Install Debian Linux
Koha officially supports Debian Linux. Download the Debian 12 (Bookworm) DVD ISo file from the following link,
Burn the Debian ISO image to a Pen Drive/CD/DVD. Insert the medium, change the boot option of the computer, and start the installation process for Debian. During installation, choose the desired desktop (e.g., XFCE, Cinnamon, GNOME). Visit the
link to familiarise yourself with the Debian installation.
Write down the user names and passwords in a diary while installing.
Prepare the Debian sources list.
We need to add the Debian software repository to the sources.list file.
Open a command terminal,
Applications > System > Terminal
Enter the following command to log in as the root user,
su [Enter Root Password]
Open sources.list in mousepad (default text editor with Debian 12 XFCE) editor. If the Mousepad editor is not available, use the Nano editor.
mousepad /etc/apt/sources.list
Step 1. Delete all entries in the file.
Step 2. Copy and paste the following lines into the file,
Save and close the file.
Update the repository,
apt update
apt upgrade
Install sudo on Debian.
Sudo is a tool available default with Ubuntu, which allows users to execute administrative tasks (e.g. installation, removal etc). The Sudo tool gives the convenience of applying Ubuntu commands. You can enable sudo while installing Debian; please visit this
page. Otherwise, enable sudo after the installation of Debian. To enable sudo after the installation of Debian, apply the following commands one by one,
Add default user to sudo
adduser username sudo [Replace username with yours]
Restart/Logout the computer to enable sudo.
Add Koha repository
Install a few required packages not available with Debian.
sudo apt install -y software-properties-common dirmngr file-roller wget gnupg2
Add Koha software channel into Debian. It will install the old stable version of Koha.
We can define which version to install when adding the repository. Visit the Koha Wiki for details.
Add the GPG key and the repository. Apply the following commands one by one,
sudo sh -c 'wget -qO - https://debian.koha-community.org/koha/gpg.asc | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/koha-keyring.gpg'
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/koha-keyring.gpg] https://debian.koha-community.org/koha oldstable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/koha.list'
Update the repository details,
sudo apt update
Install Koha
The following command will install the latest release of Koha.
sudo apt install -y koha-commonServer configuration
In this step, you need to edit network information like domain name and port numbers.
sudo mousepad /etc/koha/koha-sites.conf
Here I change the port number of the Koha staff client to 8080. Find the following line in the file and make changes.
INTRAPORT="8080"Install MariaDB server
sudo apt install -y mariadb-server
Assign Root password for MariaDB
If a password asks during installation, enter the password in the window. Apply the following command if the password window did not appear during the installation,
sudo mysqladmin -u root password newpass [Replace 'newpass']
Koha instance creation
Apply the following commands to create Apache configuration files.
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod cgi
sudo service apache2 restart
Create a Koha instance with the name library.
sudo koha-create --create-db library
Add new port
We have assigned 8080 ports for the Koha staff client and 80 for OPAC. Open the following file and add the new port, 8080, to Apache.
sudo mousepad /etc/apache2/ports.conf
Copy-paste the following line below Listen 80
Listen 8080
Restart Apache,
sudo service apache2 restart
Enable modules and sites
sudo a2dissite 000-default
sudo a2enmod deflate
sudo a2ensite library
sudo service apache2 restart
Setup the library
After the successful installation, you need to create initial parameters (e.g. branch, item type, superuser creation etc.) to start with Koha. We need to open the web interface of Koha and start the configuration of Koha.
Restart the Memcached service to open the Koha web installer.
sudo service memcached restart
Open the following link in the web browser to open the staff client of Koha and set up the library,
http://127.0.1.1:8080
Enter into the Koha staff client using the Database username and password of koha_library. It can find from the file, /etc/koha/sites/library/koha-conf.xml. Apply the following file in a terminal.
sudo mousepad /etc/koha/sites/library/koha-conf.xml
Search (Ctrl+F) for the segment MySQL in the text editor. Note down the database username and password and log into the Koha web installer.
Change Koha's default master password (Optional)
The password for the Koha database name was created during the installation process. The user can change the Koha database password. See the following link,
Reference
Koha on Ubuntu - packages
Install MariaDB on Debian 10
