How to Install WHMCS 6.1 on a VPS or Dedicated Server running CentOS 6.7

In this article, I’m going to show you how to install WHMCS on a VPS or a Dedicated server running CentOS 6.7. This should work on almost any version of CentOS 6, but don’t quote me on that! Package changes might change in a way that is unforeseen!

This article assumes you have a general understanding of Linux and the command line, and that you know How to Install Apache, MySQL, and PHP on CentOS 6.7.

Additionally, this article assumes that you are running upgraded version of the MySQL, and PHP binaries.

Without further ado, let’s jump into getting WHMCS set up!

 

1. Verify That Apache, MySQL, and PHP are running

First, if you haven’t yet configured Apache for VirtualHosts, I suggest you read my article on How To Configure a VirtualHost for Apache 2.2 on CentOS 6.7

If you’ve got that out of the way, we can move on to verifying that all the required services for WHMCS are installed and operational.

 

Check Apache and PHP Status

First type in the following, to make sure the service is running:

service httpd status

You should see the following:

httpd (pid 1499) is running...

Looking good. Let’s continue.

 

Create a directory to contain your WHMCS installation. You can name it whatever you want, just keep in mind this is how users will access WHMCS, and they will see what you name it in the URL bar. For this article, we’re going to be calling the directory “whmcshome”

Once you’ve confirmed your VirtualHost is in place, we can take a look at MySQL

 

Check MySQL Status

Type in the following:

service mysqld status

You should see the following:

mysqld (pid 26003) is running...

Now we need to create the WHMCS user and database. Type the following and enter your MySQL password (if configured)

mysql -u root -p

Create the WHMCS Database:

create database whmcs;

Create the WHMCS User:

grant all on whmcs.* to 'whmcs'@'localhost' identified by 'yourpassword';

Flush the Privilege Tables and Quit:

flush privileges;
quit

MySQL should also be good now, moving on!

 

2. Download Required PHP Packages

WHMCS requires some extra PHP packages installed in order to work.

yum -y install gd php-mbstring php-gd php-mysql php-pdo php-ZendFramework-Db-Adapter-Pdo-Mysql

We’re also going to need to install the IonCube Loader for PHP. We could do this manually… but that’s such a drag.

If you haven’t already done so, install the Remi and EPEL repositories

rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-6.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-6.rpm

Let’s enable the REMI repository globally:

nano /etc/yum.repos.d/remi.repo

Under the section that looks like [remi] make the following changes:

[remi]
name=Remi's RPM repository for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch
#baseurl=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/6/remi/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/6/remi/mirror
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-remi

Now install the php-ioncube-loader package:

yum -y install php-ioncube-loader

Confirm that everything installed correctly:

php -v

You should now see the ioncube loader:

PHP 5.4.45 (cli) (built: Sep 2 2015 18:54:00) 
Copyright (c) 1997-2014 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2014 Zend Technologies
with the ionCube PHP Loader (enabled) + Intrusion Protection from ioncube24.com (unconfigured) v5.0.18, Copyright (c) 2002-2015, by ionCube Ltd.
with Suhosin v0.9.38, Copyright (c) 2007-2015, by SektionEins GmbH

 

3. Download WHMCS 6.1 and Extract to VirtualHost Server Root

If you haven’t already created an an account, head over to WHMCS, and sign up.

I would post a download link here, but you need to be a member in order to access it.

Once you’ve downloaded WHMCS, you’ll be left with a zip file. When you extract the zip file, you should see x3 things; the EULA, the README, and a directory called whmcs.

Open the whmcs directory, and using your favorite SFTP/FTP client, upload the contents into your whmcshome directory.

 

4. Set up WHMCS File and Folder Permissions

Make sure you navigate into your whmcshome directory. The next few commands will contain relative paths.

cd /var/www/virtual/yourdomain.com/public_html/whmcshome

Then, let’s rename the configuration file and set temporary permissions so that the WHMCS installer can write to it:

mv configuration.php.new configuration.php
chmod 777 configuration.php

Next, let’s make sure the permissions for some directories are set correctly:

chmod 777 templates_c/
chmod 777 downloads/
chmod 777 attachments/

 

5. Run the WHMCS Installer

Now that you’ve uploaded the WHMCS files and set the correct file and directory permissions, you can direct your web browser to the installer URL. Should be something like: http://yourdomain.com/whmcshome/install/install.php

 

Step 1.  Agree to the WHMCS EULA (if you want)

 

Step 2.  Make sure you see the green box letting you know your system passes the requirements check

 

Step 3.  Enter MySQL information from Section 1. Leave the host and port settings alone, default should be fine.

 

Step 4.  Enter the settings you want for your admin area

 

Step 5.  Success!

 

6. Secure WHMCS Installation

Now that we’ve successfully installed WHMCS, we need to secure it. The success page from Step 5 tells you the basics on how to do this. I’ll be writing a more in-depth article on how to do this, but for now, here is the link on How to Further Secure WHMCS.

Nice work! You’ve installed WHMCS and are on your way to web hosting happiness!