Atomic CRM

Prerequisites

• An Azure subscription and permission to create a VM
• An SSH key pair to administer the VM (azureuser)
• Inbound HTTP (80) open to the clients that need the CRM, and SSH (22) open from your admin IP
• The recommended size, Standard_D2s_v3 (2 vCPU / 8 GB), which gives comfortable steady-state headroom

Step 1 - Launch the VM

Option A - Azure Portal

• On the SecureAnyCloud Atomic CRM on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS offer, choose Create.
• Pick your resource group and region, and set the VM size to Standard_D2s_v3.
• Set the admin username to azureuser and upload your SSH public key.
• Under Networking, allow inbound SSH (22) from your admin IP and HTTP (80) from the clients that need the web app.
• Select Review + create, then Create.

Option B - Azure CLI

# Accept the Marketplace terms once per subscription (required before the first CLI deploy)
az vm image terms accept --urn sac1647283583153:atomic-crm:default:latest
az vm create \
  --resource-group <your-resource-group> \
  --name atomic-crm \
  --image sac1647283583153:atomic-crm:default:latest \
  --size Standard_D2s_v3 \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys \
  --public-ip-sku Standard

Open port 80 to the clients that need the web app. SSH is opened for your admin IP separately:

az network nsg rule create \
  --resource-group <your-resource-group> \
  --nsg-name <your-nsg> \
  --name allow-http --priority 1001 \
  --destination-port-ranges 80 --access Allow --protocol Tcp

Assign a static public IP. The sign-in URL and API base are pinned to the VM's public IP on first boot.

Step 2 - First boot and the per-VM credentials

On first boot, atomic-crm-firstboot.service generates a fresh set of secrets unique to this VM. It also pins the public address, applies the database schema to a clean database, creates your administrator account and brings the stack up. Allow a minute or two, then connect over SSH:

ssh azureuser@<vm-ip>

Read your per-VM sign-in details. The secret values are unique to your VM:

sudo cat /root/atomic-crm-credentials.txt

The file records the CRM URL, your administrator sign-in (admin@atomic-crm.local plus a per-VM password), and the database password. Store these details somewhere safe.

Step 3 - Verify the stack

List the stack's containers and confirm that all seven services are running:

sudo docker compose -f /opt/atomic-crm/docker-compose.yml ps

Step 4 - Health check

Check the web front, the auth service and the data API through nginx. The API returns 401 when called with no key and when called with the upstream demo default key. This confirms that authentication is enforced and that no well-known credential governs your server:

ANON="$(sudo grep '^ANON_KEY=' /opt/atomic-crm/.env | cut -d= -f2-)" curl -s -o /dev/null -w "healthz: %{http_code}\n" http://127.0.0.1/healthz curl -s -o /dev/null -w "auth (with key): %{http_code}\n" http://127.0.0.1/auth/v1/health -H "apikey: $ANON" curl -s -o /dev/null -w "rest (no key): %{http_code}\n" http://127.0.0.1/rest/v1/companies?select=id

Step 5 - Sign in

Open http://<vm-ip>/ in your browser. On the Atomic CRM sign-in page, enter the administrator email and password from your credentials file.

Step 6 - Your dashboard

After you sign in, you land on the dashboard. The top navigation offers Dashboard, Contacts, Companies and Deals, and a "What's next?" panel guides your first steps.

Step 7 - Companies, contacts and deals

Open Companies to see your organisations as cards, each showing its contacts and open deals. Use the search box and the size and sector filters on the left to narrow the list. Select New Company to add one.

Open Deals to see the pipeline as a kanban board. Deals are grouped into columns by stage (Opportunity, Proposal Sent, In Negotiation, Won, Lost, Delayed), with a running total per column. Drag a card between columns to move a deal along, or select New Deal to add one.

Contacts works the same way. Each contact is linked to its company and deals, and notes and tasks are kept against the record.

Adding more users

The appliance is ready to use for the administrator account. No email server is configured, so the in-app invite workflow, which needs SMTP, is off by default. To add another user, create the account directly against the authentication service with the per-VM service-role key, which is in /opt/atomic-crm/.env:

SVC="$(sudo grep '^SERVICE_ROLE_KEY=' /opt/atomic-crm/.env | cut -d= -f2-)" curl -s -X POST http://127.0.0.1/auth/v1/admin/users \
  -H "apikey: $SVC" -H "Authorization: Bearer $SVC" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"email":"teammate@example.com","password":"choose-a-strong-password","email_confirm":true, "user_metadata":{"first_name":"Team","last_name":"Mate"}}'

The new user can sign in immediately at http://<vm-ip>/. The first account created on the server is the administrator. Every account after that is a regular user.

To enable the in-app invite and password-reset flows, configure an SMTP provider in /opt/atomic-crm/.env (the SMTP_* values) and restart the stack. See the Atomic CRM documentation for details.

Data and backups

All CRM data lives in PostgreSQL, and uploaded files live in the storage volume. Both are on the dedicated data disk at /var/lib/atomic-crm, which is the relocated Docker data-root. Snapshot that disk with the Azure Backup service, or take a logical dump:

sudo docker compose -f /opt/atomic-crm/docker-compose.yml exec -T db \
  pg_dump -U postgres postgres | gzip > atomic-crm-backup-$(date +%F).sql.gz

Troubleshooting

• The page shows a blank "Loading..." screen. Confirm that you are browsing the VM's own public IP, because the API base is pinned to it at first boot. Also confirm that port 80 is open in your NSG.
• atomic-crm-firstboot.service did not finish. Check journalctl -u atomic-crm-firstboot.service. The service applies the schema and creates the administrator on first boot, and can take a minute or two.
• Sign-in fails. Re-read /root/atomic-crm-credentials.txt. The administrator password is generated per VM.
• Restart the stack. Run sudo systemctl restart atomic-crm.service.

Support

This image is built and maintained by SecureAnyCloud, and 24/7 support is included. For deployment help or to report an issue, contact SecureAnyCloud support.

Deploy on Azure

Launch Atomic CRM on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on Azure with 24/7 support from SecureAnyCloud.

View this image

Need Help?

Our support team is available 24/7.

sales@secureanycloud.com