ERPNext - cost-effective ERP solution

[nj]

Teaser

[nj]

Two major issues that I ran into while testing on cloudron.

• frappe framework requires the database name and database username to be the same (its hardcoded and all over the place). When testing locally it worked but in cloudron, db name is appended with “db” and username with “user”

• frappe framework needs root access to the database, eg. password of the user named “postgres” (its hardcoded, even if —dbroot-username exists, it’s for mariadb only)

That’s why I’m running postgres server on the Docker container itself, and not use any db addons. I’ll map the db storage to /app/data so it gets backed up regularly.

See you guys with good news next time. Most apps made in Python seem to write all over the filesystem so I’m testing it on readonly environment; once done ErpNext should be available soon. Thank you for your patience.

[girish]

@nj said in ERPNext - cost-effective ERP solution:

frappe framework requires the database name and database username to be the same (its hardcoded and all over the place). When testing locally it worked but in cloudron, db name is appended with “db” and username with “user”

That's a pretty rough requirement but we can fix the platform code I guess to have an option to generate such names.

frappe framework needs root access to the database, eg. password of the user named “postgres” (its hardcoded, even if —dbroot-username exists, it’s for mariadb only)

Keeps getting rougher There's no chance we will allow an app to have root db access.

Is the situation any better with mariadb instead of postgresql?

[infogulch]

frappe framework needs root access to the database

Surely this is not actually necessary to run the app, but is just part of their custom dynamic deployment system (ick). I hope it's possible to extricate the actual app from the framework...

[nj]

@girish for the initial release, I've given up on the idea of using Cloudron addons for now. Postgres is also getting over-complicated so I think I'd stick with MariaDB. Let's see how it goes. The build-run-test cycle is quite tedious when there are all kinds of new errors to resolve. ErpNext turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.

Current status: frappe installed, up and running. ErpNext won't install, and require all its dependencies (apps) to be installed. My target is to publish it by this week.

[nj]

@infogulch said in ERPNext - cost-effective ERP solution:

frappe framework needs root access to the database

Surely this is not actually necessary to run the app, but is just part of their custom dynamic deployment system (ick). I hope it's possible to extricate the actual app from the framework...

I thought so too. Unfortunately, it keeps asking for "postgres super user password".

[LoudLemur]

@nj Thanks for all your hard work. Few have the necessary skills.

[nj]

Help Needed. Please check issue on github.

I'm inches away from either successfully running ErpNext or quitting the idea of packaging it. Never had I ever stuck with this kind of stupid errors.

When everything goes smooth, one of the modules (Payment Module in particular) make the entire table crash in the middle of loading the modules. Fix one error, then another pops up, then another.

I no longer have time nor patience to package this after this week. Here's the progress.. github.com/njsubedi/cloudron-erpnext if anyone has time, skill and patience, please go ahead and continue packaging this piece of sofware.

If anyone knows people from Frappe, please tell them to stop putting spaces and uppercase letters in table names, and at least retry any database operation instead of leaving the entire database in broken state when something fails, then have the user restart the minutes long process from the beginning.

Hours spent: 100+

Please check the issue on Github

[marcusquinn]

@nj You might not want to hear this, but in 100 hours, you could probably reproduce anything you need from ERPNext in EspoCRM using the Entity Manager to build copies of any specific data structures and Reports for anything specific there.

That's basically a lot of what I've been doing lately, taking Espo from being a CRM to an ERP system.

[nj]

@marcusquinn I could do the entire EspoCRM in Directus if I had to.

I wanted to package it because it's one of the most wanted apps, but I think it takes someone else who knows python and databases more than me.

[marcusquinn]

@nj After 18 months working with Espo, I doubt it, and I'm a fan of Directus too.

I see value in having ERPNext, and Odoo, packaged and available too. Even if only so that people can compare all of these similar apps, and take inspiration from all of them to make the best solution with the one they choose to develop among them.

I think you're right though, this one needs cooperation from the original author if it's not versatile enough to handle errors in building in Cloudron's tighter security Docker environment.

[nj]

Trailer
You know what's disappointing? I started packaging ERPNext for the HR module. Unfortunately, the HR Module is not available after installation. Now I'm here thinking where the hell it go, and why I spent weeks packaging something that doesn't have the particular module I was looking for.

Update: Looks like version-14 of ERPNext does not have HR module. Only version-13 has it. Now packaging version 13.

[subven]

@nj said in ERPNext - cost-effective ERP solution:

Looks like version-14 of ERPNext does not have HR module.

They refactored the HR and Payroll module into a "new" app --> #31467. Maybe this could still be installed within the current V14 docker app --> ERPNext HRMS installation.

PS: Thank you for your hard work

[nj]

@subven oh, wow! How did I miss that!

[Aizat]

@nj Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but if you wish to put on a donation pot, I would be happy to contribute where I can, as a token of thanks for your hard work and time!
Thank you again for all the hard work.

[nj]

@Aizat I'm looking for someone who know MariaDB and Python3 for the project. I've successfully packaged ErpNext, but I had to patch the source code of "Payments" and "HRMS" modules that crash the database tables during installation. Instead of cash, I'm looking for few other people who would pull the repo, and see if they see the same kind of crashes.

[nj]

@girish @nebulon would you look into it?

[infogulch]

@nj I tried installing it to my cloudron and it built successfully, but I ran into an issue with the cloudron cli during installation saying that I need to specify a subdomain (when I clearly did specify a subdomain), then I ran out of time to mess with it until later this week.

[nj]

Okay, the errors have gone. I'd say I'm 99% done packaging. Will post the good news soon.

[nj]

Okay, here is the good news. Please try it out and let me know if it works.

If you're not ready to build the image yourself, you can simply install the image that I created. cloudron install --image njsubedi/cloudron-erpnext -l erp.<yourdomain.tld>.

ErpNext v14 is now available on Cloudron. See the README file for usage instructions.

Features

• ErpNext v14 - running on Frappe Framework v14
• HRMS Module - Includes HR and Payroll modules
• Plug n Play - Automatically configured to use the subdomain you install it on, no setup needed
• Independent - Does not depend on Cloudron Addons for redis, mysql or such

Gotchas

• Installs its own database servers, but data resides inside /app/data, so it gets backed-up, no not a big issue
• Hasn't been tested a lot, but it's working pretty fine
• Multi-tenancy isn't set up, even though that's pretty trivial to do

Good to know

• After installation, look into /app/data folder using cloudron's file manager for a file that ends with -credential.txt.
• Raise issues on Github if you run into problems, not here.