Installing Odoo

Odoo offers a variety of installation methods, catering to different use cases from quick trials to full-scale production environments. This document provides a comprehensive overview of these options, guiding you through the selection and setup process:

• Online: The most straightforward option for production or initial evaluation.
• Packaged Installers: Ideal for testing, module development, and production use with additional configuration.
• Source Install: Offers maximum flexibility, suitable for development, multiple Odoo versions, and customized production deployments.
• Docker: Recommended for users who already leverage Docker for development or deployment, with an official base image available.

Editions

Odoo is available in two distinct editions: Community and Enterprise. The Enterprise version is accessible via Odoo Online, with its code restricted to Enterprise customers and partners. In contrast, the Community version is open-source and freely available to all users. Should you be operating the Community version and wish to upgrade to Enterprise, please consult the Switch from Community to Enterprise guide for detailed instructions, except when using a Source install.

Online

For those seeking a hassle-free experience without local installation, Odoo provides robust online options.

Demo

To quickly explore Odoo\'s functionalities, temporary demo instances are readily available. These shared instances are active for a few hours, allowing users to navigate the system and experiment without any commitment. Accessing these demo instances requires only a web browser, eliminating the need for any local software installation.

Odoo Online

Trivial to start with, fully managed and migrated by Odoo S.A., Odoo Online provides private instances and starts out free. It can be used to discover and test Odoo and do non-code customizations (i.e., incompatible with custom modules or the Odoo Apps Store) without having to install it locally. Odoo Online is suitable for both initial testing and long-term production use. Similar to demo instances, Odoo Online instances are accessible solely through a web browser, requiring no local installation.

Packaged Installers

Odoo provides convenient packaged installers for various operating systems, including Windows and deb-based (Debian, Ubuntu, etc.) and RPM-based (Fedora, CentOS, RHEL, etc.) Linux distributions. These packages are available for both Community and Enterprise versions. While these installers automatically handle most dependencies (for the Community version), keeping them updated might require periodic attention. Official Community packages, including all necessary dependencies, can be found on our nightly server. Both Community and Enterprise packages are downloadable from our download page, though access to Enterprise packages requires a login as a paying customer or partner.

Windows

Follow these steps to install Odoo on Windows:

1. Download the appropriate installer from our nightly server (Community only) or the Windows installer section of the download page (for any edition).
2. Execute the downloaded file. You might encounter a "Windows protected your PC" warning on Windows 8 and later. If so, click "More Info" and then "Run anyway".
3. Accept the User Account Control (UAC) prompt to proceed.
4. Navigate through the installation wizard, following the on-screen instructions.

Odoo will automatically launch once the installation is complete.

Linux

Installing Odoo on Linux requires specific preparations and can be done either via a repository or a distribution package.

Prepare

Odoo relies on a PostgreSQL server for its database operations. For optimal performance, the default configuration for the Odoo \'deb\' package anticipates the PostgreSQL server running on the same host as your Odoo instance. To install the PostgreSQL server, execute the following command:

$ sudo apt install postgresql -y

Important Note: wkhtmltopdf is a critical tool for generating PDF reports with headers and footers, and it is not installed via pip. It must be manually installed, specifically version 0.12.5, to ensure full functionality. For more detailed information on different versions and their compatibility, please refer to our wiki.

Repository

Odoo S.A. provides a dedicated repository compatible with Debian and Ubuntu distributions. To install Odoo Community Edition using this repository, run the following commands in your terminal:

$ wget -q -O - https://nightly.odoo.com/odoo.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/odoo-archive-keyring.gpg
$ echo \'deb \[signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/odoo-archive-keyring.gpg\] https://nightly.odoo.com/16.0/nightly/deb/ ./\' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/odoo.list
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install odoo

Once installed, you can use the standard apt-get upgrade command to keep your Odoo installation up-to-date with future releases from the repository.

Note: At present, a nightly repository for the Enterprise Edition is not available.

Distribution Package

Alternatively, instead of using the repository as described above, you can download the \'deb\' packages for both Community and Enterprise editions directly from the official Odoo download page. After downloading, execute the following commands as a root user:

# dpkg -i <path_to_installation_package> # This command may initially fail due to missing dependencies.
# apt-get install -f # This command will install any required missing dependencies.
# dpkg -i <path_to_installation_package> # Rerun the dpkg command to complete the installation.

This process will install Odoo as a system service, create the necessary PostgreSQL user, and automatically start the Odoo server.

Important Considerations:

• The python3-xlwt Debian package is not available in Debian Buster or Ubuntu 18.04. This Python module is essential for exporting data into XLS format. If this feature is required, you will need to install it manually.
• The num2words Python package is also absent in Debian Buster and Ubuntu 18.04. Without it, textual amounts will not be rendered by Odoo, which could cause issues, particularly with the l10n_mx_edi module. If you need this functionality, install it manually using:

  $ sudo pip3 install num2words

Source Install

A source installation, essentially running Odoo directly from its source code, offers unparalleled flexibility and control. This method is particularly beneficial for module developers, as it provides easier access to the Odoo source code compared to packaged installations. It also allows for more flexible and explicit control over starting and stopping Odoo instances, rather than relying on system services. Furthermore, running from source facilitates overriding settings via command-line parameters without modifying configuration files, and enables the management and simultaneous operation of multiple Odoo versions on the same system.

Fetch the Sources

There are two primary ways to obtain the Odoo source code: either as a downloadable zip archive or by cloning the repository through Git.

