LAMS installation and configuration

Definition

This page contains installation tips for LAMS

LAMS is a JAVA/JBoss-based application and needs some installation skills on Windows and good installation skills for Unix.

LAMS 2RC2 Windows XP PC

Do not try to install LAMS if you lack basic installation experience and technical reading skills. Here are just a few remarks in addition to the LAMS installation instructions. I also strongly suggest to look at the Problems Installing LAMS Forum.

Other Software

To run it on windows you need to install other software.

• Java JSE 5.0 (update 9), not just the JRE. Get it from Sun.
• MySQL: Get it directly from MySQL and take the Installer version (not the zip installation).
  • Install it and remember the password
  • I suggest not installing/using a WAMP environment for LAMS 2RC 2. The LAMS installer 2Rc2 could not find MySQL in my WampServer environment even if it was told where to look for in the LAMS installer.
  • Hack would be to manually edit the registry with this information from MySQL AB and this posting and picture by Ernie Ghiglione. Basically one needs to reproduce the MySQL entry from the official MySQL AB installer:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
  SOFTWARE
    MySQL AB
      MySQL Server 5.0  
                         Location c:\wamp\mysql
                         Version  5.0.27

... but this still didn't work for me. Something I did not try was to add mysqladmin.exe to the bin directory which is missing (see: Jun-Dir Liew's question and try it ... I don't have the time to do it right now. E.g. this file may be part of the simple zip / no registry version from the MySQL site).

MySQL

• If you use a WAMP package you must know where MySQL sits. E.g. c:\wamp\mysql if you work with "WampServer" (but see above that I failed, rather work with an "official MySQL installer from MySQL AB). If you use the official MySQL installer, there will be no problem.

LAMS

• Has an installer and if you got the above right it will install without problems. You may have a firewall. In this case make sure to open the necessary ports. Also pay attention to popup blockers in your navigator. LAMS worked fine with both IE 6 and Firefox 1.5x.

Lams 2.0 on On Solaris

Lams 2.0 was released on december 6 2006.

First, read the instructions in Building LAMS and Development Environment

Other software

Already installed probably

• Solaris 10 ought to have the right java + ant installed.

• Make sure that you also have a MySQL 5.x and to create a lams database with a lams user

JBOSS

JBOSS is a Java application server.

• I got the 4.0.2 binary from Jboss.org

• Unpackage into /usr/local

gtar xzf jboss-4.0.2.tar.gz -C /usr/local 

• Copy some jar files

cp /usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/server/all/lib/jboss-cache.jar /usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/server/default/lib/
cp /usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/server/all/lib/jgroups.jar /usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/server/default/lib/

LAMS source file download

* UK
* Australia

LAMS pre-build configuration

I configured the following entries in the following files. Most entries are related to file paths.

In lams_build directory:

File: lams/lams_build/shared.properties
  (nothing to change)
 
File: lams/lams_build/common.properties
  osPropertiesName=unix
  db.password=XXXX

File: lams/lams_build/unix.properties
  contentrepository.directory=/usr/local/lams/repository

Change this in three locations !!

File: lams_build/conf/unix/jboss/service/mysql-ds.xml
   <password>XXXX</password>

In lams_common directory:

File: lams/lams_common/db/sql/insert_unix_config_data.sql
  ('ServerURL','http://tecfasun1.unige.ch:8080/lams/');
  ('TempDir','/usr/local/lams/temp');
  ('DumpDir','/usr/local/lams/dump');
  ('SMTPServer','mail.tecfa.unige.ch');
  ('LamsSupportEmail','webmaster@tecfa.unige.ch');
  ('ContentRepositoryPath','/usr/local/lams/repository');   

... Don't miss the port number for the server URL (e.g. 8080) !

In the same directory you may change the admin login and password (not tested !)

File: lams/lams_common/db/sql/insert_users.sql  

Note: I did not find an LamsHome property in any file (this conflicts with the installation instructions).

