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How to Upgrade Open Admin for Schools

1. To avoid errors from apache2 be sure to add your hostname and IP address to the etc hosts file etc hosts 127 0 0 1 localhost 30 b L2H Oulad oaserver2 myschool dnsalias net oaserver2 192 168 1 50 oaserver2 myschool dnsalias net oaserver2 Update sources using the command apt get update Optional If you didn t install the openssh server as part of the base server installa tion and you want to access your server using ssh install the openssh server using apt get install openssh server Use apt get to install the following additional packages and their automatically installed dependencies apt get install build essential apt get install emacs22 nox for Emacs editor apt get install mc Midnight Commander for File Management apt get install libssl dev apt get install openssh server apt get install libxml2 dev apt get install texlive apt get install zip Installing the necessary Perl modules You may get more information about Perl at http www perl org Most of the perl modules needed by OpenAdmin can be installed from the De bian repositories using apt get install modulename as follows the portion in parenthesis shows perl module name apt get install libxml libxml perl LibXML2 and XML LibXML apt get install libtext csv perl Text
2. Install the Apache2 server apt get install apache Install the Mysql database server apt get install mysql server Choose a good root password for mysql and write it down Used below Install the sshd server apt get install openssh server You may also change the port number of the ssh server in etc ssh ssh_config if desired Install LaTeX for pdf generation apt get install texlive full Copy the main OA files into position in etc openadmin Each school if more than one will have it s files in opt openadmin Schooll and below this will have the admin etc cgi directories and so on Another school would be in opt openadmin School2 Change the ownership of these files to be the same as the apache server since the scripts run with the uid of the apache server and need permission to create working files in their own directories etc chown R www data www date opt openadmin www data is the user the apache server runs as Add your password files into etc apache2 auth_users and create that directory Use the htpasswd program to create userids and passwords The name of the file containing these credentials must agree with that found in the apache configuration file for this school Add your oa website files into etc apache2 sites available You can activate the sites by creating a symlink to this from the etc apache2 sites enabled directory or just use a2ensite to activate the
3. Continue You may add these students again later if desired by using the Add function to put them back into the directory e Synchronize Staff syncstaff pl This script is used to synchronize staff in OA with staff entries in the directory server It is used to add staff from OA into the directory or to remove them from the directory This script has no effect on the staff records in OA it only keeps the directory up to date as desired ie some staff may not be entered into the directory This script is similar to the student script The first screen will ask whether to add or delete as well as whether the next screen should have entries Checked ie selected If you select Add the script will compare users in both systems OA and LDAP and find staff not found in LDAP but present in OA You will get a list of those staff with check boxes to select those you wish to add to the LDAP directory server Clicking Continue will add them to the directory 46 If you select Delete all entries in the directory are loaded and you may first select by clicking checkbox and then delete the staff entries by clicking on Continue You may add these staff again later if desired by using the Add function to put them back into the directory This will not affect the staff records in OA only the external directory server e Reset LDAP resetldap pl This script will allow the user to lock accounts or
4. you know what you re doing SDS XML Schema Declarations Sxmlns http www sasked gov sk ca xsd sl 1 x SLMessage xsd Sxmlnsxsi http www w3 org 2001 XMLSchema instance SxsischemaLocation http www sasked gov sk ca xsd sl 1 x SLMessage xsd http ww sasked gov sk ca xsd s1 1 x SLMessage xsd fo gt 25 End of Sask Specific Constants Attendance Settings currently used in teacher attendance entry my g_maxterms 12 maximum of terms to search for my g_attendview 16 Number of previous attendance records to see my g_teachview 12 Number of teacher attendance records to see my g_allowedit 1 Comment out to disable teacher editing of att records Reason Categories the Unexcused ones and Late Absent Groups currently used by attendance profiles SabsentUnexcused Absent Unexcused SlateUnexcused Late Unexcused SlateString Late SabsentString Absent Reasons for Attendance Note Absent and Late MUST be used to be correctly tagged by reports Case is significant We have several classes Absent Unexcused Absent for a variety of reasons Absent Illness Absent Moved etc If excused but for another reason it s Absent Excused Similar for Lates 20 Sattend 0 Absent Unexcused Sattend 1 Absent Excused Sattend 2 Absent Illness Sattend 3 Absent Moved
