Installing on Rocky Linux 9.4 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
These instructions were tested on a Rocky Linux 9.4 minimal install. Rocky Linux is a free, community-supported Linux distribution that is functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For purposes of CollectiveAccess installation they are identical. The instructions provided here should work for either CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
CollectiveAccess relies on a number of open-source software packages to
run such as MariaDB/MySQL (database server), PHP (programming lanaguage) and
Apache or nginx (web server), to name just a few. These required
packages can be installed using the dnf package manager.
To start bring up a command line terminal on your system. Many of
the commands required for installation must be run as the root
(administrative) user. You can either log in as the root user, or
(preferably) run the commands using sudo, which executes
commands as the root user for authorized users. We assume use of
sudo and include it whenever it is required.
For a test setup these instructions assume the default firewall has been disabled (sudo systemctl disable firewalld --now) and that selinux is also disabled (sudo setenforce 0).
Installation Steps
1. Web Server Installation
For a simple test setup these instructions install and configure apache as your web server. For those interested, details on the slightly more complicated nginx web server are at the end of this document.
A. Install httpd:
sudo dnf install httpd -y
B. Start the httpd system service and enable it to start on system boot:
sudo systemctl enable httpd --now
C. You should now be able to connect to the web server by going to the URL
http://\<ip address of your server\> in a web browser. A test landing page should display. If unsure of your server's IP
address, the hostname -I command will return it.
2. PHP 8.3 Installation
A. Install and enable Remi repository
sudo dnf install https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-9.rpm -y && sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled remi
B. Set desired PHP version (available versions of PHP can be viewed with sudo dnf module list php)
sudo dnf module enable php:remi-8.3 -y
C. Install PHP and required php modules
sudo dnf install php php-cli php-gd php-curl php-zip php-mbstring php-mysqlnd php-gmagick php-process php-redis php-intl php-bcmath -y
D: Test PHP installed correctly with php -v
PHP 8.3.12 (cli) (built: Sep 24 2024 18:08:04) (NTS gcc x86_64)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.3.12, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v8.3.12, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies
E: LINK TO PAGE ON CONFIGURING PHP.INI
Source: https://docs.rockylinux.org/guides/web/php/
3. MariaDB Server Installation
CollectiveAccess works with version 5.7 or newer of MySQL, or equivalent versions of MariaDB.
A. Install MariaDB
sudo dnf install mariadb-server -y
B. Start the mariadb service and enable it to start on system boot
sudo systemctl enable mariadb --now
C. Run mysql_secure_installation
sudo mysql_secure_installation
For the following helper prompts:
enter for current root password (blank)
Switch to unix_socket authentication - Y
Change the root password? - Y
Set password - test
Y to remaining questions
D. Test mariadb is installed and running correctly: sudo mysql -v
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 18
Server version: 10.5.22-MariaDB MariaDB Server
Source: https://docs.rockylinux.org/tr/guides/database/database_mariadb-server/
4. Configure mariadb
These commands will be run in the MariaDB prompt which can be opened with sudo mysql if not still open from the last step.
A. Setup providence database, replacing yourdatabasename as desired.
CREATE DATABASE yourdatabasename;
Confirm your database exists with SHOW DATABASES;
B. Create user for the providence database, replacing your_database_user and your_password as desired.
CREATE USER your_database_user@localhost identified by 'your_password';
C. Give the newly created user permissions to the providence database, replacing yourdatabasename and your_database_user with your choices from above.
GRANT ALL on yourdatabasename.* to your_database_user@localhost;
D. Close the mariadb prompt with exit
5. Install Packages for Media Processing
Next we install various packages to support data caching and processing of media: ffmpeg (audio/video), Ghostscript (PDFs), GraphicsMagick (images), mediainfo (metadata extraction), ExifTool (metadata extraction), dcraw (RAW images), Poppler (content extraction from PDFs) and Redis (caching):
A. Install the EPEL and RPMFusion repositories, and enable crb, which provide the additional packages required for media processing:
sudo dnf install epel-release -y && sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb && sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %rhel).noarch.rpm -y && sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %rhel).noarch.rpm -y
B. Install packages:
sudo dnf install ffmpeg ghostscript poppler-utils libreoffice perl-Image-ExifTool mediainfo redis -y
C. Configure redis
sudo vi /etc/redis/redis.conf
Uncomment and update line 277 in redis.conf to supervised systemd . Then enable and start the redis service:
sudo systemctl enable --now redis
To test redis, enter redis-cli ping , which should return PONG
D. Install wkhtmltopdf using the almalinux9 rpm provided by https://github.com/wkhtmltopdf/packaging/releases:
sudo dnf install wget -y & cd ~ && wget https://github.com/wkhtmltopdf/packaging/releases/download/0.12.6.1-3/wkhtmltox-0.12.6.1-3.almalinux9.x86_64.rpm && sudo dnf install wkhtmltox-0.12.6.1-3.almalinux9.x86_64.rpm -y && rm -f wkhtmltox-0.12.6.1-3.almalinux9.x86_64.rpm`
Source: https://docs.faveohelpdesk.com/docs/installation/providers/enterprise/wkhtmltopdf/
wkhtmltopdf may need additional fonts as well:
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 libpng libjpeg openssl icu libX11 libXext libXrender xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi -y
6. Install git and Clone the providence Github Repository to your Server
Now we are ready to install the CollectiveAccess [Providence] back-end cataloguing application.
A. Install git:
sudo dnf install git -y
B. Clone providence to /var/www/html:
cd /var/www/html && sudo git clone -b dev/php8 https://github.com/collectiveaccess/providence.git
C. Set apache user permissions for the providence directory and subdirectories:
sudo chown apache /var/www/html/providence && cd /var/www/html/providence && sudo chown -R apache app/tmp app/log media vendor uploads && sudo chmod -R 755 app/tmp app/log media vendor uploads
D. Make a copy of the default providence setup configuration file:
sudo cp /var/www/html/providence/setup.php-dist /var/www/html/providence/setup.php
Your basic setup should now be ready to configure and finish the providence setup: LINK TO SETUP/INSTALL PROVIDENCE PAGE
Alternative nginx Setup and Configuration (possibly its own page?):
A. Install nginx
sudo dnf install nginx -y
B. Start the nginx system service and enable it to start on system boot
sudo systemctl enable nginx --now
C. Test that the web server test page is viewable at http://<IP address of your server>
D. Edit /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
sudo vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
add lines 55 - 65:
# php-fpm
location ~ \.php$ {
include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/www.sock;
}
# providence:
location /providence {
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
index index.php;
}
Test the nginx config changes with sudo nginx -t and restart the nginx service with sudo systemctl restart nginx
2. Enable and Adjust php-fpm Config for nginx
A. Enable and start the php-fpm service
sudo systemctl enable php-fpm --now
B. Edit /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf and change user (line 24) and group (line 26) to nginx
C. Edit /etc/nginx/default.d/php.conf to account for redirects:
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server
#
# See conf.d/php-fpm.conf for socket configuration
#
index index.php index.html index.htm;
location ~ \.(php|phar)(/.*)?$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.(?:php|phar))(/.*)$;
fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_pass php-fpm;
}