How to Install Collective Access - Providence on OpenBSD

This tutorial will walk you through the steps needed to install Collective Access - Providence on an OpenBSD machine.

Prerequisites

Before starting the installation process, make sure that your OpenBSD machine meets the following requirements:

• OpenBSD 6.8 or higher
• Web server (such as Apache or Nginx)
• PHP 7.4 or higher
• PostgreSQL 9.5 or higher

Step 1: Download Collective Access - Providence

Go to the Collective Access website, and download the latest version of Providence. You can do this by visiting this link: https://github.com/collectiveaccess/providence/releases/latest

Step 2: Install Dependencies

Next, you need to install some dependencies before you can install Providence. You can do this by running the following command in the terminal:

$ sudo pkg_add php-pdo_pgsql php-curl php-mbstring php-gd php-xml php-opcache

Step 3: Set up a Database

You need to create a new PostgreSQL database for your installation of Providence. You can do this by running the following command in the terminal:

$ sudo -u _pgsql psql postgres

Then, run the following command to create a new database:

# create database providence;

Finally, create a new user and grant access to the database:

# create user providence with password 'password';
# grant all privileges on database providence to providence;

Replace 'password' with a strong password of your own choice.

Step 4: Configure Apache

You need to configure your web server to serve the Providence installation. Here, we will use Apache.

First, enable the required Apache modules by running the following commands:

$ sudo a2enmod rewrite headers
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2

Then, create a new virtual host configuration file for your Providence installation:

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/providence.conf

Add the following configuration to the file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName yourdomain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/providence

    <Directory /var/www/providence>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/providence_error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/providence_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Replace yourdomain.com with your own domain. Save and close the file.

Enable the virtual host by running the following command:

$ sudo a2ensite providence.conf

Restart the Apache service:

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2

Step 5: Install Providence

Extract the downloaded Providence archive to the document root of your virtual host. You can do this with the following command:

$ sudo tar -xvf providence-1.7.9.tar.gz -C /var/www/

After extracting the archive, rename the directory to providence, and set appropriate permissions:

$ sudo mv /var/www/providence-1.7.9 /var/www/providence
$ sudo chown -R www:www /var/www/providence

Step 6: Configure Providence

Create a new configuration file for your Providence installation:

$ sudo cp /var/www/providence/app/conf/defaults/custom.inc.example /var/www/providence/app/conf/local/custom.inc

Edit the custom.inc file:

$ sudo nano /var/www/providence/app/conf/local/custom.inc

Update the following variables:

define("__CA_DB_HOST__", "localhost");
define("__CA_DB_USER__", "providence");
define("__CA_DB_PASSWORD__", "password");
define("__CA_DB_DATABASE__", "providence");
define("__CA_BASE_URL__", "http://yourdomain.com/");
define("__CA_SITE_LABEL__", "Your Site Name");

Replace 'password' with the password you chose earlier. Save and close the file.

Step 7: Run the Installation Script

Before you can use Providence, you need to run the installation script. Open a web browser and visit the following URL:

http://yourdomain.com/install/install.php

Follow the instructions on the page to complete the installation process.

Conclusion

After completing these steps, you should have a fully functional installation of Collective Access - Providence on your OpenBSD machine. You can now start using the software to manage your collections, archives, and research data.