OpenACH Origination Platform

OpenACH is a free, open-source, secure web-based ACH origination and payment processing platform. For more information, visit openach.com

OVERVIEW

OpenACH is tested and runs on a Linux/Apache/PHP stack, with either Postgresql or SQLite as a database backend. It is built on the Yii 1.x framework, so installation is similar to a standard Yii 1.x app.

The release contains the following directories:

  assets/              auto-published CSS and Javascript assets
  css/                 global CSS files
  images/              global images
  js/                  global js files
  legal/               license information
  protected/           the core application, on the Yii framework
  themes/              the OpenACH Yii theme
  yii                  a symbolic link to the latest Yii 1.0 framework
  index.php            the main entry point for the framework
  README.md            this file
  UPGRADE              upgrading instructions

REQUIREMENTS

The minimum requirement for OpenACH is that your Web server supports PHP 7.2 through 7.4. Although no formal testing has been done, PHP CodeSniffer, through PHPCompatibility, shows the code should be compatible with PHP 8.0.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and 20.04 LTS make great platforms for running an OpenACH system. Though, keep in mind that 18.04 LTS has PHP 7.2 which is only receiving Ubuntu security updates at this time.

QUICK START

Docker

Docker is a platform for developers and sysadmins to develop, ship, and run applications. Docker lets you quickly assemble applications from components and eliminates the friction that can come when shipping code. Docker lets you get your code tested and deployed into production as fast as possible.

Docker can run on a wide variety of platforms. Visit the Docker.io website to learn how to install Docker on your system. NOTE: To most easily access the OpenACH command line interface (CLI), you will need Docker 1.3 or higher.

To get started using the Docker OpenACH image, see the instructions here: [OpenACH Docker Image](https://github.com/openach/docker-openach

The OpenACH CLI

OpenACH comes with a command line tool, based on the "yiic" CLI, which you can use to perform nearly all the admin functions. See the OpenACH CLI Documentation for more information.

The OpenACH Developer Team http://openach.com

OpenACH Origination Platform

OpenACH is a free, open-source, secure web-based ACH origination and payment processing platform. For more information, visit openach.com

QUICK START

Docker (Recommended)

Docker is a platform for developers and sysadmins to develop, ship, and run applications. Docker lets you quickly assemble applications from components and eliminates the friction that can come when shipping code. Docker lets you get your code tested and deployed into production as fast as possible.

Docker can run on a wide variety of platforms. Visit the Docker.io website to learn how to install Docker on your system. NOTE: To most easily access the OpenACH command line interface (CLI), you will need Docker 1.3 or higher.

To get started using the Docker OpenACH image, see the instructions here: OpenACH Docker Image

Install From Source

You can install OpenACH from this source repository.

Clone this repository

   git clone https://github.com/openach/openach.git
   cd openach

Set up a Database

OpenACH supports SQLite and Postgres.

SQLite

The OpenACH code base ships with a clean, pre-initialized SQLite database. To use it, simply copy it to the protected/runtime/db/ folder.

   cp protected/data/openach.db.init_save protected/runtime/db/openach.db

Then edit protected/config/db.php, uncommenting the SQLite section and updating the connection string to reflect the FULL PATH to the protected/runtime/db/openach.db data file.

Postgres

Create a new postgres database, and initialize it with:

   psql -d YOUR_DATABASE_NAME -a -f protected/data/schema.postgresql.sql
   psql -d YOUR_DATABASE_NAME -a -f protected/data/data.postgresql.sql

Then edit protected/config/db.php to reflect your database credentials.

Set Your Encryption Key

All sensitive information within the OpenACH database is encrypted using an application-wide encryption key. It should be updated by editing protected/config/security.php. Note that once you begin using a database with a given encryption key, the data becomes useless without it. As such, you will want to back up your key in a safe place.

Set Up Your Web Server

OpenACH is tested on Apache, but could also work on Nginx with the proper configuration. We have included a sample Apache config file to get you started. See the example in protected/data/etc/apache2/sites-available/openach.

We highly recommend setting up an SSL certificate to protect all communications with your web server. There are plenty of guides on how to do this available elsewhere, so we won't go into detail here.

Your DocumentRoot should point to the root folder of your OpenACH install (where the index.php lives).

Set File Permissions

Insure that the entire protected/runtime/ folder is accessible by your web server process owner. Typically this can be accomplished with:

   chown -R www-data:www-data protected/runtime/

The user/group name may vary based on your Linux distribution.

Almost There!

You are almost ready to go. Refer to the CLI documentation below for additional steps needed to set up an origination account and configure your bank plugin.

The OpenACH CLI

OpenACH comes with a command line tool, based on the "yiic" CLI, which you can use to perform nearly all the admin functions. See the OpenACH CLI Documentation for more information.

The OpenACH Developer Team http://openach.com