Installing ADAM

From ADAM - Academic Data Management for Schools

There are a few steps that are required to install ADAM. The first is the establishment of an AMP stack webserver, the second is ensuring that the configuration of the webserver is correct and the last is getting a cron script running.

Installing the AMP stack

This installation guide is written for XAMPP 1.7.2. There are known issues with PHP 5.3.1 which is included with XAMPP 1.7.3. The most recently released version of XAMPP 1.7.4 has not yet been tested with ADAM.

1. Download and run the xampp-win32-1.7.2.exe file.
2. Choose the default options in the install. For the installation folder, choose a large non-system volume if possible.
3. Once installed browse to the x:\xampp\ folder and then make the following configuration file changes:
   1. PHP: Look in the php subfolder and open the php.ini file.
      1. Change memory_limit to 512M
      2. Change error_reporting to E_ALL
      3. Change display_errors to Off
      4. Change log_errors to On
      5. Change error_log to the default provided "C:\xampp\apache\logs\php_error.log", ensuring to substitute a new drive letter if needed. Normally this step simply involves uncommenting the line.
      6. Enable the dynamic extension php_ldap.dll
      7. Change the date.timezone to "Africa/Johannesburg"
   2. Apache: Look in the apache\conf\extra subfolder and open the vhosts.conf file.
      1. Add in any necessary information for any virtual hosts to be served by this machine.
   3. MySQL: Look in the mysql\bin folder and open the my.ini file.
      1. Change default-time-zone to "Africa/Johannesburg"
   4. phpMyAdmin: Look in the phpMyAdmin folder and open the config.inc.php file.
      1. Change auth_type to 'cookie'
4. In order for the automated backup to work, the \xampp\mysql\bin folder needs to be added to the server's PATH environment variable.
5. Load the XAMPP control panel, if it is not already running.
6. Install Apache and MySQL as system services by ticking the Svc box next to each.
7. Start both services.
8. Load a web browser and visit http://localhost/ to check that the installtion was successful.
9. Visit http://localhost/phpmyadmin
   1. Log in as root with a blank password.
   2. Click on Privileges
   3. Click on the edit icon next to the root entry in the table of users.
   4. Scroll down and click to the Change Password section and enter a secure password.
   5. On futher navigation, you will be logged out of phpMyAdmin. Log back in with the new password.
   6. From the home screen, enter a new database name in the Create Database textbox. The normal convention is adam_school.
   7. Once created, click on the Privileges tab running along the top of the page.
   8. Click on the Add a new user link.
      1. Name the user adam
      2. It should have the host localhost
      3. Use an automatically generated password. Keep this somewhere safe because it will be added to the configuration file later.
      4. Ensure that "Grant all privileges on database ..." is selected.
      5. Click on Go

Installing ADAM

Copy the ADAM distribution files into the appropriate htdocs sub-folder.

Visit the site and specifically the install.php page. This will run though the steps of creating the class_config.php file.

On first visiting the site, a list of database upgrades will also be processed to get from the "install" version of the database to the latest version.

• Install MoodleCron and configure it to call the cron.php file from within your site. It can be called every 5-10 minutes; OR
• MoodleCron has been demonstrated to have issued with servers and can crash. It is also possible to run the cron.php script using Windows Scheduler and the command line. Ensure that the Working Directory is set to the folder in which the cron.php script exists. The command to run the script is then "C:\xampp\php\php.exe cron.php". Ensure that you give a full path to the PHP executable.