Installation - Requirements and Instructions

Here's what's necessary to install version 0.95 of the Cultura Questionnaire and Discussion tool. Thanks for helping us get started with this.

Major Changes from v.9

• Exchange start and end dates made more sensible
• added ability to modify exchange languages and dates after initial setup
• Improved terms.fre translation file
• Table fields added to flag language directionality (full right-to-left language support not yet implemented, though);

CONTENTS:

Requirements
Installation from Scratch
Upgrading from v .9
Problems?

Requirements:

1. A php-enabled webserver (tested on Apache/1.3.22 Ben-SSL/1.47 with PHP 4 module installed)
2. The php xmlrpc.inc file. This is normally installed in /usr/local/lib/php, but if you're running php only as an Apache module, you may not have this file. A copy is included in this distribution just in case, but you'd be better off deleting it and using the one on your server if you have it.
3. Mysql (tested on Ver 14.7 Distrib 4.1.11, and set to utf8 in my.cnf)
4. The application is designed for a php implementation with magic quotes turned ON. This setting is often turned off centrally. An .htaccess file is included in the distribution which should override any centrally-set magic quotes setting. If you cannot override this setting (it's possible that the central webserver is set such that you can't, even via the .htaccess file), then you'll need to compensate appropriately by modifying sql.inc.php.

Installation from Scratch:

1. Uncompress/untar the file cultura.tgz into your server's document root (it expects to be available as http://<yourserver>/cultura):
tar xvzf cultura_v0.95.tgz
2. Change ownership of the course_files directory such that it is writable by the user your webserver is running as (probably nobody or www)
3. cd to cultura/schema and install the database schema:
mysql --user=<privligeduser> --password=<privilegeduserspassword> < cultura.sql
e.g. mysql --user=root --password=rootpwd cultura < cultura95.sql

4. In a web browser, go to http://<yourserver>/cultura
You should see a login/password box. Log in as:
username (the login prompt will say 'E-mail address', but ignore that for this purpoose): admin
password: changeme

5. Once logged in, go to:
http://<yourserver>/cultura/global.php
(You'll need to enter enter this manually in the URL section at the top of your browser)
Follow the instructions on that page to register your institution as a Cultura partner and to set your instance of Cultura to be a 'host'.
If you encounter errors on the global.php page, it's probably an xmlrpc problem. Make sure the xmlrpc.inc file mentioned above is available to your server.

6. That should do it. You can start a new exchange, create some users via the 'register' link on the login page, and begin to experiment. Exchanges can be deleted.

Upgrading from v .9

1. Back up your cultura directory
2. Back up your database
3. Move the existing cultura directory aside (eg, rename it to cultura-1)
4. Uncompress/untar the file cultura.tgz into your server's document root (it expects to be available as http://<yourserver>/cultura):
tar xvzf cultura_v0.95.tgz
5. Remove the directory 'course_files' from the new installation and copy the course_files directory fom your backup into the new cultura installation, preserving it's the ownership and permissions attributes
6. Update the database to add some fields to the courses and language_dtl tables. These updates will not modify any existing user-entered data (be sure to back up your database nonetheless). To perform the database update:

cd to cultura/schema and install the database schema:

mysql --user=<privligeduser> --password=<privilegeduserspassword> < update_to_95.sql
e.g. mysql --user=root --password=rootpwd < update_to_95.sql

7. NOTE: After uprading, the dates for any existing exchanges listed on the main page will display incorrectly. You can remedy this by entering the exchange in question and going to 'modify exchange setup'. There you will be able to select appropriate start and end dates for the exchange.

Problems?

If you encounter problems, send email to:
cultura_dev@mit.edu

Have fun