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| Setup Introduction |
Introduction
InvenTree can be self-hosted with minimal system requirements. Multiple database back-ends are supported, allowing for flexibility where required.
The InvenTree server ecosystem consists of the following components:
Database
A persistent database is required to store stock information. The database backend must be installed and configured separately to the InvenTree application.
InvenTree can be used by any database backend which is supported by the Django framework:
- SQLite
- PostgreSQL
- MariaDB
- MySQL
- Oracle
Database selection should be determined by your particular installation requirements. By default, InvenTree uses SQLite which provides a simple file-based database that allows a quick setup for development and testing.
Media Files
Uploaded media files (images, attachments, reports, etc) are stored to a persistent storage volume.
Web Server
The bulk of the InvenTree code base supports the custom web server application. The web server application services user requests and facilitates database access.
The webserver code also provides a first-party API for performing database query actions.
Once a database is setup, you need a way of accessing the data. InvenTree provides a "server" application out of the box, but this may not scale particularly well with multiple users. Instead, InvenTree can be served using a webserver such as Gunicorn. For more information see the deployment documentation.
Background Tasks
A separate application handles management of background tasks, separate to user-facing web requests.
OS Requirements
The InvenTree documentation assumes that the operating system is a debian based Linux OS. Some installation steps may differ for different systems.
!!! warning "Installing on Windows" Installation on Windows is not guaranteed to work (at all). To install on a Windows system, it is highly recommended that you install WSL, and then follow installation procedure from within the WSL environment.
On some systems, the dependencies for the weasyprint package might not be installed. Consider running through the weasyprint installation steps before moving forward.
The following minimum packages are required to be installed on a system level:
Debian
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3 python3-dev
sudo apt-get install python3-pip python3-invoke python3-venv
FreeBSD
pkg install python
pkg install py37-pip
pkg install py37-wheel
pkg install py37-invoke
Python Requirements
InvenTree runs on Python.
!!! warning "Python Version" InvenTree requrires Python 3.6 (or newer). If your system has an older version of Python installed, you will need to follow the update instructions for your OS.
Invoke
InvenTree makes use of the invoke python toolkit for performing various administrative actions
Virtual Environment
Installing the required Python packages inside a virtual environment allows a local install separate to the system-wide Python installation. While not strictly necessary, using a virtual environment is highly recommended as it prevents conflicts between the different Python installations.
You can read more about Python virtual environments here.
!!! note "Virtual Environment" The installation intstruction assume that a virtual environment is configured
cd into the InvenTree directory, and create a virtual environment with the following command:
python3 -m venv env
Activating a Virtual Environment
The virtual environment needs to be activated to ensure the correct python binaries and libraries are used. The InvenTree instructions assume that the virtual environment is always correctly activated.
To configure Inventree inside a virtual environment, cd into the inventree base directory and run the following command:
source env/bin/activate
!!! note "Activate Virtual Environment"
if
source env/bin/activate
is not working try
. env/bin/activate
This will place the current shell session inside a virtual environment - the terminal should display the (env) prefix.
Downloading Source Code
InvenTree source code is distributed on GitHub, and the latest version can be downloaded (using Git) with the following command:
git clone https://github.com/inventree/inventree/
Alternatively, the source can be downloaded as a .zip archive.
Installation Guides
There are multiple ways to get an InvenTree server up and running, of various complexity (and robustness)!
Development Server
To setup a simple development server, refer to the development instructions.
These instructions are useful for those wishing to run a development server. This setup may suffice for a small-scale installation with only a small number of users.
!!! warning "Not for production" The development server is not to be used for a production environment.
For a robust server setup which supports high traffic and multiple users, it is highly recommended that the deployment guide is followed instead.
Production Server
A production server install requires greater consideration.
To properly deploy a robust InvenTree server setup, refer to the deployment instructions.
Docker
InvenTree can be installed using docker, if that's your thing.
Refer to the docker instructions.