Installing EPrints on Arch Linux

EPrints is a popular content management system for open access repositories. In this tutorial, we will outline how to install EPrints on Arch Linux.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, we need to ensure that we have the following prerequisites:

  • An Arch Linux server
  • Sudo privileges
  • Apache web server
  • MySQL/MariaDB database server.

Step 1: Update System

Firstly, we need to update the system to ensure that the current packages are up-to-date:

sudo pacman -Syu

Step 2: Install Required Packages

Next, we need to install packages necessary to run EPrints. Enter the following command to install packages:

sudo pacman -S perl libxml2 libxslt mariadb

Step 3: Install Apache Web Server

Now we need to install the Apache web server:

sudo pacman -S apache

You can test if Apache is correctly installed by visiting your server's IP address in your preferred web browser. If you see an Apache test page, everything is setup correctly.

Step 4: Install MySQL/MariaDB Database Server

Next, install the MariaDB database server:

sudo pacman -S mariadb
sudo mysql_install_db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Step 5: Download EPrints

Download the latest version of EPrints from their official website:

wget https://files.eprints.org/114/6/eprints-3.4.2.tar.gz

Step 6: Install EPrints

To install EPrints, enter the following command:

sudo tar -xzvf eprints-3.4.2.tar.gz -C /opt/
sudo chown -R http:http /opt/eprints3/

Step 7: Configure EPrints

Before we can use EPrints, we need to configure the system. EPrints comes with a configuration file located in /opt/eprints3/cfg/. Enter the following command to copy this file and create our own configuration file:

sudo cp /opt/eprints3/cfg/cfg.d/default.pl /opt/eprints3/cfg/cfg.d/myrepository.pl

Next, open the new configuration file using your preferred text editor:

sudo nano /opt/eprints3/cfg/cfg.d/myrepository.pl

Make any necessary changes to the configuration file, then save and exit.

Step 8: Start Apache and EPrints

Finally, start the Apache web server and EPrints:

sudo systemctl start httpd.service
sudo /opt/eprints3/bin/epadmin reload

You should now be able to access EPrints in your web browser by visiting http://<ip-address>/eprints/.

Congratulations, you have successfully installed EPrints on Arch Linux!