Installing LON-CAPA on a minimal Fedora Core 3 Linux System

This document guides you through the process of setting up a new LON-CAPA server running Fedora Core 3 (FC3) with a minimum of packages installed. The computer will be configured solely as a LON-CAPA server and will be expected to have no other services running. Your server is expected to have a reasonably fast connection to the internet.

More information is available at http://install.lon-capa.org/.

Before you begin

Installing Linux is getting easier and easier. However, it is still a non-trivial undertaking and experience with Red Hat Linux will make this process easier. You will be required to log in to the machine and execute some routine Unix commands.Familiarity with the Apache web server, mod_perl, perl, and MySQL are not required to install and run LON-CAPA.

Installation Overview

The installation process takes the following steps:

  1. Obtain Fedora Core 3 installation CDs
  2. Determine Network Settings
  3. Install Fedora Core 3
  4. Update your system
  5. Install LON-CAPA
  6. Create a Domain Coordinator
  7. Start/Restart services
  8. Log in to LON-CAPA

Obtain Fedora Core 3

FC3 ISO files can be obtained from the projects main site, http://fedora.redhat.com/. You will need only the first ISO image for the minimal install.

Determine Network Settings

You will need to know the following network settings for your installation. Note:You must have a static IP address to use LON-CAPA. DHCP is not supported.

Minimal FC3 Install

Installing Fedora is quite easy if you've installed any of the Red Hat products before. Some documentation is available from http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/anaconda-installer/. Most of the installation screens are self explanatory. There are a few steps that require comment and are dealt with below.

Installation Type
Choose "Server" installation
Partitioning your Drive
You may want to use the automatic partitioning feature of the installer, however you should review the results and be prepared to modify them. LON-CAPA resource files are stored in the /home directory, so the majority of the disk space should be allocated here. If you have 20 GB of space for FC3, /home should receive at least 10 to 12 gigs. Since MySQL uses the /var filesystem to store its databases you should have at least 4 gigs of space available on /var. Be sure to include adequate swap space. A minimum is 512 Megs, but you should typically have 1 or 2x as much swap space as you do physical RAM.
Network Configuration
LON-CAPA will not work with a machine set up to use a dynamic IP address. When configuring your network card, be sure to unselect the DHCP option and enter in your network information.
Firewall Configuration
Select SSH (remote login), HTTP/HTTPS (web server).
SELinux Configuration
Choose an SElinux setting of 'disabled' or 'warn', unless you are familiar with SElinux and writing security policies and want to help us write a security policy for LON-CAPA.
Package Group Selection
Choose 'minimal install' which is the last item on the list.

Finish installing your server, reboot it, and log in as root.

Update your system

Update your system to the latest versions of the system software using yum. Yum is configured to check encyption keys for the packages it installs, so you need to import the keys before invoking yum.

rpm --import /usr/share/rhn/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
yum update

Reboot your system before continuing with the installation.

Retrieve the FC3_loncapa_yum file from the LON-CAPA install site:

wget http://install.loncapa.org/versions/fedora/FC3_loncapa_yum.conf

Install the FC3_loncapa_yum.conf

mv /etc/yum.conf /etc/yum.conf.backup
cp FC3_loncapa_yum.conf /etc/yum.conf
yum update

Installing LON-CAPA

Install prerequisites

Execute:

yum install LONCAPA-prerequisites

This may take a moment due to LON-CAPA's large number of dependencies.

Retrieve and execute LON-CAPA setup program

Retrieve the LON-CAPA setup with the following command:

wget http://install.loncapa.org/versions/fedora/fedora_install.tar

Extract the archive with the following command:

tar xf fedora_install.tar

This creates a directory named installation. Change to it and execute the setup script with the following commands:

cd installation
./install.pl

This script will prompt you for the MySQL root password and will download the latest LON-CAPA release.

Determine LON-CAPA Settings

LON-CAPA requires a number of identifying parameters be set in order for it to function at all. Below is a list with descriptions.

Host Type (library or access)
The server must be designated a 'library' or an 'access' server. In general you should have a library server for your instructors to create their course content on and run their courses. Students should connect to access servers. If you are doing the first install of LON-CAPA at your site, or if you are playing with it for your own edification you should make your machine a 'library' server.
LON-CAPA domain
Each site or school which installs LON-CAPA needs its own domain. Here at MSU we use 'msu'. You should choose something short but meaningful. Restriction: One word, no hyphens, underscores, or special characters.
LON-CAPA host id
Each LON-CAPA server requires a unique internal name. We use names such as "msul1" for the first library server. Restriction: One word, no hyphens, underscores, or special characters.
Host administrator email
The amount of email sent to this address is relatively minimal. Messages are sent every time the system starts up, or if the system is in serious trouble. On a laptop, make this root@localhost.

Configuring LON-CAPA

To configure and install LON-CAPA, execute the following commands:

cd /root/loncapa-N.N     (N.N should correspond to a version number like '1.3')
./UPDATE

You will need to enter the LON-CAPA configuration information you determined in the previous section.

Creating a Domain Coordinator

You will need at least one user at your site who has the role of 'domain coordinator'. This user creates accounts for other users and grants them additional privileges. The make_domain_coordinator.pl script invoked below requires that you enter the users password. The password will show in plaintext as you type it. Feel free to use the "passwd username" command to change it later. Replace USERNAME and DOMAIN with an appropriate user name and your domain.

cd /root/loncapa-N.N/loncom/build
perl make_domain_coordinator.pl USERNAME DOMAIN
(WILL PROMPT FOR PASSWORD HERE)
mkdir ~USERNAME/public_html
chown USERNAME:www ~USERNAME/public_html
chmod 0775 ~USERNAME/public_html
chmod a+x ~USERNAME

Start/Restart Services

The LON-CAPA network services take a moment to start. Most misconfigurations will be appearant at this step.

/etc/init.d/loncontrol start
/etc/init.d/httpd start

If you receive warnings when starting the httpd about missing perl modules, please make sure you followed the instructions in Installing LON-CAPA Dependencies. If you still have errors, please contact the LON-CAPA development team.

Log in to your LON-CAPA Machine

Point a web browser at your new machine and log in as the domain coordinator. Congratulations!

If things aren't working right

If you've followed the steps above and the server doesn't start or you think there's something wrong, please get in touch with the LON-CAPA developers. If there were errors in installation of the dependency RPMs or during the automatic setup, please send us as much information as possible. If some part of this document is unclear please let us know.