Installation instructions
From EFrontWiki
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[edit] Windows installation
1. Decompress eFront files to a system folder, for example
C:\eFront.
This way, the structure below should be created:
C:\eFront\www
C:\eFront\libraries
C:\eFront\backups
C:\eFront\upload
2. Download XAMPP software from the internet :
(latest URL at this moment http://www.apachefriends.org/download.php?xampp-win32-1.7.0-installer.exe)
3. Run the downloaded XAMPP file, to install it:
a. At the introductory screen, press "Next" b. Select the installation folder (you may leave the default proposed) c. At the third step, "XAMPP Options", at the "SERVICE SECTION" we select "Install Apache as service" and "Install MySQL as service" d. Click on "Install" and then "Finish" to complete XAMPP installation e. If a firewall is installed to the system, it may ask whether to allow Apache to access the internet.
It must be permitted to access the Internet and accept connections through it.
f. Finally, we start the XAMPP control panel
4. Using a text editor, open the file c:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf for editing
5. Change the line where it says
DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs"
to
DocumentRoot "C:/eFront/www" (since we placed eFront folder at C:\)
and the line
<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs">
to
<Directory "C:/eFront/www">
6. From the XAMPP control panel, we restart Apache (pressing "Stop" and then "Start". If this doesn't work, try restarting the computer)
7. Access the location http://localhost/install/install.php, preferrable using Internet Explorer 7 or Mozilla Firefox
8. Click the «Install» button
9. The first step lists the prerquisites and settings required in order for the system to work correctly. If there aren't any prohibitive situation (marked with the "forbidden" sign), we may move on.
10. At the second step, user must insert the database settings. Database type is always "MySQL". Database host is usually "localhost" (or may be a single dot "."). Database user is root and password may be left blank (unless after installing XAMPP we set one). Database name may be anything, preferrably "efront".
11. Clicking on "Next" will create the database and the corresponding database tables.
12. The next step has to do with system settings. You may use default values provided. Most of these settings may be later changed through the administrator menu.
13. At the next step we must create an administrator account and optionally a sample professor and student account.
14. Finally, we may optionally insert a sample lesson, either the default provided, or one that we upload.
15. After finishing installation, we may use the system by accessing its home page, usually http://localhost.
16. Important note: You *must* delete the installation directory, in order for the system to function.
[edit] Linux Installation
1. Uncompress eFront files in the desired folder, for example /opt/lampp/eFront, thus creating the following structure:
/opt/lampp/eFront/www
/opt/lampp/eFront/libraries
/opt/lampp/eFront/backups
/opt/lampp/eFront/message_attachments
2. Download and install XAMPP for Linux, from http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html
3. After installing XAMPP, you must edit the file /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf (with any text editor)
and perform the following changes:
- Change the line where it says:
DocumentRoot "/opt/lampp/htdocs/"
to:
DocumentRoot "/opt/lampp/eFront/www"
- Change the line where it says:
<Directory "/opt/lampp/htdocs">
to:
<Directory "/opt/lampp/eFront/www">
4. Using the XAMPP control panel (or manually) restart Apache service
5. Using Mozilla Firefox, point to http://localhost/install/install.php
6. Follow the on-screen instructions to setup eFront
7. Note: Several directories should be writable by the web server, but the most important is libraries/smarty,
since it is needed in order to perform installation
You will see a list of directories that are not writable, in
step 1 of the installation process
[edit] Siteground / cPanel installation tutorial
[edit] CentOS without XAMPP installation
After many users asking for it, here are instructions for installing eFront 3.5.2 on CentOS 5.2:
CentOS does not install MySQL and PHP by default, so you first need to install these applications and additional modules, before installing eFront.
Remember that Linux is case-sensitive, so type carefully or just copy and paste each instruction below (one line at a time).
