eLabFTW is an electronic lab notebook manager for research teams. It also features a database where you can store any kind of objects.

• Official website
• Live demo

Thank you for choosing eLabFTW as a lab manager =) Please report bugs on github.

eLabFTW was designed to be installed on a server, and people from the team would just log into it from their browser.

Don't have a server ? That's okay, you can use an old computer with 1 Go of RAM and an old CPU, it's more than enough. Just install a recent GNU/Linux distribution on it.

Don't have an old computer ? That's okay, you can install eLabFTW on a Raspberry Pi (you can buy one on Radiospares). It's a 30€ computer on which you can install GNU/Linux and run a server in no time ! That's what we use in our lab.

But you can also install it locally and use it for yourself only. Here is how :

• Install locally on Mac.
• Install locally on Windows.

Please refer to your distribution's documentation to install :

• a webserver (Apache2 is recommended)
• php5
• mysql
• git

The quick way to do that on a Debian/Ubuntu setup :

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client apache2 php5 php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5 phpmyadmin git

Make sure to put a root password on your mysql installation :

$ sudo /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

ssh [email protected]

(can be /var/www, ~/public_html, or any folder you'd like, as long as Apache is configured properly, in doubt use /var/www)

$ cd /var/www
# make the directory writable by your user (if it's not already the case)
$ sudo chown `whoami`:`whoami` .

Note the . at the end that means current folder.

$ git clone https://github.com/NicolasCARPi/elabftw.git

(this will create a folder elabftw)

If you cannot connect, try exporting your proxy settings in your shell like so :

$ export https_proxy="proxy.example.com:3128"

If you still cannot connect, tell git your proxy :

$ git config --global http.proxy http://proxy.example.com:8080

If you can't install git or don't manage to get the files, you can download a zip archive. But it's better to use git, it will allow easier updates.

The second part is putting the database in place.

# first we connect to mysql
$ mysql -u root -p
# we create the database (note the ; at the end !)
mysql> create database elabftw;
# we create the user that will connect to the database.
mysql> grant usage on *.* to elabftw@localhost identified by 'YOUR_PASSWORD';
# we give all rights to this user on this database
mysql> grant all privileges on elabftw.* to elabftw@localhost;
mysql> exit
# now we import the database structure
$ mysql -u elabftw -p elabftw < elabftw/install/elabftw.sql

You will be asked for the password you put after identified by three lines above.

*<- Ignore this (it's to fix a markdown syntax highlighting problem)

You need to install the package phpmyadmin if it's not already done.

$ sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

Now you will connect to the phpmyadmin panel from your browser on your computer. Type the IP address of the server followed by /phpmyadmin.

Example : http://12.34.56.78/phpmyadmin

Login with the root user on PhpMyAdmin panel (use the password you setup for mysql root user).

Now click the Privileges tab and click Add new user.

Do like this :

• On the menu on the left, select the newly created database elabftw
• Click the Import tab
• Download this file
• Click Browse... and select the file you just downloaded
• Click Go

Finally, point your browser to the install folder (install/) and read onscreen instructions.

For example : http://12.34.56.78/elabftw/install

To update, just cd in the elabftw folder and do :

$ git pull
$ php update.php

It is important to backup your files to somewhere else, in case anything bad happens. Please refer to the wiki.

If you want to enable HTTPS (and you should), uncomment (remove the # at the beginning) these lines in the file .htaccess.

#RewriteEngine On
#RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
#RewriteRule .* https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

You will need the modules "rewrite" and "ssl" enabled, the package ssl-cert installed and the ssl site enabled.

$ sudo apt-get install ssl-cert
$ sudo a2enmod rewrite
$ sudo a2enmod ssl
$ sudo a2ensite default-ssl

• It's a good idea to use a php optimizer to increase speed. I recommand installing XCache.
• You can show a TODOlist by pressing 't'.
• You can duplicate an experiment in one click.
• You can export in a .zip, a .pdf or a spreadsheet.
• You can share an experiment by just sending the URL of the page to someone else.

~Thank you for using eLabFTW :)

http://www.elabftw.net

\o/