How to Install ILIAS on Debian Latest

ILIAS is an open-source Learning Management System (LMS) designed to provide online learning courses and assessment tools to educators and learners. This tutorial will guide you through the steps to install ILIAS on Debian.

Prerequisites

Before starting the installation, make sure the following prerequisites are met:

• Debian operating system installed and updated to the latest version
• sudo privileges
• Apache web server installed and running
• PHP installed and running
• MySQL or MariaDB database installed and running

You can verify the installed components with the following commands:

# Check Apache version
apache2 -v

# Check PHP version
php -v

# Check MySQL version
mysql -V

Step 1: Download ILIAS

There are multiple methods to download ILIAS, including from the official GitHub repository or through the official download page. For this tutorial, we will use the official download page with the following command:

wget -O ilias.tar.gz https://download.ilias.de/ILIAS/openILIAS/src/release_7-5.tar.gz

Step 2: Extract the ILIAS archive

Extract the downloaded archive with the following command:

tar -zxvf ilias.tar.gz -C /var/www/html/

This will extract the archive to the /var/www/html/ directory.

Step 3: Create the ILIAS database

Create a new MySQL user and database for ILIAS with the following commands:

mysql -u root -p

# Enter your MySQL root password when prompted

CREATE DATABASE iliasdb CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_general_ci;
CREATE USER 'ilias'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON iliasdb.* TO 'ilias'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

exit

Note that you may change the username and password to your desired values, but make sure to update the ilias.ini.php file later on.

Step 4: Configure Apache for ILIAS

Create an Apache virtual host configuration file for ILIAS with the following command:

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/ilias.conf

Then add the following configuration:

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerAdmin admin@example.com
   ServerName ilias.example.com
   DocumentRoot /var/www/html/ilias/
   ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/ilias_error.log
   CustomLog /var/log/apache2/ilias_access.log combined

   <Directory /var/www/html/ilias/>
      Options FollowSymLinks
      AllowOverride All
      Require all granted
   </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Note that you need to replace example.com with your domain or IP address, and ilias with the directory name where ILIAS was extracted in step 2.

Save and exit the file.

Enable the virtual host with the following command:

a2ensite ilias.conf

Then, restart the Apache web server with the following command:

systemctl restart apache2

Step 5: Configure ILIAS

Navigate to the following directory using the web browser:

http://yourdomain.com/ilias/

Select your language and click "Install ILIAS".

Follow the instructions and provide the following details:

• MySQL/MariaDB database hostname: localhost
• MySQL/MariaDB database name: iliasdb
• MySQL/MariaDB database username: ilias
• MySQL/MariaDB database password: password (or your chosen password from step 3)

Note that you can leave the other options as default.

After installation is completed, ILIAS will prompt you to create a superadmin account. Follow the instructions and create the account credentials.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you have successfully installed ILIAS on Debian! You can now start creating online learning courses and assessments for your students or learners.

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