5. 51 Installation Version Information e OA 4 75 July 2010 OA 3 50 December 2008 OA 3 25 August 2008 OA 2 50 December 2007 new SSL single site instructions based on Debian Ubuntu by Andy Figueroa Other directions updated to match older entries removed Please read this over before trying to do too much Overview for Newbies Each school that is running Open Admin could normally have up to three virtual websites one for the school office one for teachers and one for parents students An installation capable of running on a single SSL or not protected website is also available The html and cgi scripts for all sites for each school are located in a common folder normally under the school name opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL The administration or office site has it s files in admin for the HTML files and cgi for the matching cgi scripts Similarly the teacher site directories are called tadmin and tcgi So also phtml and pegi for the parent site If you are limited to having one site only as some Australian schools are it can also be configured to run on this single site File Locations Everything is arranged like this opt openadmin can be replaced with another file path on your server opt openadmin stpeter admin for St Peter School main admin site opt openadmin stpeter cgi opt openadmin stpeter tadmin for St Peter School teacher site opt openadmin stpeter tcgi opt ope
6. Installation Download Ubuntu 10 04 server edition starting here http www ubuntu com getubuntu download server Install the server choosing the LAMP Linux Apache MySQL PHP option when prompted During the installation of Ubuntu server edition you will be asked a few questions e You will be asked to set up a user use a name and password you can remember and write it down e You will be asked to set up a MySLQ root user password Write it down When the installation is complete boot into your new server Unless you want to work exclusively using sudo set up a root password using sudo passwd root and you will be prompted to enter your password then you will be prompted to enter the root password twice Write it down 2 a Base System Configuration Do all of the following logged in as root using su to become root or prefixing each command with sudo Change the default DHCP network setting to a fixed IP address if appropriate for your installation typically appropriate by editing the file etc network interfaces using IPs appropriate for your network You may use any text editor Text editors nano and vi are installed A model file for static IP address follows file etc network interfaces The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback The primary network interface auto etho0 iface eth0 inet dhcp iface eth0 inet static address 192 168 1 50 netmask 255 255 255 0 gateway 192 168 1 1
7. OA was to make it relatively easy to install and lightweight to run both in hardware and bandwidth demands so that even satellite connections with long latency will work This has already been demonstrated in many remote schools e A webserver supporting virtual hosting and or SSL for encrypted communcation over the Internet This is normally the freely available Open Source Apache web server software e A Perl interpreter a recent version would probably be good The 5 10 release is current e MySQL or PosgreSQL freely available SQL databases For MySQL a 5 x version should be used One should be conservative in the use of bleeding edge software for a database The current Open Admin release supports MySQL 5 x with new reserved words Use the appropriate blank sq database from the utility sql folder of the download to populate it for a new installation For PostgreSQL a new stable version should be used However Pg has not been used for a couple of years in normal testing e A standard TeX installation including pdflatex normally installed with Linux distribu tions The new TeX Live installation should be used if possible It should be installed using your Linux distro packaging If not included with your distribution of Linux then look at tug org TeX User Group This will run on all Unix like Operating systems including Mac OSX and also on MS Windows servers e Accessory utility software The student image management
8. SSL The following changes are all applied in etc apache2 cd etc apache2 Create symbolic links to ssl modules in etc apache2 mods enabled cd mods enabled ln s etc apache2 mods available ssl load ssl load In s etc apache2 mods available ssl conf ssl conf Use your favorite editor to edit dir conf adding index shtml to the list of automati cally served files lt IfModule mod _dir c gt Keep the two lines below joined as one line in dir conf DirectoryIndex index html index shtml index cgi index pl index php index xhtml lt TfModule gt Return to etc apache2 cd Create a site to use ssl by copying the default site file to the ssl site file cd sites available cp default ssl 32 Edit ssl using your favorite editor to modify existing lines or adding as needed to read NameVirtualHost 443 lt VirtualHost 443 gt Opti ServerAdmin webmaster localhost SSLEngine on SSLCertificateFile etc apache2 ssl apache pem DocumentRoot var www lt Directory gt ons FollowSymLinks Options FollowSymLinks Includes AllowOverride Non AllowOverride All lt Directory gt lt Directory var www gt Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride Non AllowOverride All Order allow deny allow from all This directive allows us to have apache2 s default start page in apache2 default but
