How to deploy OrangeHRM as a virtual appliance

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If you’re looking to give OrangeHRM a try, one of the easiest ways is to use a virtual appliance. Jack Wallen shows you how it’s done.

Image: OrangeHRM

OrangeHRM is one of the most widely used open source human resource management tools on the market. With features such as employee information management, employee absences, recruitment, as well as employee performance appraisal tools and other features needed for general human resource management.

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OrangeHRM is used by over a million people worldwide in single-digit companies and thousands of employees.

If you’re looking to test the waters of this open-source HRM platform, one of the fastest ways to do so is with the TurnKey Linux Virtual Appliance.

Let me show you how easy it is.

What you will need

For this to work, you must first download the virtual appliance from TurnKey Linux. Be sure to download the OrangeHRM .ova file. You will also need a virtual machine manager. I’ll demonstrate with VirtualBox, which can be used on Linux, macOS, and Windows. If you’re using another VM manager (like VMware), you just need to modify the appliance import process to make it work.

That’s it. Let’s move on to deployment.

How to import the OrangeHRM appliance

To import the virtual appliance, open VirtualBox and click File | Import device. In the resulting window (Figure A), click the folder icon, navigate to the directory containing the OrangeHRM .ova file and select the appliance.

Figure A

Importing the OrangeHRM appliance into VirtualBox.
Importing the OrangeHRM appliance into VirtualBox.

Click Next and, in the resulting window (Figure B), be sure to change the RAM option to something like 3072 (or higher).

Figure B

All the gory details of importing the OrangeHRM appliance.
All the gory details of importing the OrangeHRM appliance.

Once the appliance has been successfully imported, select the OrangeHRM entry and click Start.

In the first interactive screen (Figure C), you must set a password for the root account.

Figure C

Setting a password for the root account of the virtual machine.
Setting a password for the root account of the virtual machine.

The root account is the one used by the operating system (therefore to connect to the version of Linux used to host OrangeHRM). Once you have successfully added a root password, you will be prompted to create a password for the MySQL database user and the OrangeHRML administrator account. After that, you can skip the TurnKey Linux Hub service initialization and optionally enter an email address that will receive system notifications and critical security alerts, but you should definitely select Install for the latest security updates (Figure D).

Figure D

Installing the latest security updates for OrangeHRM is essential.
Installing the latest security updates for OrangeHRM is essential.

Once the installation of the latest security updates is complete, you will be asked to restart the virtual machine. OK, then when the reboot is complete, a screen with all the addresses needed to access the OrangeHRM tool will appear (Figure E).

Figure E

The TurnKey Linux OrangeHRM information screen gives you all the addresses you need.
The TurnKey Linux OrangeHRM information screen gives you all the addresses you need.

The primary address you use is simply https://SERVER (where SERVER is the IP address listed under Web). You will be taken to the OrangeHRM login screen (Figure F), where you will use the administrator username and password you set for that user during deployment.

Figure F

The OrangeHRM login screen is ready to give you access to everything that lives within it.
The OrangeHRM login screen is ready to give you access to everything that lives within it.

And that’s all there is to deploying OrangeHRM as a virtual appliance. While I wouldn’t recommend going this route for a large enterprise (because you’d want to do a full software install for it), deploying this HR platform as a virtual machine could be a great option for small businesses with less than 100 employees. Either way, this is a great way to test out OrangeHRM to see if it’s the right fit for your business.

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