Archive

Community Edition:

• Official download page
• GitHub repository
• Nightly server

Enterprise Edition:

• Official download page
• GitHub repository

Git

To use Git, ensure it is installed on your machine and that you have a basic understanding of Git commands. When cloning a repository, you can choose between HTTPS or SSH. For most users, especially if you are new to Git, HTTPS is the recommended option. If you are following the Getting started developer tutorial or intend to contribute to Odoo source code, SSH is typically preferred.

C:\> git clone https://github.com/odoo/odoo.git
C:\> git clone https://github.com/odoo/enterprise.git

Important Note: The Enterprise Git repository does not contain the complete Odoo source code; it is solely a collection of additional add-ons. The core server code resides within the Community version. To run the Enterprise version, you must execute the server from the Community version and set the addons-path option to include the folder containing the Enterprise add-ons. Therefore, a working Odoo Enterprise installation requires cloning both the Community and Enterprise repositories. Please refer to the Editions section for information on gaining access to the Enterprise repository.

Prepare

Before running Odoo from source, several key components and dependencies must be prepared and installed on your system.

Python

Odoo requires Python version 3.7 or newer to operate correctly. Visit Python’s official download page to download and install the latest compatible version for your operating system. During the installation process, ensure that you check the "Add Python 3 to PATH" option. Then, click "Customize Installation" and confirm that "pip" is selected for installation.

Note: If Python 3 is already installed, verify that its version is 3.7 or above, as earlier versions are not compatible with Odoo. Also, confirm that pip is properly installed and associated with this Python version.

PostgreSQL

Odoo utilizes PostgreSQL as its primary database management system. Download and install PostgreSQL (supported version: 12.0 and later). By default, PostgreSQL installations typically come with a single postgres user. However, Odoo prohibits connecting as the postgres user for security and operational reasons. Therefore, you must create a new PostgreSQL user specifically for Odoo:

1. Add PostgreSQL’s bin directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\<version>\bin on Windows) to your system’s PATH environment variable.
2. Create a new PostgreSQL user with a password using the pgAdmin graphical user interface:
   1. Open pgAdmin.
   2. Double-click the server to establish a connection.
   3. Right click 'Login/Group Roles' and select 'Create' -> 'Login/Group Role...'.
   4. Enter a suitable username in the Role Name field (e.g., odoo).
   5. Navigate to the Definition tab, enter a secure password (e.g., odoo), and click Save.
   6. Open the Privileges tab, set Can login? to Yes, and Create database? to Yes.

Dependencies

Prior to installing Odoo\'s Python dependencies, you must download and install the Build Tools for Visual Studio. When prompted during its installation, select "C++ build tools" in the "Workloads" tab and proceed with the installation. The specific Python dependencies required by Odoo are listed in the requirements.txt file, located at the root of the Odoo community directory.

Tip: To prevent conflicts between Python module packages from different Odoo instances or with your system\'s Python environment, it is highly recommended to use a virtualenv to create isolated Python environments.

Navigate to the path of your Odoo Community installation (CommunityPath) and run pip on the requirements file from a terminal with Administrator privileges:

C:\> cd \CommunityPath
C:\> pip install setuptools wheel
C:\> pip install -r requirements.txt

For languages that require a right-to-left (RTL) interface, such as Arabic or Hebrew, the rtlcss package is also necessary:

1. Download and install Node.js.
2. Install rtlcss globally using npm:

   C:\> npm install -g rtlcss

3. Edit your System Environment\'s PATH variable to include the directory where rtlcss.cmd is located (typically: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\npm\).

Critical Note: wkhtmltopdf is not managed by pip and must be installed manually. It is crucial to install version 0.12.5 to ensure proper support for headers and footers in generated PDF documents. For comprehensive details on various versions and installation instructions, please consult our dedicated wiki page.

Running Odoo

Once all necessary dependencies are successfully set up, Odoo can be launched by executing odoo-bin, which serves as the command-line interface for the server. This executable is located at the root of your Odoo Community directory. To configure the server, you have the option to specify command-line arguments directly or to utilize a dedicated configuration file.

Tip for Enterprise Edition: When running the Enterprise edition, it is essential to include the path to your enterprise add-ons in the addons-path argument. This path must be specified before other paths in addons-path to ensure that Enterprise add-ons are loaded correctly.

Commonly required configurations include:

• PostgreSQL database username and password.
• Custom add-on paths, in addition to the default ones, for loading your own developed modules.

A typical command to launch the Odoo server would be:

C:\> cd CommunityPath/
C:\> python odoo-bin -r dbuser -w dbpassword --addons-path=addons -d mydb

In this command, CommunityPath refers to the installation directory of Odoo Community, dbuser is your PostgreSQL login username, dbpassword is your PostgreSQL password, and mydb is the name of your PostgreSQL database.

After the server has successfully started (indicated by the INFO log odoo.modules.loading: Modules loaded. message), open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8069. You can then log in with the default administrator account: use admin for both the Email and the Password. Congratulations, you have successfully logged into your own Odoo database!

Helpful Hints:

• From within the Odoo web interface, you can create and manage new users as needed.
• It\'s important to differentiate between the user account used to log into Odoo’s web interface and the --db_user command-line argument, which refers to the PostgreSQL database user.

Docker

For users accustomed to Docker for either development or deployment, comprehensive documentation on integrating Odoo with Docker can be found on the official Odoo Docker image page. This resource provides detailed instructions and best practices for leveraging Docker to manage your Odoo instances efficiently.