Skip to main content

Installation

SENAITE is assembled with Buildout, which installs the right version of every package and generates the scripts that run the server. The recommended starting point is senaite.starter, a ready made buildout maintained by the SENAITE developers.

To try SENAITE without installing Python, use the Docker image instead.

Supported Platforms​

SENAITE runs on Linux. The commands below are for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS; Debian works the same way. macOS works for development but is not recommended for production deployments.

Installation on Windows is not covered in this guide.

Python Requirement​

SENAITE 2.x runs on Python 2.7. Current distributions no longer ship it, so install it with pyenv into your home directory. This keeps it apart from the system Python and needs no root rights.

Python 2.7 no longer receives security fixes. Run SENAITE behind a web server and do not expose the application server directly to the internet.

Step 1: Install System Packages​

SENAITE renders PDFs and processes XML and images through C libraries, and several Python packages compile against them. Install them first, together with the libraries needed to build Python itself:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y git build-essential curl \
  libxml2 libxml2-dev libxslt1.1 libxslt1-dev \
  libcairo2 libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0 \
  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 zlib1g zlib1g-dev libjpeg-dev \
  libbz2-dev libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev libffi-dev uuid-dev \
  libnss3-dev libgdbm-dev libgdbm-compat-dev libncursesw5-dev \
  liblzma-dev libreadline-dev \
  fonts-dejavu fonts-liberation

The fonts are used by the PDF reports. Without them, reports render boxes instead of letters.

Step 2: Install Pyenv​

curl https://pyenv.run | bash

This installs pyenv together with its virtualenv plugin. Add the following lines to ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc if you use Zsh):

export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"
[[ -d $PYENV_ROOT/bin ]] && export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(pyenv init -)"
eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"

Reload your shell:

source ~/.bashrc

Step 3: Install Python 2.7 and Create a Virtual Environment​

pyenv install 2.7.18
pyenv virtualenv 2.7.18 python2.7-senaite
pyenv activate python2.7-senaite

pyenv install compiles Python from source. If it stops with a message about a missing module, a -dev package from Step 1 is missing.

Name the environment as shown, with the version first. On pyenv 2.8 and newer, a name that starts with python- is resolved differently and can point to another environment.

Verify the interpreter:

python -V
# Python 2.7.18

Every following command assumes this environment is active.

Step 4: Get senaite.starter​

git clone https://github.com/senaite/senaite.starter.git senaite
cd senaite
pip install -r requirements.txt

requirements.txt installs Buildout and the matching setuptools into the virtual environment. buildout.cfg pins the latest SENAITE release from PyPI together with the versions of its dependencies.

Step 5: Run Buildout​

buildout

Buildout downloads and installs all required packages and generates bin/instance. This takes several minutes on the first run. If it fails while compiling a package, a -dev package from Step 1 is usually missing; read the compiler output above the Buildout traceback.

The starter's defaults suit a local evaluation: the server listens on all network interfaces (0.0.0.0:8080) and the admin login is admin:admin. For a server, change both in a configuration file of your own that extends buildout.cfg, before the first start:

# production.cfg
[buildout]
extends = buildout.cfg
senaite-user = admin:a-long-random-password

[instance]
http-address = 127.0.0.1:8080

Then build with buildout -c production.cfg. The admin password only applies when the instance is created; changing it in the file later does not change an existing account.

Step 6: Start SENAITE and Create a Site​

Start the server in the foreground:

bin/instance fg

The server is ready when the log shows:

INFO Zope Ready to handle requests

Open http://localhost:8080 in a browser and click Create a new SENAITE site. Log in with the admin account from buildout.cfg. The form that follows suggests the site id senaite; click Create SENAITE Site. The site is then available at http://localhost:8080/senaite.

Starting and Stopping​

# Start in the background
bin/instance start

# Stop the server
bin/instance stop

# Start in the foreground (debug mode, log on the console)
bin/instance fg

fg runs in debug mode, which is slower and shows more detail. Use start for normal operation.

Further Reading​