Koha only provides packages for Ubuntu and Debian. Out of curiosity, I set out to install it on another distribution, Rocky Linux 8.5. There are some guides available on the Koha Wiki but most of them are outdated. More importantly, none of them cover how to do a site-based installation, like in Debian. As of writing this the latest Koha version is 21.11.01. This guide can also be helpful for installing Koha on other distros.
I have created an Ansible playbook that installs Koha, all its dependencies and makes all the necessary changes so Koha can work on Rocky. It essentially automates the whole Installing Koha section.
I absolutely recommend installing Koha using the official packages on Debian or Ubuntu. Koha updates may break the configuration and you will have to spend time figuring out why things don't work.
I do not use SELinux. If you are using this in production, I assume you know
how to properly configure it. To disalbe SELinux set SELINUX=disbled
in /etc/selinux/config.
Koha requires a lot of Perl dependencies. Some of them are available in the official repostiories, some in EPEL, while others have to be installed from CPAN.
cd /tmp/
wget http://download.koha-community.org/koha-latest.tar.gz
tar -C ~ -xzf koha-latest.tar.gz
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled powertools
sudo dnf install epel-release
The idzebra and yaz packages are provided by Indexdata. To add the indexdata repository, download the GPG key. (Instructions from here
sudo rpm --import http://ftp.indexdata.com/pub/yum/centos/8/RPM-GPG-KEY-indexdata
Create a repository file sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/indexdata.repo and place the
following:
[indexdata-main]
name=Index Data Main Repository
baseurl=https://ftp.indexdata.com/pub/yum/centos/8/main/$basearch
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-indexdata
enabled=1
priority=1
Mpm-itk is required by Koha, but it is not available in the official repos or EPEL. It is avaiable on the unofficial Lux repository. Add it and install mpm-itk. If you don't want to add the repository, you can download just the rpm and install it.
sudo rpm -Uvh http://repo.iotti.biz/CentOS/5/noarch/lux-release-0-1.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-LUX
sudo dnf install httpd-itk
sudo dnf install centos-release-rabbitmq-38
sudo dnf install rabbitmq-server
Enable the stomp plugin
echo "[rabbitmq_stomp]." | sudo tee -a /etc/rabbitmq/enabled_plugins
Koha provides the koha_perl_deps.pl script that detects missing Perl dependencies.
In order to find which packages are available in the repositories I created the
find-deps.sh script, which is available in this repository.
Install non-perl dependencies.
sudo dnf install idzebra-2.0 \
libidzebra-2.0 \
libidzebra-2.0-devel \
libidzebra-2.0-modules \
memcached \
gcc \
make \
yaz \
libyaz5 \
libyaz5-devel \
libuuid-devel \
fribidi \
fribidi-devel \
pwgen \
xmlstarlet \
redhat-lsb-core
Install Perl and cpanm.
sudo dnf install perl perl-App-cpanminus
Install Perl packages from the repositories:
sudo dnf install GraphicsMagick-perl \
perl-AnyEvent-HTTP \
perl-Archive-Extract \
perl-Array-Utils \
perl-Business-ISBN \
perl-Bytes-Random-Secure \
perl-Cache-Memcached \
perl-CGI \
perl-CGI-Compile \
perl-CGI-Emulate-PSGI \
perl-Class-Accessor \
perl-Class-Inspector \
perl-Crypt-Eksblowfish \
perl-Date-Calc \
perl-Date-Manip \
perl-DateTime-Event-ICal \
perl-DateTime-Format-ICal \
perl-DateTime-Format-MySQL \
perl-DateTimeX-Easy \
perl-DBD-Mock \
perl-DBD-MySQL \
perl-DBI \
perl-DBIx-RunSQL \
perl-Devel-Cover \
perl-Email-Address \
perl-Email-MessageID \
perl-Email-Sender \
perl-ExtUtils-PkgConfig \
perl-File-Slurp \
perl-Font-TTF \
perl-GD \
perl-GD-Barcode \
perl-HTML-Formatter \
perl-HTML-Parser \
perl-HTML-Scrubber \
perl-HTTP-Cookies \
perl-HTTP-Daemon \
perl-HTTP-Message \
perl-JSON \
perl-LDAP \
perl-libintl-perl \
perl-libwww-perl \
perl-Log-Log4perl \
perl-LWP-Protocol-https \
perl-MIME-Lite \
perl-Module-Pluggable \
perl-Mojolicious \
perl-Moo \
perl-Net-CIDR \
perl-Net-Netmask \
perl-Net-Server \
perl-Net-SFTP-Foreign \
perl-Number-Format \
perl-Parallel-ForkManager \
perl-Plack-Test \
perl-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy \
perl-Readonly \
perl-Sereal-Decoder \
perl-Sereal-Encoder \
perl-String-Random \
perl-Sys-CPU \
perl-Template-Toolkit \
perl-Test-Deep \
perl-Test-Exception \
perl-Test-MockModule \
perl-Test-MockObject \
perl-Test-MockTime \
perl-Test-Mojo \
perl-Test-Warn \
perl-Test-WWW-Mechanize \
perl-Text-CSV \
perl-Text-CSV_XS \
perl-Text-Iconv \
perl-Text-Unidecode \
perl-Time-Fake \
perl-Try-Tiny \
perl-UNIVERSAL-require \
perl-UNIVERSAL-can \
perl-XML-Dumper \
perl-XML-LibXML \
perl-XML-LibXSLT \
perl-XML-RSS \
perl-XML-SAX \
perl-XML-SAX-Writer \
perl-XML-Simple \
perl-XML-Writer
Install packages from CPAN: (Note: some packages might fail to install, usually because a dependency is missing. It will usually be in the install logs.)
