How to Install EPrints on Fedora Server

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing EPrints on Fedora Server. EPrints is a free and open-source software package for building digital libraries. This software is widely used by universities, research institutions, and government agencies to create and manage their digital collections.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you meet the following prerequisites:

  • A Fedora Server (version 33 or later)
  • Root Access to your server
  • A web server (Apache or Nginx)
  • Perl 5.28 or higher

Step 1: Update the System

The first step of any installation process is to update the system. It helps you install the most recent package versions and patches that are available. You can do this using the following command:

sudo dnf update

Step 2: Install the Required Software

There are few pieces of software you need to install before you can start with the EPrints installation:

  1. Web Server (Apache or Nginx)
  2. MySQL Database Server
  3. Perl 5.28 or higher

You can install these required software components using the following command:

sudo dnf install httpd mariadb perl-DBD-MySQL perl-Net-CUPS perl-File-Which xmlstarlet

Step 3: Install EPrints

After installing the required software components, you can proceed to install EPrints. EPrints is available on the EPrints website. You can download the latest version using the following command:

wget https://files.eprints.org/339/eprints-latest.tar.gz

Once you download the file, extract it to the /opt directory using the following command:

sudo tar -zxvf eprints-latest.tar.gz -C /opt

Step 4: Configure EPrints

Before you can start using EPrints, you need to configure it. The EPrints configuration file is located at /opt/eprints3/archives//cfg/cfg.d. Replace the with your repository’s name.

cd /opt/eprints3/archives/<reponame>/cfg/cfg.d
sudo cp site_cfg.pl_tmpl site_cfg.pl

After creating the site_cfg.pl file, update the following settings:

  • Set $c->{base_url} with the URL of your EPrints installation, for example, http://localhost:8080.
  • Set $c->{lang} to en for English.
sudo nano site_cfg.pl

Step 5: Configure the Web Server

To deploy your EPrints site, you need to set up a virtual host on your webserver. For example, you can create a new configuration for EPrints on Apache.

cd /etc/httpd/conf.d/
sudo nano eprints.conf

Add the following to the file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName eprints.example.com
   ServerAdmin [email protected]
   DocumentRoot /opt/eprints3/archives/<reponame>/htdocs/
   <Directory /opt/eprints3/archives/<reponame>/htdocs/>
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
       AllowOverride All
       Require all granted
   </Directory>

   LogLevel warn
   ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/eprints_error.log
   CustomLog /var/log/httpd/eprints_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Step 6: Start EPrints

After you have finished configuring EPrints, you need to start the web server to enable access to the EPrints site.

sudo systemctl start httpd

You can access EPrints using the URL that you have set up on your webserver. For instance, if you set up the domain eprints.example.com, you can access EPrints with the following URL: http://eprints.example.com.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed EPrints on your Fedora Server.