Claroline connect is a free and open source Learning Management System (LMS).
It’s an innovative and modern platform that puts each person at the center of their training by offering the possibility to create, share, choose, and organise the elements which compose their training.
Claroline is created with collaborative vision, allowing every user to interact with other users within the framework of a common project.
Several notable Claroline features:
- Set learning goals.
- Organize Training the way you need.
- Multilingual support.
- Exchange and sharing contents.
- Multiple communication tools and resources including contact management, chat,blog wiki, forum and internal mailbox.
You can learn more about Claroline Connect from www.claroline.net and Claroline documentation.
Objective
In this tutorial we’ll learn how to install Claroline on Ubuntu 14.04. We will also install and configure its prerequisites.
Prerequisites
We will install Claroline on fresh installation of Ubuntu Server 14.04. We also need these applications to be able to run Claroline:
- Apache 2
- MySQL 5.*
- PHP 5.* with these additional modules :
- php5-curl
- php5-intl
- php5-gd
- php5-ldap
Update the Base System
Before we install Claroline, let’s update the system to the latest update.
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y upgrade
Install Apache 2
After applying latest update to our base system, let’s start installing Apache 2 and required libraries.
$ sudo apt-get -y install apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-mpm-prefork libaio1 libapache2-mod-php5 libapr1 libaprutil1 libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libhtml-template-perl libmysqlclient18 libterm-readkey-perl libwrap0 ssl-cert tcpd
We can check the Apache 2 service status using the command below:
sudo service apache2 status
* apache2 is running
We can also check which port Apache 2 is listening on using the command below:
sudo netstat -naptu | grep apache
tcp6 0 0 :::80 :::* LISTEN 14873/apache2
Install MySQL 5.6
We will install and use MySQL 5.6 as database for Claroline.
We will use MySQL Server 5.6 since MySQL 5.6 is the most up to date version of MySQL shipped with Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.
$ sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server-5.6
We need to setup MySQL root password. Please input password for MySQL root user.
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Verify root password.
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Securing MySQL Installation
We will secure MySQL installation by running mysql_secure_installation.
Enter root password that we set on installation:
$ mysql_secure_installation
NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MySQL
SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE! PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!
In order to log into MySQL to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user. If you've just installed MySQL, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.
Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...
Since we already have a root password set, answer this part with n:
Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MySQL
root user without the proper authorisation.
You already have a root password set, so you can safely answer 'n'.
Change the root password? [Y/n] n
... skipping.
Remove the anonymous user to improve security. This will make sure people or the application have correct usernames and passwords to login to MySQL. Answer with Y
By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MySQL without having to have a user account created for
them. This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother. You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] Y
... Success!
We also want remove root login from remote machine. Answer with Y:
Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'. This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] Y
... Success!
Previously the test database was created automatically by MySQL installation, but MySQL 5.6 does not create test database. We can still choose Y, it will throw error but that’s fine.
By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access. This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] Y
- Dropping test database...
ERROR 1008 (HY000) at line 1: Can't drop database 'test'; database doesn't exist
... Failed! Not critical, keep moving...
- Removing privileges on test database...
... Success!
The last step is to reload the MySQL privilege table:
Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] Y
... Success!
All done! If you've completed all of the above steps, your MySQL
installation should now be secure.
Thanks for using MySQL!
Cleaning up...
Create a Database for Claroline
Now we have a secure MySQL installation, it’s time to create database and user for Claroline itself.
Login to MySQL using root credential.
$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 58
Server version: 5.6.30-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 (Ubuntu)
Copyright (c) 2000, 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
mysql>
Create a new database named claroline using command below:
mysql> CREATE DATABASE claroline;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Create a User for Claroline
The database for Claroline is ready, let’s create username and password and grant privileges to the claroline database.
Don’t forget to change the password claroline123secret below with better password:
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `claroline`.* TO 'claroline'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'claroline123secret';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
We need to run the FLUSH PRIVILEGES command so that the privileges table will be reloaded by MySQL and we can use new credential.
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Exit from the MySQL console by typing \q:
mysql> \q
Install PHP 5
The last component that we have to install before we can install Claroline is PHP 5. We will install PHP 5 and several common PHP libraries.
$ sudo apt-get -y install php5-cli php5-common php5-json php5-mysql php5-readline
Claroline also needs additional php5 modules. We will install these additional modules now.
$ sudo apt-get -y install php5-curl php5-intl php5-gd php5-ldap
Restart the Apache 2 process so the changes will be applied:
$ sudo service apache2 restart
Install Claroline
All prerequisites are already installed, so we’re ready to install Claroline. The latest stable version of Claroline is available Claroline package release.
At the time of this writing, the latest stable version is 17.01, unfortunately this version gets an error when we tried to install on Ubuntu 14.04. We will use the previous version 16.09 for this tutorial.