Step 1: Install mandatory packages
yum install httpd (if it isn't already installed--yum checks for you) yum install mysql-server (if it isn't already installed--yum checks for you) yum install php yum install php-mysql yum install php-mbstring yum install php-pear yum install php-devel (* see explanation at the bottom of this page) yum install yum-priorities (*) rpm -hUv http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-3.noarch.rpm (*) yum install php-pecl-zip (*) yum install php-gd (Optional, for automatic image resizing and manipulation) yum install php-ldap (Optional, if you need LDAP support)
Step 2: Environment considerations
Note that in some versions of CentOS, a firewall is installed by default which will block access to port 80, on which Apache runs. The following command will open this port:
iptables -I RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
You might as well have to install unzip to handle eFront's bundle:
yum install unzip
Step 3: Download and unzip eFront
Next you need to download eFront and unzip it in the folder where you want it installed (for example inside /var/www/efront). You must move the eFront folder there before extracting/uncompressing it.
If you are installing the community edition you can download directly using wget. For example for 3.6.3 use:
wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/project/efrontlearning/efrontlearning/eFront%20v3.6.3/efront_3.6.3_build7455.zip
To unzip just use something like: (note that this depends on the eFront version)
unzip efront_3.6.3_build7455.zip
If you are in a local/testing environment, you can change all permissions by performing:
chown -R apache:apache /var/www/efront/*
Otherwise, there is a list of folders that the web server needs write access to, in step 1 of the installation script.
Step 4: PHP configuration
Edit the file /etc/php.ini to customize php settings to your needs. Recommended minimum values for the following fields are:
> memory limit: 64M > upload_max_filesize: 32M > post_max_size: 32M > max_execution_time: 120
Step 5: Apache configuration
Edit the apache configuration file (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf) and change DocumentRoot to point to the "www" folder inside the efront directory. For example:
DocumentRoot "/var/www/efront/www"
A few lines later in the apache configuration file, you should also change to match the DocumentRoot directory, as follows:
<Directory "/var/www/efront/www">
Step 6: Restart servers
Servers are usually not start immediately. You can use the following commands to start apache and mysql:
sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld restart sudo /etc/init.d/httpd restart
Step 7: Install eFront via the web-browser
Using a browser point to something like the following URL: http://server_ip_or_domain_name/install/install.php. eFront's installation splash screen should be displayed. Click on "New Installation" to proceed
Review all mandatory elements. If there is a "forbidden" icon, then you must fix this element in order to continue. Most of the times you can leave the mysql password blank for the installation process. There is also a list of directories where eFront needs write access to. Make sure that these folders are accessible and writable by the web server. (Note: The folder "libraries" needs only to be writable during the installation process, then can be changed to read-only after installation--the installation wizard provides this option at the end of installation)
Click on Continue and follow the on-screen instructions. Enjoy!
(*): CentOS currently does not provide PHP 5.2 through its update mechanism; it installs 5.1.6 instead. This is why extra packages are needed to be installed, in order to provide support for the Zip libraries (bundled within PHP since 5.2.0)
[edit] CentOS from RPM-package
Now it's easy to setup eFront from RPM-package.
Step 1. You should enable eFront and EPEL repositories:
> rpm -ivh http://www.abbris.ru/efront/el5/noarch/efront-release-1.0-1.abbris.noarch.rpm > rpm -hUv http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-3.noarch.rpm (*)
Step 2. Install eFront package (and all necessary packages):
> yum install efront
While installing, all necessary configurations are made for apache and PHP as well as directory permissions. In the end of installation process httpd and mysqld are restarted automaticly. eFront are located in /var/www/efront directory and available with http://your_server_name/efront URL.
Step 3: Install eFront. Using Mozilla Firefox, point to http://localhost/efront/install/install.php (pay attention to the URL!). eFront's installation splash screen should be displayed. Click on "New Installation" to proceed
Review all mandatory elements. If there is a "forbidden" icon, then you must fix this element in order to continue. Leave the mysql password blank for the installation process, then later edit the password. There is also a list of directories where eFront needs write access to. Make sure that these folders are accessible and writable by the web server. (Note: The folder "libraries" needs only to be writable during the installation process, then can be changed to read-only after installation--the installation wizard provides this option at the end of installation)
Step 4: Click on Continue and follow the on-screen instructions. Enjoy!
(*): CentOS currently does not provide PHP 5.2 through its update mechanism; it installs 5.1.6 instead. This is why extra packages are needed to be installed, in order to provide support for the Zip libraries (bundled within PHP since 5.2.0)
