Client Installation on Linux
This has been tested on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
Install wine:
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ focal main'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y --install-recommends winehq-stable
Install winetricks:
sudo apt install -y cabextract
cd "${HOME}/Downloads"
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks
chmod +x winetricks
Install corefonts with winetricks:
./winetricks corefonts
Install the farmerswife Client desktop app for Windows to be used via wine on Linux:
wget https://farmerswife.com/downloadsWeb/fw_client_v701-SP2.exe
wine fw_client_v701.exe /SILENT /TASKS=""
This has been tested on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
Server Installation on Linux
Running the fw Server app on Linux is only recommended for those companies who have Linux-only server environment infrastructure and have an in-house Linux System Administrator.
DISCLAIMER: A Linux System Administrator is a prerequisite, because we don’t provide support for Linux itself, only for the farmerswife app.
You should install the fw Server app with the graphical interface (which we recommend) on the host machine or on a headless host machine with X11 forwarding.
IMPORTANT: The fw Server-side PDF printing is not yet available on Linux.
"Why does fw Server need a graphical interface or X11 forwarding?"
farmerswife needs a graphical user interface for its configuration process, but it can run as a service with a daemon, but the GUI is required when you need to add/modify/delete users or modify the server configuration.
Tested distributions:
Spot tested Linux Distributions:
- Ubuntu: 12.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS
Might also work on these Linux Distributions:
- Debian: 8, 9
- CentOS 7, Fedora 27, RedHat 7.4
- Amazon Linux
Other versions may work but are not tested!
Manually install these packages:
- ZIP
- Java (OpenJDK) 17
- x11-xserver-utils (only on "deb" based distributions, and if your server doesn’t have GUI)
- x11-apps (xorg-x11-apps on "RPM" based distributions, and if your server doesn’t have GUI)
- xauth (xorg-x11-xauth on "RPM" based distributions, and if your server doesn’t have GUI)
Server preparation:
The fw Server app requires "OpenJDK" to be installed.
Since the release of farmerswife v6.8 OpenJDK v11 or later is needed!
!! Upgrading to 7.1 requires Java / OpenJDK v17 to be installed!!
The following links have not been tested and might not work.
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install openjdk-17-jre-headless zip unzip x11-xserver-utils x11-apps xauthModify sshd_config to allow X11 forwarding.
Debian 9:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install openjdk-17-jre-headless zip unzip x11-xserver-utils x11-apps xauthModify sshd_config to allow X11 forwarding.
CentOS 7 / RedHat 7.4 / Fedora 27:
sudo yum makecache fast
sudo yum install java-1.17.0-openjdk-headless zip unzip xorg-x11-xauth xorg-x11-apps
Modify /etc/ssh/sshd_config to allow X11 forwarding.
Amazon Linux:
sudo yum makecache fast
sudo yum install java-1.17.0-openjdk-headless zip unzip xorg-x11-xauth xorg-x11-apps
Modify /etc/ssh/sshd_config to allow X11 forwarding.
Post-server preparation:
Connect to your server allowing X11 forwarding and download the fw_server_v701-SP2.bin installer for Linux. For example:
wget -O farmerswife-installer
Once installed, create a folder called "system" inside the installation folder you selected and place the license files inside (and DB files and other needed files and folders if you just migrated to Linux).
Then manually launch the farmerswife server with X11 forwarding executing the binary farmerswife at the root of the installation folder. This way you can configure users, SMTP port, Full Backup folders and so on.
Once finished stop the server, execute the file systemd-installer.sh or initd-installer.sh from the same folder where it is, for example, if the script is located at /opt/farmerswife-server go with cd to that folder and execute the script, that’s because the script takes the pwd value to configure the systemd/init-d service unit.
As the installation process is completed you can just launch the service and start working. From time to time you will need to stop the service, launch the server manually with X11 forwarding to add/modify/delete users.
Known-issues:
Some times when you add users fw Server-side it can take a long time, because the host machine itself doesn’t have enough entropy to hash and salt the user password.
To check your entropy just execute the following command:
sudo cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail
If the entropy is below 1000 you should generate more so it doesn’t take that long.
To do this for a Linux desktop it should be enough to just move the mouse or open applications, but for servers you can install the package rng-tools and execute the following command:
rngd -r /dev/urandom -o /dev/random -b -n 1
For Debian you need to modify the file /etc/default/rng-tools and add the following line:
HRNGDEVICE=/dev/urandom
And start the rng-tools daemon:
/etc/init.d/rng-tools start
Please contact support@farmerswife.com for more information.