Make directories for lams (they must match the above of course)

mkdir /usr/local/lams
mkdir /usr/local/lams/temp
mkdir /usr/local/lams/dump
mkdir /usr/local/lams/repository

I don't know who runs JBoss, so I just deprotected

chmod -R 777 /usr/local/lams

Build

Type the following commands in this order. (You don't need Ecplise to build LAMS). But stop the JBOSS server when you do this.

cd /src/lams/lams_build

ant rebuild-db
ant assemble-ear
ant deploy-ear
ant deploy-tools
ant copyfiles

Run it

cd /usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/bin/
./run.sh &

The adminstrator login is sysadmin (don't forget this)

The sysadmin login password is in the SQL file below. You may change it before you build, I was quite frustrated not to able to log in ;)

/src/lams/lams_common/db/sql/insert_users.sql

Server configuration

See Configuring your LAMS Server.

• Java may not have enough heap space (it runs out of memory). Replace the 256 with something bigger. I think that the run.sh has to be fixed. Otherwise it may be the Tomcat config somewhere.

File: /usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/bin/run.sh

Around line 150 insert:

JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Xms500m -Xmx500m -Dprogram.name=$PROGNAME"
# Display our environment

Debug

Look at files in:

/usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/server/default/log/

Then stop JBoss,

cd /usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/bin/shutdown -S &

Repair misconfigurations above, rebuild with ant and run it again :) I don't know if global cleaning up is an efficient idea, but I do it anyhow as a last resort when I get stuck, e.g.:

1. Execute ant clean
2. Drop the lams database (and don't forget to create it again)
3. Empty the JBoss server/default/deploy/lams.ear/ directory ?

Things I did wrong

Now for some human touch ....

• Forget to specify the OS
• Forgot to add the port number of the server URL
• Forgot to create the lams directory
• Only changed password in one location in lams_build/conf/unix/jboss/service/mysql-ds.xml

To Do list

(I will report on this later, for the moment I got other things to do - DSchneider 20:10, 6 December 2006 (MET))

• Install the chat server
• Test and tweak
• Integrate with Moodle

Moodle - LAMS integration

The LAMS v2.0 Integration Setup Step-by-Step Guide is fairly well done :)

Short installation summary (see the above guide)

This article or section is currently under construction

In principle, someone is working on it and there should be a better version in a not so distant future.
If you want to modify this page, please discuss it with the person working on it (see the "history")

On the Moodle side

First of all make sure that you do no skip step 4 below (you need the LAMS v2 module and not LAMS !)

1. Unzip the file 2. Move the lamstwo directory to moodle/mod/ 3. Move the lamstwo.php file to moodle/lang/en_utf8/ 4. Login as admin and go to http://yourmoodle/admin, LAMS tables will be created automatically. 5. Go to modules and click settings for LAMS2 module and put the proper values in, I used:

server_url:     http://tecfasun1.unige.ch:8080/lams
server_id:      moodle
server_key:     .....
request_source: Moodle

On the LAMS side

1. Made a "moodle" Group and added a test lesson
2. The integrated server setup is:

Id:           moodle
Key: .        ....
Description:  TECFA Moodle
Prefix:       mdl
Organisation: moodle
User Information: URL: http://tecfax.unige.ch/moodle/mod/lamstwo/userinfo.php?ts=%timestamp%&un=%username%&hs=%hash%
Timeout URL:      http://tecfax.unige.ch/lams/timeout.html

Notes

• Make sure that you do not mix up case: E.g. if your group is called "moodle" in LAMS use "moodle" and not "Moodle".

Documentation

General

• Category:LAMS in the Moodle Wiki

LAMS 1 (you rather should use LAMS 2)

• LAMS installation on CentOS 4 (RHEL 4) (LAMS 1.x)
• LAMS and Moodle Integration Walkthrough (LAMS 1.x)

LAMS 2

• LAMS v2.0 Integration Setup Step-by-Step Guide