How To

How To Install phpIPAM on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04

Josphat Mutai Updated Jul 1, 2024 · 5 min read

The objective of this guide is to help you Install and Configure phpIPAM on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04 Linux distribution. phpIPAM is an open-source php-based web IP address management application (IPAM). Its goal is to provide light, modern and useful IP address management. phpIPAM uses MySQL database backend and jQuery libraries, Ajax and HTML5/CSS3 features.

Original content from computingforgeeks.com - post 2403

phpIPAM has the following features:

IPv4/IPv6 IP address management
Section / Subnet management
Automatic free space display for subnets
Visual subnet display
Automatic subnet scanning / IP status checks
PowerDNS integration
NAT support
VLAN management
VRF management
IPv4 / IPv6 calculator
IP database search
E-mail notifications
Custom fields support
Translations
Changelogs
RACK management
Domain authentication (AD, LDAP, Radius)
Per-group section/subnet permissions
Device/device types management
RIPE subnets import
XLS / CVS subnets import
IP request module
REST API support
Locations module

Install phpIPAM on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04

phpIPAM has a number of dependencies that we need to install before we can install and configure phpIPAM. These are:

MySQL / MariaDB server
php / php-fpm for nginx
php modules
Apache / nginx web server
phpIPAM domain – ipam.example.com (should be replaced with your domain)

Step 1: Install MariaDB Server

Start with the installation of MariaDB database server:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

Ensure mariadb service is started and set to start at boot:

sudo systemctl enable mariadb
sudo systemctl start mariadb

Secure database server by setting root password:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Once the database installation and setup is complete, create a database for phpipam user:

$ sudo mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE phpipam;
GRANT ALL ON phpipam.* TO phpipam@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongDBPassword';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
QUIT;

Step 2: Install PHP and required modules

Next phase is the installation of php and required modules. Run the following commands:

sudo apt update 
sudo apt -y install php php-{mysql,curl,gd,intl,pear,imap,memcache,pspell,tidy,xmlrpc,mbstring,gmp,json,xml,fpm}

You can adjust settings including timezone

sudo vim /etc/php/*/apache2/php.ini
sudo vim /etc/php/*/cli/php.ini

Step 3: Install phpIPAM on Ubuntu

We’ll download phpIPAM from Github. Install git first:

sudo apt -y install git

Clone phpIPAM code from github

sudo git clone --recursive https://github.com/phpipam/phpipam.git /var/www/html/phpipam

Change to clone directory.

cd /var/www/html/phpipam

You can also download phpipam from official Sourceforge repository and extract it to your web server directory.

wget https://tenet.dl.sourceforge.net/project/phpipam/phpipam-<VERSION>.tar
tar xvf phpipam-<VERSION>.tar
sudo mv phpipam /var/www/html

Step 4: Configure phpIPAM on Ubuntu

Change your working directory to /var/www/html/phpipam and copy config.dist.php to config.php, then edit it.

cd /var/www/html/phpipam
sudo cp config.dist.php config.php

Edit the file to configure database credentials as added on Step 1:

$ sudo vim config.php
/**
* database connection details
******************************/
$db['host'] = 'localhost';
$db['user'] = 'phpipam';
$db['pass'] = 'StrongDBPassword';
$db['name'] = 'phpipam';
$db['port'] = 3306;

Option 1: Using Apache Web Server

If you would like to use Apache web server, first install it using:

sudo systemctl stop nginx && sudo systemctl disable nginx
sudo apt -y install apache2
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Install apache php module:

sudo apt -y install libapache2-mod-php php-curl php-xmlrpc php-intl php-gd

Add Apache phpipam configuration:

sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/phpipam.conf

Here are the contents:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/html/phpipam"
    ServerName ipam.example.com
    ServerAlias www.ipam.example.com
    <Directory "/var/www/html/phpipam">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
    ErrorLog "/var/log/apache2/phpipam-error_log"
    CustomLog "/var/log/apache2/phpipam-access_log" combined
</VirtualHost>

Set directory permissions:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html

Enable site:

sudo a2ensite phpipam

Restart Apache server for changes to be made.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Option 2: Using Nginx Web server (Skip if you chose & configured apache in option 1)

Install nginx using the command:

sudo systemctl stop apache2 && sudo systemctl disable apache2
sudo apt -y install nginx

Configure nginx:

sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/phpipam.conf

Add content:

server {
    listen       80;
    # root directory
    server_name ipam.example.com  www.ipam.example.com;
    index        index.php;
    root   /var/www/html/phpipam;


    location / {
            try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
        }

    location ~ \.php$ {
            try_files $uri =404;
            fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
             fastcgi_pass   unix:/run/php/php-fpm.sock;
            fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            fastcgi_index index.php;
            include fastcgi_params;
        }

 }

Change ownership of the /var/www/ directory to www-data user and group.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Create the cron jobs that run the ping auto discover and ping check

$ sudo crontab -e
*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/scripts/pingCheck.php
*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/scripts/discoveryCheck.php

Step 5: Finish phpIPAM Installation on Ubuntu

Start the installation process by visiting http://ipam.example.com, replace ipam.example.com with your valid domain name. The URL could also be http://domain.com/phpipam or IP Address instead of DNS name depending on your configuration.

http://ipam.example.com

If the domain name used is not a valid DNS record you can modify your hosts file:

# Linux / macOS
$ sudo vim /etc/hosts
#E.g 172.21.200.10 ipam.example.com

# Windows
C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts

On the first page, Select “New phpipam installation“

Since we had created a database, we’ll go with “MySQL import instructions“.

