Odoo 9 was released in October 1st 2015 and reached its end of life on October 5, 2018 (when Odoo 12 was released). It requires out-dated Python 2.7 which is not available on Ubuntu 22.04. However, there are some reasons for us to install Odoo 9 on Ubuntu 22.04:
- You don’t have an earlier version of Ubuntu that supports Python 2.7 and other libraries that Odoo 9 requires.
- Maintenance
- Migration to another later Odoo realease
- and others (please advise me yours by leaving comment)
Please note that if you are seeking for installing other Odoo versions, you could read other posts of mine for that:
- How to Install Odoo 8 on Ubuntu 22.04
- How to Install Odoo 10 on Ubuntu 22.04
- How to Install Odoo 11 on Ubuntu 22.04
- How to Install Odoo 12 on Ubuntu 22.04
- How to install Odoo 13 on Ubuntu 22.04
- How to install Odoo 14 on Ubuntu 22.04
- How to Install Odoo 16 on Ubuntu 22.04
Of, if you are an Odoo developer, you may interest in How to setup Odoo development environment on Ubuntu 22.04.
Executive Summary
In this post, I will guide you through 6 steps to install Odoo 9 on Ubuntu 22.04 server to achieve the following:
- Odoo 9’s source code locates at /opt/odoo/odoo9
- It runs under a unix account named odoo9 belong to the group named odoo
- It can connect to local PostgreSQL under the role named odoo9 that CAN create databases.
- Once you complete the installation, you can access the Odoo 9 instance using your web browser
- Odoo 9 will use PostgreSQL 9.6 or PostgreSQL 10 for data storage.
Step1 – Create Odoo running user account
For security, we should run Odoo under a separate Linux user that has the following specifications:
- The user account will be named odoo9;
- The user account will not be able to login for security purpose;
- The user account should be a system account under which daemons and other automatic processes run;
- A dedicated home directory for storing data and custom Odoo addons. It’s a good practice to make it under the /home/ directory;
- The user account should belong to a group that has access to Odoo 9 source code (e.g. odoo);
Run the following command to create the group odoo:
sudo addgroup odoo
Run the following command to create the user account odoo9 and add it to the group odoo:
sudo adduser odoo9 --system \ --home=/home/odoo9 --disabled-login \ --disabled-password --ingroup odoo
Step 2 – Install Python 2.7
Although Python 2.7 was dropped since Ubuntu 20.04, we can still install it by following my tutorial on how to install Python 2.7 on Ubuntu 22.04.
After that, we will create a virtual environment for Odoo 9 so that we can isolate it from others to not break existing things. Please make sure you’ve installed virtualenv for Python 2.7.
Create Virtual Environment
Create parent folders for Odoo 9’s virtual environment
sudo mkdir -p /python-venv/2.7/odoo9
Set appropriate access rights for the group odoo and the account odoo9:
sudo chown -hR odoo9: /python-venv/2.7/odoo9
Switch the account to odoo9’s bash
sudo su - odoo9 -s /bin/bash
Create a virtual environment and name it odoo9
virtualenv /python-venv/2.7/odoo9
Now, exit odoo9 to get back to the previous user account.
exit
Step 3 – Download Odoo 9 source code from GitHub
As said in Executive Summary section, we will store Odoo 9 source code in /opt/odoo/odoo9.
sudo mkdir /opt/odoo
Grant access for the user accounts in the group odoo to read Odoo source code:
sudo chown root:odoo /opt/odoo
To download the source code of Odoo 9 from GitHub, just run the command below to download the Odoo 9 source code over HTTP:
git clone -b 9.0 https://github.com/odoo/odoo.git /opt/odoo/odoo9
Or, you may clone the repository from GitHub over SSH for better performance and security using the following command:
git clone -b 9.0 git@github.com:odoo/odoo.git /opt/odoo/odoo9
Depending on your internet connection speed, the process may take a few minutes or more. Please be patient!
After the process is completed, you will find the Odoo 9 source code in the directory /opt/odoo/odoo9/
.
Now, secure your source code to allow only the users of the group odoo to read it.
sudo chown -hR root:odoo /opt/odoo/odoo9
Step 4 – Install PostgreSQL for Odoo 9
I have not been tested Odoo 9 with the latest version of PostgreSQL which is PostgreSQL 14 that comes with Ubuntu 22.04 but I believe it would work. However, if you are installing Odoo 9 for your production server, I guess you might want to stick with PostgreSQL 9.6 or PostgreSQL 10 as Odoo 9 was designed for PostgreSQL 9.6 and added support for PostgreSQL 10 later.
