Koha Installation on Ubuntu Linux 19.10

Hay, Hello Friends, I’m back again with another video, and this time it will be a bit long. Because we will be doing a complete and step by step installation of Koha. Since you are here after clicking on the video thumbnail, so I assume you already know what koha is, but for those who have never heard about it, here is a quick intro.
Koha is an Integrated Library Management software, it is one of the best open source projects, which is developed and maintained by a community of users and developers who are open source enthusiasts. Its development started in 1999 in New Zealand by Katipo communications, In Maori language, which is one of the native language of New Zealand, Koha means a gift without conditions.
It is known for its flexibility, extensibility and ease of use, which is why this feature rich ILS is being used in many School, college and university libraries worldwide. By the sense open source, it means that anybody can change the source code of the software to scale and mold it as per their needs, without any legal restrictions.
It is most advanced, feature rich and cost effective software solution, which can serve the needs of all small and big libraries. Some notable features include,
full text searching,
Z39.50 /SRU protocol support
Support for latest bibliographic formats, like Marc 21 and Unimarc
It is web based software, which means once its installed on the server, no special client is needed to access it over the network, it just work like any other website on the internet. Yes, you need a web browser though, but you basically can use it on any phone, tablet and PC. The only reason people find it difficult is because of its steep learning curve, that too, in the installation part only because Koha packages and software dependencies are developed for Linux exclusively. And that’s what people are scared of, with this video we will try to make its installation easy by breaking up into small and simple steps. If you follow them precisely, I promise it will make the installation and troubleshooting a piece of cake for you.

Now before proceeding any further, it is suggested to ensure that your base OS is up to date to do this we first need to run apt-get update which updates the local package index with the latest changes made in the software repository, and then apt-get upgrade command which actually fetches the latest packages from the internet.
We run these commands with SUDO prefix which tells the system that we are performing all this action with super user privileges, which is why we need to put in the root password while executing these commands. And then finally, Apt get clean command just flushes out the obsolete cache file of repository.

The we need to add the third party repository in our source list which hosts the koha package files. To do this we issue following command.
echo deb http://debian.koha-community.org/koha stable main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/koha.list
Then we just mention the location where to append this url.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to remember all this hocus pocus, because everything is mentioned in the description section, and available in koha wiki.
Just do the copy paste, it will work.
Now issue wget command download gpg key from this url
wget -O- https://debian.koha-community.org/koha/gpg.asc | sudo apt-key add –
and add it to the systems trusted keys which will verify and authenticate that the koha packages download from this source are from a legitimate repository.

Now that our system knows where to get the koha package files, we just need to give it a go. to download the software issue this command sudo apt-get install koha-common
Type yes to give your consent for the installation. And it will start fetching the koha software files from the repository we just added. This command will download unpack and install the package files and other dependencies, including apache server, zebra libraries, perl dependencies etc.
and it will automatically place all the things where they need to be. You just have to sit back and relax.
This execution process may take some time depending upon your internet speed and also your system specifications, so it may vary from mine to yours. But since this is a video we can speed up things a little bit.

And as they say, no news is good news, because the terminal returned no error or any kind of warning, it means the koha package is installed successfully.
Which also means we are all set to go to /etc/koha/koha-sites.conf to edit the port numbers for opac and staff interface.
In this configuration file,
The intra port specifies the port number on which your koha staff interface works, for most people who access the staff interface from their office network only, we use port no 8080 for inta port and port 80 for the opac which is default for all http website. But in case you want to allow your staff to have access to the koha admin interface from anywhere, you can keep it to port 80 only, and map these two interfaces on discrete domains.

Now time to move to the next step, which is to install the database engine. Many users have reported some bugs in MySQL while using with this version of koha. As an easy alternate we can go with maria db, which is equally good and is no less than mysql in any way.

