Watch out when using the Bitnami image

Bitnami has been taken over by Broadcom.

It seems like, they are splitting up their maintained images in hardened / secure images and legacy ones.
SuiteCRM is currently in the legacy catalogue.
https://hub.docker.com/u/bitnamilegacy?page=1&search=suite

Read more in their press release:

Despite the upgrade issue, additionally the ā€˜legacy flag’ is hovering over the Bitnami image. Probably be at least careful and conscious about the decision on whether or not to use this image (especially conscious for production).

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Apart from this new issue, there is the old one: how exactly do you do PHP and MySQL upgrades in Bitnami images?

Their answer is (or was, when I last asked years ago) to use a newer container and migrate your SuiteCRM over there.

Since the CRM migrations are usually not that straight-forward, I would say that Bitnami is not a valid option for SuiteCRM.

I wouldn’t mind if someone proved me wrong and explained how they do the platform upgrades.

It definitely is not!

Unfortunately, it’s marketed as ā€œso easyā€, just spin it up and you’re all set.
That’s only true for temporary testing. In the long run it’s a rather bad choice and technically not very feasable.

If someone wants to build up SuiteCRM for the next 3 - 10 years as the backbone and brain of their business, I’d argue it’s worth spending some more thoughts and hours on the initial install.

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Hey @pgr @BastianHammer,

Did I get it wrong or the bitnami images from now on will have to be paid? Meaning you could still get a version of SuiteCRM from their Bitnami Secure Images initiative⁠ if you pay? And all older images are going legacy?

Hello Anthony,

I didn’t look into this.
But even if that is possible, check how an upgrade, how customizations and how small file changes would work within the image.

This is extremely concerning for me at least.

I was never able to create an automated installer for 7.x.x due to the requirement to install through a web server.

I can share what I’ve made to power 8.x.x images. I haven’t maintained it in a while however it could work as a template or something.

I usually argue, that this is a one time thing.
Most customers install the CRM once, use it for a year or years and then look into the upgrade.

The installation here in the forums is just such a big topic, since there are so many different environments and everybody has to go through the installation before getting more quiet again in the forums.

The scripts to automatically install are not strictly required however going from being able to turn on a stack and have everything installed and up and running from pressing go to having to run all the steps manually will cause friction for those who use containers.