Quickstart:Install EPrints

NOTE: This page assumes you have completed the steps on the 'System Setup' page of this guide.

Installing EPrints 3.4.7 from Source

Create initial directory with correct permissions

As root:

mkdir /opt/eprints3
chown eprints:eprints /opt/eprints3
chmod 2775 /opt/eprints3

Cloning from Git

Clone the Git repository from GitHub to /opt/ and set the eprints user as the owner. It is probably best to specify and checkout the latest release rather than using HEAD, which may have known issues:

dnf install git
su eprints
git clone https://github.com/eprints/eprints3.4.git /opt/eprints3
cd /opt/eprints3/
git checkout tags/v3.4.7

Database

Before we can install the system we need to make sure that the database has a user the system can use.

Creating MySQL EPrints user

If you are running a modern version of Linux (e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9+ or Ubuntu 20.04+), the eprints user will not be able to connect to the MySQL database as the root user without a password. Therefore, before running "epadmin create" later in these instructions make sure you switch to the root user, open the MySQL client and run the following commands, (substituting the password (i.e. 'changeme') appropriately):

CREATE USER 'eprints'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED by 'changeme';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'eprints'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;

When you are asked for the Database Superuser Username and Database Superuser Password be sure to use the username and password set above. If you are running older version of Linux where you have not needed to do the above steps. You can probably use the default options for these to steps.

Creating the Archive

Make sure the database is actually running

MySQL:

sudo systemctl status mysql

MariaDB:

sudo systemctl status mariadb

Change to your "eprints" user

su eprints

Change directory to the eprints directory

(/opt/eprints3 by default)
cd /opt/eprints3

Create a research publications archive

(You will be prompted to answer various questions about the configuration of your archive):

bin/epadmin create pub

Note on Archive Flavour

If you don't want a research publications archive, in the above command use zero instead of pub. This will create a very basic repository, which can either store very generic items or can be more greatly customised as it does not have some of the intentional restrictions that come with a Research Publications repository. Other flavours of repository may be available but these will have to have be added their FLAVOUR_lib to the EPRINTS_PATH/flavours/ directory. If you run just bin/epadmin create without a further parameter or one that is not recognised, the command should suggest what types (flavours) of repository archive are available.

Database Tables and Website

These have now been created when you created the archive.

Next Steps

You are now ready to configure the EPrints system! Go to the next page of this guide to find out how.