So, in this post, I will guide you on how to install PostgreSQL 9.6 and PostgreSQL 10. You can read another post of mine if you want to install multiple PostgreSQL versions on Ubuntu 22.04.
Adding official PostgreSQL PPA
As Ubuntu 22.04 has no idea about the PostgreSQL versions other than 14, we need to add the official PPA from PostgreSQL author
# Create the file repository configuration: sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt $(lsb_release -cs)-pgdg main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list' # Import the repository signing key: wget --quiet -O - https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/postgresql.gpg # Update the package lists: sudo apt-get update
Install Postgres 9.6 and PostgreSQL 10
sudo apt install postgresql-9.6 # version 9.6 sudo apt install postgresql-10 # version 10
After the installation is completed, and I assume that you did not have any postgreSQL installed before, the listening ports of the two newly installed PostgreSQL clusters will be:
Versions | Port |
PostgreSQL 9.6 | 5432 |
PostgreSQL 10 | 5433 |
In case you want to re-arrange the ports assignment, please follow the tutorial on changing PostgreSQL ports.
Create Database Roles
In this section, we will create database SQL roles that having the same name as the unix user account odoo9 for each PostgreSQL versions so that Odoo 9 running under odoo9 account will be able to connect PostgreSQL using ident authentication method (without using password).
Role For PostgreSQL 9.6
As the installed PostgreSQL 9.6 cluster is running on port 5432, we could use the following command to create the role odoo9 for PostgreSQL 9.6
sudo -u postgres createuser odoo9 --interactive -p 3432
When asked during the interative session, please input as follow:

Role for PostgreSQL 10
This is similar to the one for PostgreSQL 9.6, but the port is 5433.
sudo -u postgres createuser odoo9 --interactive -p 3433
When asked during the interative session, please input as the same as the one for PosgreSQL 9.6
Step 5 – Install Odoo 9’s required packages and libraries
Prerequisites
Run the following command to install the packages that are required for later Python library installation.
sudo apt install build-essential python-setuptools \ python2-dev libpq-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev \ zlib1g-dev libsasl2-dev libldap2-dev libssl-dev \ libjpeg-dev
Install Less Compiler
Odoo 9 requires less compiler to compile less to css. Here is how we install less.
Firstly, we will install nodejs:
sudo apt install nodejs
Secondly, we will install Nodejs package manager (aka npm):
sudo apt install npm
Then, upgrade npm to the latest version:
sudo npm install -g npm
Now, install less compiler using npm. Please note that the latest less may not work with Odoo 9. We just stick with the less 3.10.3 which works with all the Odoo versions that use less compiler (i.e. Odoo 9, Odoo 10, Odoo 11).
sudo npm install -g less@3.10.3 sudo npm install -g less-plugin-clean-css
Install wkhtmltopdf
Odoo generates PDF from HTML, that’s why we need the wkhtmltopdf.
Download wkhtmltopdf:
wget https://github.com/wkhtmltopdf/packaging/releases/download/0.12.6.1-2/wkhtmltox_0.12.6.1-2.jammy_amd64.deb
Install wkhtmltopdf:
sudo dpkg -i wkhtmltox_0.12.6.1-2.jammy_amd64.deb # force install dependencies sudo apt -f install
Install Python Libraries for Odoo 9
Firstly, we need to activate the Odoo 9 virtual environment that we’ve created above by executing the command:
# switch to odoo9's bash sudo su - odoo9 -s /bin/bash # activate the virtual environment source /python-venv/2.7/odoo9/bin/activate
After activativation, you will find (odoo9) as the prefix of your command prompt. Then you can start install Odoo 9’s required packages and libraries using pip command as below:
pip install -r /opt/odoo/odoo9/requirements.txt
Please note that the version of the library psycopg2 specified in the above requirements.txt is 2.7.1 which is not compatible with the Ubuntu 22.04’s glib. We need to upgrade the psycopg2 to the version 2.7.3.1 using the command below:
pip install psycopg2==2.7.3.1
Runing Odoo 9 with PostgreSQL 9.6
Run the Odoo
Now, let’s try to run the following command to check if everything is fine:
/opt/odoo/odoo9/odoo.py
Then, you should see something similar as below in the console:

Now, you can start to open your web browser and input the address https://your_ip:8069 to see the result as below:

Now, you can start input database name and other information so that Odoo9 will initialize everything for you
- Database Name: v9_psql9
- Email: your_name@example.com
- Password: your secured password
- Language: select the one you prefer in the dropdown list of languages
- Country: select the country in which your company is registered officially. Choosing the right one could bring ease to you later (e.g. localization modules will be installed accordingly)
Stop the Odoo
To stop the Odoo instance, just press Ctrl+C twice.
