Installing DMCourseware

Prior to installing DMCourseware you must make sure the server where you will install it meets the following requirements:

• PHP 4.x +
• MySQL 4.x +
• DMCourseware runs on Linux, SGI-IRIX, Windows or any other platform that supports PHP and MySQL
• PHP must be compiled with the option --enable-ftp (not default in SGI-IRIX)
• The PEAR HTTP_upload library must be installed
• A MySQL database must be created for course information
• It is recommended that installation is made using the same user that will be configured as FTP file manager. This user must be able to add/modify and delete files and folders in the folder where the software will be installed.

Installing DMCourseware is a fairly simple procedure. Just follow these steps:

1. Download the most recent file release from SourceForge.
2. Uncompress the .ZIP file in the folder where you wish to install.
3. Execute dmc-db.sql in the database created for the information. An administrator user will be created automatically with login admin and password dmcpassword. It is recommended that you change this password logging in admin/ once DMCourseware is installed.
4. Change folder permissions to tmp/ (this is usually optional in Windows) to permit read/write/execute for all users. This will be done in *nix this way: chmod 777 tmp/
5. Rename config/config-[plataform].php to config/config.php and make the necessary modifications, where [plataform] is the platform you are installing in. An explanation of each variable follows:
   • DMC_root — absolute path to the folder where the .ZIP was uncompressed
   • DMC_course_folder — folder name where each course will be created. If you change this value you must rename the dmc/ folder accordingly
   • DMC_url — web path to DMC_root
   • DMC_ftp — servidor FTP para manejo de archivos
   • DMC_ftpuser — FTP username
   • DMC_ftppassword — FTP username's password
   • DMC_ftpport — FTP port to use, generally 21 or 22 if you are using secure FTP
   • DMC_ftproot — path to DMC_root once connected via FTP (generally the same as DMC_root unless you are installing in a virtual host)
   • DMC_lang — DMCourseware language. Currently supporting english: 'en' and spanish: 'es'
   • DMC_host — MySQL server name
   • DMC_db — database name
   • DMC_dbuser — database username
   • DMC_dbpassword — database username's password
   • DMC_validate — use 'true' if you want to see CSS and XHTML in the front end's page footer or 'false' if not
   • DMC_max_file_size — amount of kilobytes for maximum upload of files (not implemented yet)

Post-installation procedures

• To access the course administration for the first time you must go to: http://[server]/[installation path]/admin
• When a course is created in the administration, a folder is created for the course that is accesible in: http://[server]/[installation path]/[DMC_course_folder]/[folder] where [folder] is the name you gave to the folder when creating the course
• Additionally, each course created has its own administration accesible only for course professors via: http://[server]/[installation path]/[DMC_course_folder]/[folder]/admin
• Students of a given course can publish their solutions to a any excercise via: http://[server]/[installation path]/[DMC_course_folder]/[folder]/login