How to Install Koha on Ubuntu Server

Koha is a widely-used open-source integrated library system. This tutorial will guide you through the installation process of Koha on Ubuntu Server.

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure that you have:

• A Ubuntu Server with root privileges
• A stable internet connection

Step 1: Install Required Package Dependencies

First, update the package list and install the required dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
    apache2 \
    libapache2-mod-perl2 \
    mariadb-server \
    libmariadbd-dev \
    build-essential python-dev \
    libyaml-perl zlib1g-dev \
    libssl-dev libexpat1-dev libxml2-dev \
    libxslt1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev \
    libgd3-dev

Step 2: Download Koha

Download the latest version of Koha from the Koha community website:

wget https://download.koha-community.org/stable/20.11/koha-20.11.13.tar.gz

Step 3: Install Koha

Create a directory for your Koha installation and move the downloaded package into it:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/koha
sudo mv koha-* /usr/share/koha/
cd /usr/share/koha/

Extract the downloaded Koha package and move the files to the Apache server directory:

sudo gzip -dc koha-*.tar.gz | sudo tar xf -
sudo mv koha-* /var/lib/koha/

Set the file and directory permissions:

sudo chown -R www-data: /var/lib/koha/
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/lib/koha/

Step 4: Configure MySQL

Log in to the MySQL server as the root user:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Create the Koha user and database:

CREATE DATABASE koha_library;
CREATE USER 'koha_library'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON koha_library.* TO 'koha_library'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 5: Configure Koha

Copy the sample configuration files for Koha:

sudo cp /var/lib/koha/koha-conf.xml /etc/koha/koha-conf.xml
sudo cp /var/lib/koha/koha-sites.conf /etc/koha/sites/

Edit the Koha configuration file to update the database information:

sudo nano /etc/koha/koha-conf.xml

Under the database section, replace the following values with your MySQL database information:

<database name="koha_library">
  <driver type="mysql"/>
  <host>
    <hostname>localhost</hostname>
    <port>3306</port>
  </host>
  <user>koha_library</user>
  <pass>password</pass>
  <options
    charset="utf8mb4"
    connect_timeout="10"
    interactive_timeout="28800"
    wait_timeout="28800" />
</database>

Save and exit the file.

Step 6: Start Apache and Koha Services

Start the Apache server:

sudo systemctl start apache2

Start the Koha daemon service:

sudo koha-service-daemon start

Step 7: Access Koha

You can now access Koha through a web browser by navigating to your server's IP address or domain name: http://server_ip_or_domain/cgi-bin/koha/mainpage.pl

Log in with the username koha_library and the password password.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Koha on Ubuntu Server.

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