cpanm --sudo Algorithm::CheckDigits \
Alien::Tidyp \
AnyEvent \
Authen::CAS::Client \
Biblio::EndnoteStyle \
Business::ISSN \
Cache::Memcached::Fast::Safe \
CGI::Session \
CGI::Session::Driver::memcached \
Class::Factory::Util \
Clone \
Data::ICal \
DateTime \
DateTime::TimeZone \
DBD::SQLite2 \
DBIx::Class::Schema::Loader \
Email::Date \
Email::Stuffer \
Exception::Class \
Gravatar::URL \
HTTPD::Bench::ApacheBench \
HTTP::OAI \
JSON::Validator \
JSON::Validator::Ref \
JSON::Validator::OpenAPI::Mojolicious \
Library::CallNumber::LC \
Lingua::Ispell \
Lingua::Stem \
Lingua::Stem::Snowball \
List::MoreUtils \
Locale::Currency::Format \
Locale::PO \
Locale::XGettext::TT2 \
MARC::Charset \
MARC::File::XML \
MARC::Record \
MARC::Record::MiJ \
Module::Bundled::Files \
Mojolicious::Plugin::OpenAPI \
Net::OAuth2::AuthorizationServer \
Net::Stomp \
Net::Z3950::SimpleServer \
Net::Z3950::ZOOM \
OpenOffice::OODoc \
PDF::API2 \
PDF::FromHTML \
PDF::Reuse \
PDF::Reuse::Barcode \
PDF::Table \
Plack::Middleware::LogWarn \
Schedule::At \
Search::Elasticsearch \
Selenium::Remote::Driver \
SMS::Send \
Starman \
Template::Plugin::HtmlToText \
Template::Plugin::JSON::Escape \
Template::Plugin::Stash \
Test::DBIx::Class \
Test::Strict \
Test::YAML::Valid \
Text::Bidi \
Text::CSV::Encoded \
Text::CSV::Unicode \
Text::PDF \
UUID \
WebService::ILS \
WWW::CSRF \
YAML::XS
Note: JSON::Validator::OpenAPI::Mojolicious might throw some errors, but they can be ignored. To force intall it run:
cpanm --sudo --force JSON::Validator::OpenAPI::Mojolicious
Koha expects some executables and modules to be in a different location. Create some symlinks so it can find them:
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/zebraidx-2.0 /usr/bin/zebraidx
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/zebrasrv-2.0 /usr/bin/zebrasrv
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/idzebra-2.0 /usr/lib/
This is done before installing the main Koha files, because make install sets permissions on Koha directories.
sudo groupadd -r koha
sudo useradd -r -s /usr/bin/nologin -g koha -G apache koha
PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1 perl Makefile.PL; make; sudo make install
The Debian Koha package contains some additional template files and scripts. These scripts are made for Debian and
sudo cp debian/templates/* /etc/koha/
sudo cp debian/scripts/* /usr/share/koha/bin/
Additionally, create symlinks to /usr/sbin, so you can use the scripts directly from the command line:
sudo ln -s /usr/share/koha/bin/koha-* /usr/sbin/
sudo rm /usr/sbin/{koha-functions.sh,koha-zebra-ctl.sh,koha-index-daemon-ctl.sh}
Edit /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/00-mpm.conf. Comment out mpm_event and enable
mpm_prefork.
LoadModule mpm_prefork_module modules/mod_mpm_prefork.so
[...]
#LoadModule mpm_event_module modules/mod_mpm_event.so
Edit /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/00-mpm-itk.conf and enable the module.
LoadModule mpm_itk_module modules/mod_mpm_itk.so
The scripts included with Koha are made with Debian with mind. I have created some patches, that allows them to
function in Rocky. The necessary patches are in the patches directory in this repository. For example to
patch koha-create run:
sudo patch /usr/share/koha/bin/koha-create < koha-create.patch
For a list of scripts that have been confirmed to work check out the Script Status section
By default Apache on Rocky does not allow access to /usr/share/koha. Add the following to
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.
<Directory /usr/share/koha>
Require all granted
</Directory>
Koha normally starts its services using shell scripts. However, these scripts use the
daemon command that is only available for Debian. Instead of scripts, I have created some systemd
service files that start Koha services. Copy the .service files from this repository into
/etc/systemd/system.
Enable memcached and RabbitMQ.
sudo systemctl enable --now memcached rabbitmq-server
After you have created the database, using koha-create as described in the original guide, continue from here.
Enable the Koha services, replacing library with the library name you used in koha-create
sudo systemctl enable --now koha-create-dirs@library koha-plack@library koha-indexer@library koha-worker@library koha-zebra@library
To enable Plack edit /etc/httpd/conf.d/library.conf uncomment
Include /etc/koha/apache-shared-opac-plack.conf
[...]
Include /etc/koha/apache-shared-intranet-plack.conf
You will get some permission errors. To fix them run:
sudo chown -R library-koha:library-koha /var/log/koha/library/
koha-create-dirs
koha-email-enable
koha-foreach
koha-mysql
koha-mysqlcheck
koha-passwd
koha-rebuild-zebra
koha-sitemap
koha-shell
koha-translate
koha-upgrade-schema (probably?)
koha-create
koha-disable
koha-dump
koha-enable
koha-list
koha-run-backups
Replaced by systemd services:
-
koha-indexer
-
koha-plack
-
koha-worker
-
koha-z3950-responder
-
koha-zebra
The installation is complete. You should be able to access the web interface and configure your instance. You can continue with the rest of the guide.