Mahara is an open source ePortfolio platform, which allows users to create digital portfolios or learning logs. In this tutorial, you will learn how to install Mahara on Ubuntu Server Latest.
Before you start, you will need the following:
The Mahara application requires Apache web server to run. To install Apache, run the following command in your terminal:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2
Once Apache is installed, open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost/. If you see the Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page, this means that Apache is working correctly.
Mahara uses PostgreSQL as its database server. To install PostgreSQL, run the following command in your terminal:
sudo apt install postgresql
By default, PostgreSQL creates a user named “postgres” with its own authentication method.
To create a new PostgreSQL user and database specific to Mahara, run the following command in your terminal:
sudo su - postgres
createuser maharauser -P
createdb -O maharauser maharadb
exit
In this command, “maharauser” is the name of the new user that will be created, and “maharadb” is the name of the new database that will be created.
Mahara is a PHP application that requires several PHP modules. To install these required modules, run the following command in your terminal:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-xml php-mbstring php-gd php-pgsql php-curl unzip
Once PHP and its modules are installed, restart the Apache web server so that the changes take effect:
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Download the latest version of Mahara from https://mahara.org/ and extract it to the /var/www/html directory:
sudo wget https://launchpad.net/mahara/20.10/20.10.0/+download/mahara-20.10.0.zip
sudo unzip mahara-20.10.0.zip -d /var/www/html/
sudo mv /var/www/html/mahara-20.10.0 /var/www/html/mahara
Configure Mahara by editing the /var/www/html/mahara/config.php file:
sudo nano /var/www/html/mahara/config.php
Make the following changes:
$cfg->dbtype = 'pgsql';
$cfg->dbhost = 'localhost';
$cfg->dbname = 'maharadb';
$cfg->dbuser = 'maharauser';
$cfg->dbpass = 'password';
$cfg->wwwroot = 'http://localhost/mahara';
Save and exit the file.
Ensure the /var/www/html/mahara directory is writable by the Apache web server, to allow for uploading files:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/mahara/
Open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost/mahara. Follow the prompts to complete the Mahara installation.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Mahara on Ubuntu Server Latest.
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