Runing Odoo 9 with PostgreSQL 10
Run Odoo 9
In the above section, we have been successful in running and initializing Odoo 9 with PostgreSQL 9.6. Here is how to run the same Odoo 9, but with PostgreSQL 10.
As our PostgreSQL installation procedure above, PostgreSQL 10 is up and running on port 5433 while Odoo 9 tries to connect on port 5432. Here is the command to run Odoo 9 connecting to the PostgreSQL 10 on port 5433:
/opt/odoo/odoo9/odoo.py --db_port=5433
We issued the same command with additional parameter –db_port to ask Odoo 9 to connect the database using the port 5433.
Stop Odoo 9
To stop the Odoo instance, just press Ctrl+C twice.
Exit
After some operations as above, we may need to exit the run environment for other tasks by issusing the following commands:
# Deactivate the virtual environment deactivate # exit odoo9's bash session to get back the previous unix user exit
Step 6 – Run Odoo 9 as a service / daemon
In this section, I will guide you on how to create a startup service for your newly installed Odoo 9 so that your Odoo 9 will be running as a service and started every time the server is started.
Create Odoo configuration file
Configuration file is the file that stores configuration directives that let Odoo know how to run (e.g. addons path, database port, etc).
In this section, I will create a configuration file named odoo9.conf and store it in /home/odoo9 for Odoo 9 to use later. I will use nano editor to create the file:
sudo nano /home/odoo9/odoo9.conf
Now, copy and pasted the following in your nano editor UI:
[options] addons_path = /opt/odoo/odoo9/openerp/addons,/opt/odoo/odoo9/addons admin_passwd = admin csv_internal_sep = , data_dir = /home/odoo9/.local/share/Odoo db_host = False db_maxconn = 64 db_name = False db_password = False db_port = False db_template = template1 db_user = False dbfilter = .* debug_mode = False demo = {} email_from = False geoip_database = /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoLite2-City.mmdb import_partial = limit_memory_hard = 2684354560 limit_memory_soft = 2147483648 limit_request = 8192 limit_time_cpu = 60 limit_time_real = 120 list_db = True log_db = False log_db_level = warning log_handler = :INFO log_level = info logfile = None logrotate = False longpolling_port = 8072 max_cron_threads = 2 osv_memory_age_limit = 1.0 osv_memory_count_limit = False pg_path = None pidfile = None proxy_mode = False reportgz = False server_wide_modules = web,web_kanban smtp_password = False smtp_port = 25 smtp_server = localhost smtp_ssl = False smtp_user = False syslog = False test_commit = False test_enable = False test_file = False test_report_directory = False translate_modules = ['all'] unaccent = False without_demo = False workers = 0 xmlrpc = True xmlrpc_interface = xmlrpc_port = 8069
Now, save the file and exit by hitting Ctrl+X then input y and hit Enter button.
To allow odoo9 to access the configration file:
sudo chown odoo9:root /home/odoo9/odoo9.conf
Create Unit Service file
sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/odoo9.service
Now, copy and pasted the following in your nano editor UI
[Unit] Description=Odoo9 After=network.target postgresql.service [Service] Type=simple PermissionsStartOnly=true User=odoo9 Group=odoo SyslogIdentifier=odoo9 PIDFile=/run/odoo9/odoo9.pid ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/install -d -m755 -o odoo9 -g odoo /run/odoo9 ExecStart=/python-venv/2.7/odoo9/bin/python /opt/odoo/odoo9/odoo.py -c /home/odoo9/odoo9.conf --pid=/run/odoo9/odoo9.pid ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID ExecStop=/bin/kill -s QUIT $MAINPID [Install] Alias=odoo9.service WantedBy=multi-user.target
Now, save the file and exit by hitting Ctrl+X then input y and hit Enter button.
Run the following command to notify systemd that a new unit file exists:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
Now, enable the service and ask it to run on boot:
sudo systemctl enable --now odoo9
Now, start your Odoo 9 using systemd:
sudo systemctl start odoo9
Now, let’s open your web browser and input the address https://your_ip:8069 to see the Odoo 9 Database Creation User Interface.
To stop it, just run:
sudo systemctl stop odoo9