This will output the command to import the SQL file.

sudo mysql -u root -p phpipam < /var/www/html/phpipam/db/SCHEMA.sql

For Automatic database installation, set like below.

On successful installation, you should get the admin login page.

The default Login credentials are:

Username: admin
Password: ipamadmin

You’re prompted to change the admin password on the first login.

You have successfully installed phpIPAM on Ubuntu 20.04 / Ubuntu 18.04 Linux system.

Similar guides:

How to Install NetBox on Ubuntu
How To Install phpIPAM on CentOS 8 / RHEL 8
How to install RackTables on Ubuntu
How to Install Wiki.js on Ubuntu 18.04 / CentOS 7

Josphat Mutai

Founder of Computingforgeeks. Expertise in Virtualization, Cloud, Linux/UNIX Administration, Automation,Storage Systems, Containers, Server Clustering e.t.c.

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31 thoughts on “How To Install phpIPAM on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04|18.04”

Manuel

March 14, 2021 at 11:43 pm

Hey Josphat,

thank you for the guide.
I just miss the path of the folder where I have to create the Apache phpipam configuration file?

Greets
Reply
- Hamsta
  
  April 13, 2021 at 6:55 pm
  
  Hey Manual
  
  vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/phpipam.conf
  then
  a2ensite phpipam
  systemctl restart apache2
  
  greetings from Germany 🙂
  Reply
Aaron D

July 23, 2021 at 8:55 pm

Hi Josphat!

Much appreciate your guide!

I have a couple of issues;

Installation on Ubuntu 20.04 with Apache2.

First when configuring the config.php I assume the ‘user’ and ‘name’ will be of the logged in user account or should this be root?

$ sudo vim config.php
/**
* database connection details
******************************/
$db[‘host’] = ‘localhost’;
$db[‘user’] = ‘phpipam’;
$db[‘pass’] = ‘StrongDBPassword’;
$db[‘name’] = ‘phpipam’;
$db[‘port’] = 3306;

And second, I’m seeing the following error. Unsure if it’s caused by the db user?

[Fri Jul 23 17:48:11.443770 2021] [php7:error] [pid 37606] [client 10.60.1.224:57045] script ‘/var/www/html/index.php’ not found or unable to stat
[Fri Jul 23 17:48:12.487471 2021] [php7:error] [pid 37606] [client 10.60.1.224:57045] script ‘/var/www/html/index.php’ not found or unable to stat

Thank you,

Aaron D
Reply
Aaron D

July 23, 2021 at 9:18 pm

Hi Josphat,

I figured out my issues from my previous note. One issue remains, when accessing the site I’m seeing the following errors. Can you point me to my mistake?

[Fri Jul 23 13:15:33.980476 2021] [php7:warn] [pid 1944] [client 10.60.1.224:54042] PHP Warning: Creating default object from empty value in /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/classes/class.User.php on line 418
[Fri Jul 23 13:15:34.072573 2021] [php7:error] [pid 1944] [client 10.60.1.224:54042] script ‘/var/www/html/index.php’ not found or unable to stat

Thank you,

Aaron D
Reply
- Josphat Mutai
  
  August 3, 2021 at 4:02 pm
  
  Hi,
  
  Did you validate DocumentRoot and Directory configs in your apache settings?
  Reply
  - Aaron D
    
    August 23, 2021 at 6:27 pm
    
    I did, no issues found.
    
    I’m wondering if Ubuntu 20.04.2 made some changes over 20.04… I’ve walked through the above instructions 4 times all with the same results.
    Reply
    - Aaron D
      
      August 23, 2021 at 11:25 pm
      
      I’ve found the issue, I needed to reload apache2 after updating the DocumentRoot… my bad!
      
      Thank you, Josphat!
      Reply
joe

October 22, 2021 at 6:25 pm

Does anyone have a simple guide to follow? I have been through these instructions 4 times now installing ubuntu 20.04 and following above and still unable to get phpipam working. Can someone point out exactly what needs to be changed for us non-linux users.
Reply
- Josphat Mutai
  
  October 23, 2021 at 2:51 pm
  
  Hi,
  
  Please try redo installation with updated article. We noticed there were some issues when using nginx as your web server.
  Reply
Stan Laurentiu

January 12, 2022 at 11:12 pm

Hello, first thing : thank you for your guide and work!!!
Second , I need your help : I tried 3 times this guide and I’m still not able to make it work.
http://192.168.1.33/index.php?page=install returns :
This page isn’t working192.168.1.33 is currently unable to handle this request.
HTTP ERROR 500

I tried and check everything written in this guide, but I don’t manage.
Can you guide me what to check or try more?
Thank you in advance
Reply
- Josphat Mutai
  
  February 28, 2022 at 11:41 pm
  
  Hi Stan,
  
  What’s your web browser?
  Reply
Chris

February 28, 2022 at 10:00 am

I had to install php before running the command below, so essentially it was:

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install php
sudo apt -y install php php-{mysql,curl,gd,intl,pear,imap,memcache,pspell,tidy,xmlrpc,mbstring,gmp,json,xml,fpm}

This was on a raspberry pi though so may have made a difference.

