How to Install the LMS on Arch Linux

The LMS is an open-source, lightweight, and simple-to-use web-based management system for schools and other educational institutions. It's designed to be simple to install and use. In this tutorial, we will go through the process of installing the LMS on an Arch Linux system.

Prerequisites

To install and use the LMS on Arch Linux, you will need the following software:

  • Arch Linux operating system
  • Git
  • Apache web server
  • PHP

You can use the following commands to install these dependencies: 

sudo pacman -S git apache php

Install the LMS

Before you proceed with the installation, create a folder in your webserver's directory to install the LMS. Here we will use the default web directory /srv/http. 

sudo mkdir /srv/http/lms

Then, clone the LMS repository using Git. 

git clone https://github.com/epoupon/lms.git /srv/http/lms

Once the repository is cloned, we need to install the dependencies required by the LMS. 

cd /srv/http/lms 
composer install

Now we need to configure Apache to serve the LMS.

Configure Apache

Create a virtual host for the LMS by creating a new configuration file in the Apache configuration directory. 

sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/extra/lms.conf

Add the following configurations to the file: 

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot "/srv/http/lms"
    ServerName lms.example.com
    <Directory "/srv/http/lms">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Replace the domain name and email address with your own domain and email address.

Save and close the file.

Enable the newly created virtual host by editing the Apache configuration file. 

sudo nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Add the following line to enable the lms.conf configuration file. 

Include conf/extra/lms.conf

Save and close the file.

Now, restart the Apache webserver to apply the changes. 

sudo systemctl restart httpd

Setup the Database

The LMS requires a database to store its data. You can use any database server supported by Laravel, a PHP web framework. Here we will use the MariaDB database server to set up the LMS database.

Install the MariaDB server using the following command: 

sudo pacman -S mariadb

Once MariaDB is installed, start its service and enable it to start on boot. 

sudo systemctl start mariadb && sudo systemctl enable mariadb

Next, secure the MariaDB installation by running the security script. 

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Follow the prompts to set a root password and delete the anonymous user and test databases.

Now, you can create a new database for the LMS using the command below.

sudo mysql -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE lms;
GRANT ALL ON lms.* TO 'lms_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Replace the database name, username, and password according to your preference.

Configure .env file

Next, create a new .env file in the LMS directory and add the database credentials there. 

cp .env.example .env 
nano .env

Update the following database configuration values in the .env file: 

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=lms
DB_USERNAME=lms_user
DB_PASSWORD=password

Save and close the file.

Configure the LMS

Finally, run the following commands to configure the LMS: 

php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate
php artisan db:seed

The first command generates a new Laravel application key, while the second command migrates the database schema to create the necessary tables for the LMS. The third command seeds the database with some initial data required for the LMS to function correctly.

Access the LMS

That's it! You have successfully installed the LMS on Arch Linux. Now, you can access the LMS by opening a web browser and navigating to http://lms.example.com, where "example.com" is the domain name you set up earlier in the Apache configuration file.

You should see the LMS login page. To log in, use the following credentials:

Once you log in, you can start using the LMS to manage your institution's courses, students, and teachers.

Happy learning!