of RAM is recommended.
• A sudo user.
• EPEL yum repository.
• Java.

Step 1: Update the system

Log in as the sudo user and install the epel repository and update the OS as follows:

sudo yum install epel-release -y
sudo yum update -y
sudo shutdown -r now

Step 2: Install Java

MyCollab requires Java Runtime Environment JRE version 8 or higher. You can install OpenJDK and JRE using yum as follows:

sudo yum install -y java-1.8.0-openjdk

Use the command below to verify the installed version of Java:

java -version

The output should resemble:

openjdk version "1.8.0_111"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_111-b15)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.111-b15, mixed mode)

Step 3: Obtaining the latest stable release of MyCollab Community Edition

cd
wget https://github.com/MyCollab/mycollab/releases/download/Release_5.4.5/MyCollab-All-5.4.5.zip
sudo yum install unzip -y
unzip MyCollab-All-5.4.5.zip    

Note: At the time this article was written, version 5.4.5 of MyCollab was the latest. You can also find the latest version of MyCollab on their Github Page. 

Step 4: Install and configure MariaDB

MyCollab requires MySQL 5.5 or higher. However, MariaDB offers better performance and we can install it as follows:

sudo yum install mariadb mariadb-server -y

Start the MariaDB service:

sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

Secure MariaDB's installation:

sudo /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

Below are the recommended responses to the questions prompted while running mysql_secure_installation:

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Enter
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
New password: <your-own-password>
Re-enter new password: <your-own-password>
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y

Step 5: Setup a MySQL database for MyCollab

Log into the MySQL shell as root:

mysql -u root -p

We need to create a database schema using the utf8mb4 character set for MyCollab:

CREATE SCHEMA mycollab DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4;

Create a database username and password:

CREATE USER 'mycollabuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON mycollab.* TO 'mycollabuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Note: Please use a more secure username and password for your database.

Step 6: Install MyCollab

Use the existing MyCollab installer script as follows:

cd ~/MyCollab-5.4.5/bin
./startup.sh

You need to also setup your firewall to allow traffic to port 8080:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=8080/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Visiting http://203.0.113.1:8080 in your browser will load the MyCollab setup wizard. You will need to click the Setup button.

MYCOLLAB SETUP

• Site name: <Your Site Name>
• Server address: 203.0.113.1 or example.com

DATABASE SETUP

• Database name: mycollab
• User name: mycollabuser
• Password: yourpassword
• Database server address: localhost

EMAIL SETUP (Optional)

Input the necessary SMTP settings. You can leave them empty and change the settings later.

• User name:
• Password:
• Server name:
• Port:
• STARTTLS:
• or SSL/TLS:

Next, you will be asked to provide the login credentials for the new MyCollab admin user:

• Admin email: <your-email-address>
• Admin password: <your-admin-password>
• Default date format, timezone, language, etc.

Finally, click the Setup button to finish the wizard.

This concludes our tutorial. Thank you for reading.