While this is being downloaded and unpacked, I must also brief you with the pros and cons of Installing koha from the scratch instead of using a preinstalled bootable Live CD.
See the thing is, Live CD installation also works very well, No harm no foul. Its easy for non techy, just put in the cd, install the OS, and you can directly login and import your data. But the real trouble comes, when there is a problem in the system. Because you don’t know how to fix it.
On the other hand, when you install the entire system on your own, in the manual way, you know how you did what you did. Later on if any problem arises, you’ll know how to troubleshoot it and where to find the solution.
Another thing is, as a librarian, or system admin, you will require the username and password for every program installed on the koha server. in case of live CD’s many times, only the system credentials and koha admin credentials are provided by the CD Developer. And most of the times librarians don’t really bother to change the default passwords also, which lead serious security vulnerability. Most importantly, you learn when you do things practically, so I always recommend to install it from the scratch, its very easy.

Ok so now our database engine is installed, and koha package is installed including Apache Webserver. We are all set to create our first koha instance. But before that we need to enable some Apache mods, so that the Webserver can interact with our database and koha sites files.

sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod cgi
After these apache modules are activated just restart the apache service so that system could recognize the changes u just made
sudo service apache2 restart
and now we can fireup our koha instance and corresponding database with the command, sudo koha-create –create-db library
This will create a database in maria db and also several configuration files like the koha sites folder etcetera
But before we go on to open the webinterface there is one more thing to do,
we need to tell apache server, to accept http requests on port 80 and and port 8080 as well. Because koha will serve different pagest on these two distinct interfaces.
So we will add this line in the ports.conf file, to instruct apache server to listen on port 80 and port 8080. The press cltr X to save changes and exit the nano editor.
To activate this new configuration in the webserver, we need to depopulate apache from any pervious settings.
To disble the default webpage for apache, use the command sudo a2dissite 000, this is usually the name of default apace webpage.
Then enable our koha interface using the command sudo a2ensite library.
Then as usual, restart apace service to apply the changes systemwide.
Ok now that the configuration part is done, we can start the web installer from the browser. Just point it to http://localhost:8080 and this should take us to the koha administration screen.
but wait, it is asking for username and password. We don’t have these.
Noooo, heres the fun part,
These superuser credentials are randomly generated by the system and are hidden at as safeplace, we just need to find it. The password is located at an xml file in
/etc/koha/sites/library/koha-conf.xml
This file is very important because contains all the connection settings, and other vital information related to zebra server, bibliographic and authority records, then if you scroll down further you will reach the database connection settings, and there you can find this password string. You can copy and save it somewhere safe, because you will be using it only for once,
But if you don’t want to open the koha-conf file and accidentally mess up with it, you can chose this alternative way to echo and print this temporary password, directly into the terminal window, by using this long command.
$ sudo xmlstarlet sel -t -t -v ‘yazgfs/config/pass’ /etc/koha/sites/library name/koha-conf.xml;echo
This command will go to the same location, fetch out only one line from the xml file.
As I said, you don’t need to remember all these commands, just copy it from the video description, and paste. Up to date instructions are always there on koha wiki.
See this is the same password we saw in the koha conf.xml file.
I am calling it temporary password, because these credentials works only for the web installer, after that koha wont let you login using these.

After checking some perl dependencies, it will bring to the database connection screen, were it will test if koha is able to connect to mariadb database.
And here it verifies that the database koha_library exists and we have all the required previleges on it

Also this gives you a list of Z39.50 and SRU server locations, like library of congress and Columbia university. This will be a huge deal for your calatloging staff later on.
It also notifyis that if we want to share our usage statistics with the koha developers we can chose to do so in the administration screen.
Finally we are asked set up some initial settings for our library, like the name of the library, and a unique code value.
Here we need to login using the user name and password we just created for the superlibrarian, because this koha_library users will no longer work.
So that’s it,
Our koha is installed, and we can go on adding the staff members, library users, start cataloging books, the ground is open to explore. It was easy right? See I told you.
But if you still face any difficulty in any step, or there is some issue with existing installation, just drop a comment below. Or write me an email, my email address is mentioned in the description section of the video. But don’t spam me. Nobody like spammers.
That’s all for, im planning to make another video on different methods of import export in koha and migration of data, lets see how and when it comes out..
And im not going ask for, like share subscribe all that stuff u tubers say. If all this exercise has been helpful for you in anyway, that’s all that matters.
So
Thanks for watching, and good bye.