Chamilo is an open-source e-learning and content management system. It allows you to create a virtual campus for the provision of online/semi-online training. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Chamilo on a Linux VPS. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use a virtual server with Ubuntu 14.04 installed as an operating system.

In order to Install Chamilo on your virtual server, it has to meet the following system requirements:

• Apache 2.2+
• MySQL 5.1+ or MariaDB 5+
• PHP 5.4+ (5.6 recommended for greater efficiency)

Also, the following PHP libraries need to be installed/enabled on your Ubuntu VPS:

php5-iconv or php5-mbstring (either one of them)
php5-xml
php5-session
php5-mcrypt
php5-mysqlnd
php5-zlib
php5-pcre
php5-gd
php5-json
php5-ldap
php5-curl
php5-ctype
php5-intl
php5-xsl
php5-xapian

In order to get the best out of Chamilo, the following PHP settings need to be set in your php.ini file:

max_execution_time = 300
max_input_time = 600
memory_limit = 256M
post_max_size = 100M
upload_max_filesize = 100M
magic_quotes_gpc = Off
magic_quotes_runtime = Off
short_open_tag = Off
safe_mode = Off

To find the location of your php.ini file you can use the command:

php --ini | grep "Loaded Configuration File"

Additionally, it is very important to set your ‘date.timezone’ setting to whatever your server’s timezone is.

If the Chamilo requirements are met by your server, you are good to go.

Connect to your server via SSH and update all your system software to the latest version available.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Navigate to ‘/var/www/’ and download the latest version of the software from https://chamilo.org/chamilo-lms/. The latest version of Chamilo at the moment of writing this tutorial is 1.11.2.

cd /var/www/
sudo wget https://github.com/chamilo/chamilo-lms/archive/v1.11.2.tar.gz

Unpack the archive using the following command:

sudo tar -xzvf v1.11.2.tar.gz

Rename the Chamilo directory:

sudo mv chamilo-lms-1.11.2 chamilo

Change the ownership of the files:

sudo chown -R www-data: chamilo

Now, create an Apache virtual host for Chamilo:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/chamilo.conf

Add the following content:

 ServerAdmin [email protected]
 DocumentRoot /var/www/chamilo
 ServerName yourdomain.com
 ServerAlias www.yourdomain.com
 
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
 
 ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/yourdomain.com-error_log
 CustomLog /var/log/httpd/yourdomain.com-access_log common

Save the file and close it. Enable Chamilo and restart the Apache web server:

sudo a2ensite chamilo
sudo service apache2 restart

Create a MySQL database, so Chamilo can store its data. Log into MySQL as root:

mysql -u root -p

Create a new database, a database user and set up a password using the commands below:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE chamilo;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON chamilo.* TO 'chamilo'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YoUrPaSsWoRd';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> \q

Now, open your web browser and navigate to http://yourdomain.com.

You can now proceed with the online instructions to complete the Chamilo installation.

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