Let’s download the package:
$ wget -c http://packages.claroline.net/releases/16.09/claroline-16.09.tar.gz
Create a claroline directory to extract downloaded files:
$ mkdir claroline
Extract the downloaded file to the claroline directory:
$ tar xzf claroline-16.09.tar.gz -C claroline
Move the extracted claroline directory to Apache directory:
$ sudo mv claroline /var/www/
Change ownership of the claroline directory to the www-data user and group.
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/claroline
The claroline files are ready, now let’s create Apache Virtual Host configuration to serve claroline:
Configure Apache Virtual Host for http Only
Create new apache configuration file on /etc/apache2/sites-available/claroline.conf with contents below.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName claroline.exampleserver.xyz
DocumentRoot /var/www/claroline
<Directory /var/www/claroline>
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
php_value date.timezone "Asia/Jakarta"
php_value max_execution_time 120
php_value memory_limit 256M
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/claroline.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/claroline.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Don’t forget to change claroline.exampleserver.xyz above with the domain name that you use for your claroline installation.
We also set php configuration value for date.timezone, you can see list of supported timezone in php 5 in php5 docs
We also set max_execution_time to 120 seconds, Claroline require this value above 60 seconds.
We also set memory_limit to 256 MB. This also the minimum required memory for Claroline.
Now, enable the site using the a2ensite command.
$ sudo a2ensite claroline
Reload apache2 process so it reads the new virtualhost configuration:
$ sudo service apache2 reload
Claroline Installation Wizard
Now point our browser to http://<claroline-address/web/install.php and start the Claroline installation wizard.
The first step is to choose installation language and country:
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The claroline installation wizard will check your configuration. You can click Test again if some checks are not passed yet.
We are not installing the ffmpeg extension in this tutorial since it’s not available from Ubuntu 14.04 repository. Click Next
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Now let’s input the database name and database credential that we already created. Click Next
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In this step we can configure the parameter for our Claroline site.
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Create your administrator account. Click Next
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This step is configuring Mail server for Claroline. We can choose one of three transport method : SMTP, Sendmail / Postfix, Gmail.
Gmail might be the easiest one, you can create a new gmail account or if you use G suite you can create new account under your G Suite account.
In this tutorial I’ll skip this step.
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The application ready to be installed. You can choose to send anonymous regarding your Claroline installation or not to send. Click Launch Installation Now
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The installation process. You can click Show installation details to see what currently happened.
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After installation is finished you will be redirected to Claroline. You can click the login button on the top right of the page:
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Login using the administrator account we created on installation wizard.
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Our Claroline installation is ready.
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Configure https Only Site for Claroline
Now, let’s add secure connectivity to our Claroline installation by using https and only https. Users accessing Claroline using http will be redirected to https.
We assume that you already have SSL certificate and private key.
Let’s create new apache virtual host configuration on /etc/apache2/sites-available/claroline-ssl.conf with contents below. Don’t forget to change:
ServerNameSSLCertificateFileSSLCertificateChainFileSSLCertificateKeyFile
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName claroline.exampleserver.xyz
Redirect permanent / https://claroline.exampleserver.xyz/
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName claroline.exampleserver.xyz
DocumentRoot /var/www/claroline
<Directory /var/www/claroline>
Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
php_value date.timezone "Asia/Jakarta"
php_value max_execution_time 120
php_value memory_limit 256M
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/claroline.exampleserver.xyz-error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/claroline.exampleserver.xyz-access.log combined
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/claroline.exampleserver.xyz.crt
SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl/claroline.exampleserver.xyz.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/claroline.exampleserver.xyz.key
# Uncomment the following directive when using client certificate authentication
#SSLCACertificateFile /path/to/ca_certs_for_client_authentication
# HSTS (mod_headers is required) (15768000 seconds = 6 months)
Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000"
</VirtualHost>
# intermediate configuration, tweak to your needs
SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!DSS
SSLHonorCipherOrder on
We will also disable claroline http only virtual host and enable the new virtual host config.
$ sudo a2dissite claroline
$ sudo a2ensite claroline-ssl
The new virtual host configuration need Apache mod_ssl and mod_headers modules. We need to enable those modules:
$ sudo a2enmod ssl
$ sudo a2enmod headers
Now, restart the Apache 2 service so it will reload its configuration. We need to restart instead of reload since we enable new module.
$ sudo service apache2 restart
Creating an Index
Claroline does not come with an index file by default. We need to create one so users accessing Claroline url will be redirected to /web/app.php/.
Create a file /var/www/claroline/index.php with contents below. Don’t forget to change the URL to match your installation.
<?php
header('Location: https://claroline.exampleserver.xyz/web/app.php/');
exit;
?>
Summary
In this tutorial we learned how to install claroline on Ubuntu 14.04.
We installed all the prerequisites, create a user and database on MySQL for Claroline and also configure Apache 2 virtual hosts to be able to serve Claroline.
We also configured https settings for Claroline so we run Claroline securely.
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