LAMS installation and configuration

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Definition

This page contains installation tips for LAMS. Mostly LAMS 2.1RC1 for Solaris 10.

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

READ THIS - Daniel K. Schneider 16:31, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

  • I soon will install a new version
  • I put the legacy stuff in the discussion page, e.g. LAMS 2.1RC for Solaris

LAMS 2.1.1 on Solaris

Lams 2.0 was released on December 6 2006. Since then, there were very several minor upgrades. On March 2008, the current release is 2.1.1 (17:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)).

These installation notes refers mostly to the 2.1.1 install, but it should help with 2.0.4 too. Official LAMS instructions are a bit Linux centric and this is main reason why you might have a look at this. My notes also should work with older Solaris versions (just make sure to upgrade Java if needed and in this case to set the Java path).

First, read the instructions in:

Disclaimer: I am not a good sysadmin nor is it my idea of fun. This is not a manual, but just my private installation notes I am willing to share. - Daniel K. Schneider 18:30, 20 March 2008 (MET)

So, open a terminal under root ....

Prerequisite 0: Infrastructure

  • Make sure your organization doesn't stiffle your creativity with Firewalls. If they do, expect a lot of extrawork.
  • Also the 8080 port should be free. Some software like Skype just randomly take up ports. If you run an other server, read Changing Server Ports for LAMS
  • Hardware and OS: Any Windows, Linux, MacOS X, Solaris etc. machine will do since LAMS is programmed in JAVA. You just need some diskspace, substantial memory and a not too old JAVA. Also, you may have to adapt some scripts to your special unix brand.

Prerequisite 1: Java software

Java + ant

Solaris 10 ought to have the right Java + Ant installed. Ant is an installation program like make. Note: You need the JDK/JSE or whater Sun decided to rename it (i.e. the compiler, not just the runtime)

Check if Java can be found, i.e. type: 

java -version

... you should have java 1.5.x or better. If you don't, check the system for another java or install a new one. If you do so, make sure to specify the right path according to instructions from the LAMS install page.

Prerequisite 2: Wildfire

This is a XMPP (Jabber) chat server, that actually is called Openfire now. See:

You don't really need open/wildfire (but then either your students can't chat). You also may try to use an existing server that works with LAMS. I guess that there ought to be free servers you can use.

  • LAMS folks say to install an old 2.6.2. version. Links are available from the LAMS page, you won't find it at Ignite realtime. Note: I have to see whether this is still true, but for the moment I just complied.
  • Since this server is written in Java you can take the Mac OSX and others version (i.e. a tar ball).

Installation steps:

1) Uncompress in /usr/local/wildfire or some other place

2) Start the server with ./bin/wildfire start

  • This is a typical startup script. You later can copy this script to /etc/init.d/ etc.

3) Configure this server through the web interface. If you are lucky you will have a web browser on your server and an X11 connection. 

http://localhost:9090/

Else use an URL like: http://yourhost.org:9090/ ... it should work I think. But do it as fast as possible since you have to set passwords and stuff.

  • Use "embedded database" if you want to make the install shorter, else you can set it up with mysql

The configuration process will ask you to fill in a few forms. Just make sure that you use the right server names. You then can log as administrator and you will have access to an administration console.

  • Tick "Don't Show History" (Group Chat -> History Settings), but you can do this later

4) Test it. You may want to install a jabber client, e.g. gajim (Ubuntu users can read an article on Jabber

5) Security: You may restrict login to given set of IP addresses or even disable account creation. Chat servers may be taken over by not so friendly people.

  • Edit Server Settings->Registration and Login

Installing wildfire should be easy, it was for me. It's a fairly popular product...

(the rest: soon ...) '

Prerequisite 3: Configure MySQL for LAMS

Pre-install configuration

Using the installer

Configuration

Discussion / Problems

Moodle - LAMS integration

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

Short installation summary (see the above guide)

I managed this to work with LAMS 2.1RC1. I did fail with an early LAMS 2.0 version - Daniel K. Schneider 18:30, 20 March 2008 (MET). The current setup is:

  • Moodle runs on one machine (tecfax.unige.ch)
  • LAMS runs on a different machine

I did not yet use LAMS in production so far. But I inserted the Beyond the VLE module through Moodle. I was able to:

  • Use with Moodle student ID's (test and test2)
    • not use with Moodle student ID's as monitor (that's correct)
  • Use it with Moodle admin ID as student and monitor
  • Chat did work.
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. Get a new file (it seems that fixes are made sometimes)
  2. Unzip the file
  3. Move the lamstwo directory to moodle/mod/
  4. Move the lamstwo.php file to moodle/lang/en_utf8/
  5. Login as admin and go to http://yourmoodle/admin, LAMS tables will be created automatically.
  6. 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:     somethingsecret
request_source: moodle
On the LAMS side
  • The integrated server setuhttp://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lamsdocs/Homep is:
Id:           moodle
Key:          somethingsecret
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" (I got stuck with this)

Your JBOSS server may need yet more memory space allocated (see above)

Be careful about using several browser windows and tabs. The "system Administration" page will use an already openend window/tab. So if the "Sys Admin" link doesn't bring up the tool, look for it...

If you tried a Moodle LAMS integration in the past with an older LAMS server, your MOODLE may have junk left inside. Get rid of it (see next item).

Problems

An error (for 2.1RC1) I was getting was: 

 Could not add a new instance of lamstwo

This happened after validating a LAMS activity in Moodle. In older version of the LAMS/Moodle mod something was wrong, I believe a missing table.

To fix this

  • Delete the LAMS2 module in MOODLE.
  • Remove the files in the mod directory
  • Reinstall a new version (downloaded fresh).


LAMS 2.0 RC2 Windows XP PC

Note: This chapter is outdated (written in Dec 2006). I don't see really the point in running a LAMS server on a personal PC and our servers are Unix.

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

  • Make sure that the LAMS port (8080) is free, e.g. install Active Ports or type something like netstat -a in a DOS terminal.
  • 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.

Documentation and using LAMS

This page is not a resource for endusers like course designers or learners. See:

General
LAMS 1 (you rather should use LAMS 2)
LAMS 2
Trouble shooting
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