Deploy phpIPAM on a VPS

Target: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS VPS (KVM), 1 vCPU / 1GB RAM minimum, 2GB+ recommended.

1. Base packages

shell

apt update && apt -y upgrade
apt -y install nginx mariadb-server php8.3-fpm php8.3-mysqli php8.3-gd php8.3-curl \
  php8.3-cli php8.3-mbstring php8.3-xml php8.3-zip php8.3-gmp php8.3-snmp \
  php8.3-ldap unzip git curl

2. MariaDB setup

shell

mysql_secure_installation
mysql -u root -p <<'EOF'
CREATE DATABASE phpipam;
CREATE USER 'phpipam'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'CHANGE_ME_STRONG_PW';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON phpipam.* TO 'phpipam'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EOF

3. Get phpIPAM

shell

cd /var/www
git clone --recursive https://github.com/phpipam/phpipam.git
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/phpipam

If you want a pinned release instead of master:

shell

cd /var/www/phpipam
git checkout v1.7.2   # check https://github.com/phpipam/phpipam/releases for current
git submodule update --init --recursive

4. Config file

shell

cd /var/www/phpipam
cp config.dist.php config.php

Edit config.php:

shell

$db['host'] = 'localhost';
$db['user'] = 'phpipam';
$db['pass'] = 'CHANGE_ME_STRONG_PW';
$db['name'] = 'phpipam';
$db['port'] = 3306;

5. Import schema

shell

mysql -u phpipam -p phpipam < /var/www/phpipam/db/SCHEMA.sql

6. PHP-FPM pool tuning (optional, small VPS)

Edit /etc/php/8.3/fpm/pool.d/www.conf:

shell

pm = ondemand
pm.max_children = 8
pm.process_idle_timeout = 30s

shell

systemctl restart php8.3-fpm

7. Nginx vhost

/etc/nginx/sites-available/phpipam:

shell

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name ipam.example.com;
    root /var/www/phpipam;
    index index.php;

    client_max_body_size 20M;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
    }

    location ~ /(app/config|db|ca)/ {
        deny all;
        return 404;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }
}

shell

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/phpipam /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t && systemctl reload nginx

8. TLS (Let's Encrypt)

shell

apt -y install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
certbot --nginx -d ipam.example.com

9. Finish setup via browser

Visit https://ipam.example.com/, run the guided installer (or skip it since the schema is already imported — go straight to login with default admin / ipamadmin and change the password immediately).

10. Cron for scheduled scans (discovery, PING/SNMP checks)

shell

crontab -u www-data -e

Add:

shell

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/phpipam/functions/scripts/discoveryCheck.php  > /dev/null 2>&1
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/phpipam/functions/scripts/pingCheck.php      > /dev/null 2>&1
0   * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/phpipam/functions/scripts/resizeSubnets.php > /dev/null 2>&1

11. Firewall (ufw or your RamNode security group)

shell

ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw enable

12. Backup notes

Dump phpipam DB nightly: mysqldump -u phpipam -p phpipam > phpipam-$(date +%F).sql
Back up /var/www/phpipam/config.php (contains DB creds) and ca/ if you store CA certs for device SNMP/SSH scanning.

Post-install checklist

Change default admin password
Set up SNMP community strings under Administration > Server Management if using discovery
Configure API app key if integrating with Ansible dynamic inventory or WHMCS-side tooling
Restrict /api/ endpoint by IP if not needed externally