Thanks for the guide, this will be awesome to mess about with at home.
Reply
- Chris
  
  February 28, 2022 at 10:45 am
  
  If anyone is installing on rasberry pi there’s a few things to note.
  Rasberry pi (my installation) didn’t come with vim, so I installed it using:
  sudo apt install vim
  
  If using a 32 bit os you’ll need to use phpipam version lower than 1.4.
  
  If you already installed a version<=1.4 you can remove it by using this command (deletes files):
  cd /var/www/html
  sudo rm -R -f phpipam
  
  Then get a version lower than 1.4. In my case I used 1.3:
  sudo git clone –recursive https://github.com/phpipam/phpipam.git –branch 1.3 /var/www/html/phpipam
  
  You'll need to still setup the config file for it.
  Reply
  - Josphat Mutai
    
    February 28, 2022 at 11:43 pm
    
    Thanks for your input Chris.
    Reply
aenagy

June 17, 2022 at 4:09 pm

user@ubuntu:/var/www/html/phpipam$ sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
Site 000-default disabled.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
systemctl reload apache2
user@ubuntu:/var/www/html/phpipam$ sudo systemctl reload apache2
user@ubuntu:/var/www/html/phpipam$ sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
Site 000-default already disabled
user@ubuntu:/var/www/html/phpipam$

I would suggest adding “sudo systemctl reload apache2″ before ” sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf”.
Reply
- Josphat Mutai
  
  June 17, 2022 at 4:58 pm
  
  Thanks.
  Reply
Joaquin

October 7, 2022 at 7:25 pm

duuuude, thx a lot, this guide are very good explained!! thx again!
Reply
Ben

February 12, 2023 at 1:15 pm

Hi Josphat! I was installing this on a development server to test api integations. I worried I had to worry for hours with the installation to get it to work…

ALL thanks to your blog post I had it up and running in notime! Cant thank you enough for saving me hours of frustration!!

Keep up the good work!
Reply
- Ben
  
  February 12, 2023 at 1:17 pm
  
  integations=integrations, worry=work. Sorry for polluting the comments with typos 🙂
  Reply
- Josphat Mutai
  
  February 13, 2023 at 7:16 am
  
  Thanks and welcome always!
  Reply
Reed

March 3, 2023 at 1:47 am

When trying to import a subnet, I get the below error for xls file

The filename /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/classes/../../app/subnets/import-subnet/upload/import.xls is not readable

and below error when trying a csv

Cannot open upload/import.csv

have provided access to apache –

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/
chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/
Reply
- Reed
  
  March 3, 2023 at 1:48 am
  
  I can however upload a logo.
  Reply
- Josphat Mutai
  
  March 3, 2023 at 5:05 pm
  
  You’re using Nginx or Apache web server?
  Reply
  - Reed
    
    March 3, 2023 at 6:48 pm
    
    Apache web server
    Reply
    - Reed
      
      March 3, 2023 at 10:14 pm
      
      $ sudo ps -ef | grep apache2
      root 890 1 0 Mar02 ? 00:00:03 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
      www-data 4475 890 0 00:00 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
      www-data 4477 890 0 00:00 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
      www-data 4478 890 0 00:00 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
      www-data 4479 890 0 00:00 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
      Reply
    - Reed
      
      March 7, 2023 at 2:27 am
      
      Found a temp workaround. If I do a manual upload of the file to the directory and adjust permissions to read/write for owner/group/others, it will allow me to upload xls. Weird because apache is the owner of the folder.
      Reply
Javier

August 30, 2023 at 1:34 am

Thanks a lot sir! It was the smoothest installation ever xD
Careful folks it will not run with the default PHP version (8.x) of Ubuntu server 22.04, u can either install php v 7.4 on ubuntu server 22.04 or just do it all on a 20.04 server and be happy.
Reply
ken

January 24, 2024 at 12:28 am

Thank you very much!

Two things left to do, though:

1. Set timezones in /etc/php/8.1/apache2/php.ini and /etc/php/8.1/cli/php.ini

2. Create the cron jobs that run the ping auto discover and ping check

sudo crontab -e
*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/scripts/pingCheck.php
*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/phpipam/functions/scripts/discoveryCheck.php
Reply
- Josphat Mutai
  
  January 25, 2024 at 12:10 am
  
  Thanks for the comments Ken. We’ve included your recommendations in the article.
  Reply
William Wildebeest

June 29, 2024 at 11:19 pm

After multiple attempts, I have one issue after another; I just can’t get this thing to run. I really appreciate your work, though.
Reply
- Josphat Mutai
  
  July 1, 2024 at 9:59 am
  
  What’s the issue William?
  Reply