Thread: ERP and CRMAppliance

Deploying ERP and CRM systems is the most time consuming and difficult process for a business. However, our PCQLinux ERP and CRM Appliance is able to reduce the deploy¬ment time remarkably. To have your own ERP and CRM solution, simply copy the PCQL08_ERP _CRM_Appliance.vdi.bz2 file from the PCQLinux Appliance DVD and unzip it. Time taken would depend on the speed of your network. The zipped file is around 1.4 GB in size and when you extract it will expand to around 4.3 GB. So before you start the extraction process, please make sure that you at least have 5 G B of free space in the machine.

Once you have extracted the file, create a new virtual machine using Virtual¬Box which has at least 512 MB of dedicated RAM, with a tapped network adapter. You would require a tapped network adapter as the ERP application in the appliance runs on a client-server model and once you have started the server from the appliance, you can connect and access it from anywhere in the network. How to configure a tapped network will be discussed later in this story.

Background info
PCQLinux ERP and CRM appliance uses TinyERP as the core ERP engine, which is a complete Open Source ERP and CRM application with more than 200 modules. deploy and use. You can access and use the documentation from/documentations.ht m!' Once you've started TinyERP, you can either connect it using its client (available for both Linux and Windows) or you can connect and use it through a Web based interface.

Starting the appliance
Once you've extracted and attached the .vdi file to the virtual machine, let the ma¬chine get booted on to the appliance. Once the machine boots, run the com¬mands:service postgresql start #service tinyerp-server start

The first command starts the Post¬gres SQL server while the second acti¬vates the TinyERP server. You can also configure the appliance to start up both the services at boot time. For this, run the setup command and select the Sys¬tem Service option and hit Enter. This will show you a list of al1 the services available in the appliance. Scrol1 down If you get '10.0.0.1' as the IP address, it means you're running the appliance with a NATed network card instead of a tapped network card. Such a card would not let you access services running on the appliance from any other system connected to the network.

To rectify this problem change the network card type in your Virtual Machine configuration to 'Tap' or 'Host interface' mode. To know how to do it, read the section 'Set up appliances to network' In the PCQLinux 2008: Installation & Implementation article. till you find PostgreSQL and TinyERP. Once you lo¬cate them, select them and hit enter to make them active on boot. Once done, click on OK.

Once the services are activated, check if you have got an IP address from your DHCP server or not. For this, run '#ifconfig. ' Check the IP you've received. If you are not running this appliance in a DHCP environment, provide the IP address manually by run¬ning 'system-config-network.

Connecting to the service
Connecting to the service is vary simple. Either run the TinyERP client from the appliance or from the system where you installed the TinyERP client soft¬ware. You can download the TinyERP Client for Windows from component! op¬tion,com-Joomlaxplorer /Itemid, 132/. Next, click on the File? Connect option. This will open up a di¬alog box. Here, click on the Change button and pro¬vide the IP address of the appliance. If you are running the client from inside the appliance, then the IP address will be 127.0.0.1.

Check whether the port it is connecting to is 8069. We have created an empty database for you in the appliance, called 'te.' This database will automatically get selected when you provide the IP