Installing EPrints on Debian/Ubuntu

Requirements

• Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or 18.04 LTS (non-LTS versions not recommended) or Debian 8 (Jessie) or 9 (Stretch).

Installing from DEB

1. As the root user create a file at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/eprints.list.

• The latest version of EPrints 3.3 is 3.3.16. To install add the following line to eprints.list:

deb http://deb.eprints.org/stable ./

• The latest version of EPrints 3.4 is 3.4.1. To install add the following line to eprints.list:

deb http://deb.eprints-hosting.org/stable/3.4 ./

2. Now to install EPrints and all its dependencies execute the following command, again as the root user (the keyFile on deb.eprints.org and deb.eprints-hosting.org):

wget -O - http://deb.eprints.org/keyFile | apt-key add -
apt-get update
apt-get install eprints

EPrints will now be installed at /usr/share/eprints3/. However, you will not yet have a running archive. Follow the Getting Started with EPrints 3 instructions to set this up. Below are some caveats for particular version of Debian and Ubuntu.

Installing EPrints from Source

Dependencies and Pre-configuration

N.B. Installing from source is generally discouraged particularly for production repositories. However, if want to develop the EPrints code or a plugin or Bazaar package it may be useful to install from source, ideally from EPrints Core Git repository.

First, as the root user install all the dependencies for EPrints:

apt-get install perl libncurses5 libselinux1 libsepol1 apache2 libapache2-mod-perl2 libxml-libxml-perl libunicode-string-perl \
  libterm-readkey-perl libmime-lite-perl libmime-types-perl libdigest-sha-perl libdbd-mysql-perl libxml-parser-perl libxml2-dev \
  libxml-twig-perl libarchive-any-perl libjson-perl lynx wget ghostscript xpdf antiword elinks texlive-base texlive-base-bin \
  psutils imagemagick adduser tar gzip mysql-server mysql-client unzip libsearch-xapian-perl libtex-encode-perl

Next, create the eprints user

adduser eprints

Next, as the eprints user copy /opt/eprints3/perl_lib/EPrints/SystemSettings.pm.tmpl to /opt/eprints3/perl_lib/EPrints/SystemSettings.pm

EPrints is now fully installed at /opt/eprints3. However, you will not yet have a running archive. Follow the Getting Started with EPrints 3 instructions to set this up.

Now, update Apache configuration to set it up to use the eprints user and group, by ensuring the following lines are set thus in /etc/apache2/envvars:

export APACHE_RUN_USER=eprints
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=eprints

Downloading and Deploying EPrints Source

EPrints 3.3.x for GitHub

apt-get install git
git clone https://github.com/eprints/eprints.git /opt/eprints3
cd /opt/eprints3/
git checkout tags/v3.3.16
chown -R eprints:eprints .

EPrints 3.4.x for GitHub

apt-get install git
git clone https://github.com/eprints/eprints3.4.git /opt/eprints3
cd /opt/eprints3/
git checkout tags/v3.4.1
chown -R eprints:eprints .

EPrints 3.4.x from files.eprints.org

cd /tmp/
wget https://files.eprints.org/2401/4/eprints-3.4.1.tar.gz
tar -xzvf eprints-3.4.1.tar.gz

If you want a publications flavoured repository, then also:

wget https://files.eprints.org/2305/5/eprints-3.4.1-flavours.tar.gz
tar -xzvf eprints-3.4.1-flavours.tar.gz

Then put in the source code in place:

mv eprints-3.4.1 /opt/eprints3
chmod 2775 /opt/eprints3
chown -R eprints:eprints /opt/eprints3

Configuration

Next, as the eprints user copy /opt/eprints3/perl_lib/EPrints/SystemSettings.pm.tmpl to /opt/eprints3/perl_lib/Eprints/SystemSettings.pm

EPrints is now fully installed at /opt/eprints3. However, you will not yet have a running archive. Follow the Getting Started with EPrints 3 instructions to set this up.

Post-configuration

Next, add the file /etc/apache2/sites-available/eprints.conf with the following line:

Include EPRINTS_PATH/cfg/apache.conf

EPRINTS_PATH will be either /opt/eprints3/ or /usr/share/eprints depending on which instructions you followed above.

To enable this as root run the command:

a2ensite eprints

Finally, restart Apache:

apachectl restart

You should now be able to access your vanilla repository at the hostname you specified when running epadmin create from the Getting Started with EPrints 3 instructions. You should then login as the admin user you created during this process and turn on the indexer. This can be done by clicking on the Admin link under the Logged in menu, then clicking on the System Tools tab and finally the Start Indexer button.

Operating System Version Specific Requirements

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

N.B. It is assumed that you are installing the latest version of 3.4. Earlier versions may have issues not listed here.

MySQL root user cannot be used

On Ubuntu 18.04 LTS rather than prompting you to set a password for MySQL server when installing this as a dependency, it just installs it without. However, this means on the root user can login to MySQL to add a database. As "epadmin create" runs at the eprints user, this will not be able to create a database for EPrints. To get round this as the root user connect to MySQL (just type "mysql" at the command line) and type the following two commands. You will want to set your own password (i.e. not 'changeme'), you may also want to restrict which databases the eprints user has control over. If you know the "Archive ID" you are going to use.

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