9. Sattend 4 Absent Suspension Sattend 5 Late Unexcused Sattend 6 Late Excused Array to list reasons to ignore for perfect attendance cgi rptattperf pl ignore_reason 5 6 Trigger Points Match Reasons Above Values assigned to each type of missing attendance reason Spoints 0 3 Spoints 1 0 Spoints 2 0 Spoints 3 0 Spoints 4 0 Spoints 5 1 Spoints 6 0 Points gt Discipline Event These numbers of points trigger a discpline event trigger 6 gt Absence Two 12 gt Absence Four 18 gt Absence Six 24 gt Absence Eight 30 gt Absence Ten A formletter file in cgi forms that matches trigger events above Generated by the Attendance Scan script cgi attscan pl Ssformletter 6 gt discipline tex 12 gt discipline tex 18 gt discipline tex 24 gt discipline tex 30 gt withdraw tex Ethnic values now stored in meta table as defaults Religion Values now stored in meta table as defaults g_religion Staff Member Positions all globals vars start with g_ 21 Allows admin functions in Discipline system g_posadmin Principal Vice Principal New functions in upcoming PTI system Sg_possped Special Education Teacher Classroom Teacher Teacher Assistant Sg_pos
10. create the database tables psql U openadmin myschool j blank pg sql You will find the PostgreSQL schema in the utilities directory under the name blank pg sql 5 Configure each school to use PostgreSQL In etc admin conf under each school directory ensure your dbtype line looks like this dbtype Pg The P is capitalized the Pg is surrounded by single quotes and the assignment ends with a semicolon This paragraph is a change to the instructions as presented in Config uration below 6 Ensure you run a backup script to backup your databases regularly A Pg backup script is available for download Modify your crontab thusly for a full nightly backup at 2 a m 0 2 root pg backup sh bva Remember to configure your backup script appropriately Install Appendix B Setting Up Webname Resolution You can set these website locations in individual computers in theirhosts files so that they can access these sites without any DNS Domain Name records being installed on your DNS server that maps webnames to IP addresses This can be quite useful in initial testing before any DNS updates have been done On Linux workstations these are located in etc hosts On Windows workstations XP these are found in c windows system32 drivers etc Look on the wikipedia website wikipedia org under Hosts file The entries in the hosts files look like this for St Peter spa mysd ca 142 165 5 25 admin site spt mysd ca 142 165 5 25
11. css rel stylesheet href tadmin css gt Top Level HTML Pages URL Links Shomepage index shtml discpage discipline html Sreppage repcard html Sattpage attendance html Sexppage export html Seoypage eoy html Sschpage schedule html Sfeespage fees html Stchpage index shtml Global Color Settings used by gradebook groups Sg_color 0 8FA Sg_color 1 FF8 Sg_color 2 AAF Sg_color 3 F8F Sg_color 4 FFA Sg_color 4 FAF 17 Sg_col g_col g_col g_col g_col Attendance Settings for Periods per AFF RFAA AFA AAF AAA Day ppd Put your grades in the curly braces and the number of periods in the quotes for each grade Sg_ppd PK 2 Sg_ppd K m Sg_ppd 1 2 Sg_ppd 2 Mas Sg_ppd 3 TAE Sg_ppd 4 2 Sg_ppd 5 wey Sg_ppd 6 mo Sg_ppd 7 Mars Sg_ppd 8 NON Sg_ppd 9 TZM Sg_ppd 10 2 Sg_ppd 11 nom Sg_ppd 12 m2m The school year schoolyear schoolstart Sschoolend School Terms 2008 2009 2008 08 28 2009 06 27 Sg_termstart 1 Sg_termend 1 Sg_termstart 2 Sg_termend 2 Sg_termstart 3 Sg_termend 3 2008 08 28 2008 11 16 2008 11 19 T20 0 9 0 3507 T7 2009 03 10 2009 06 27 Days Per Cycle SdaysPerCycle 6 D
12. folders The files in the down loaded tar distribution are set to root ownership and members of root group Change the ownership of the copied files directories to that of the user and group that the webserver runs as In Debian Ubuntu this is www data for both user and group For Slackware this is webuser and webgroup For Red Hat this is apache for both Make 7 sure that you are in the opt openadmin directory so that you change the ownership of everything below this level in the filesystem If www data www data then chown R www data www data If apache apache then chown R apache apache If this seems too loose in terms of security since you may have users on this system ownership may be left at root root for scripts and just make sure that the running scripts can create required LaTeX files in the folder where the script runs that is creating it If not set correctly you ll see entries in the error log about the script not being able to create tex files and no pdf files such as student roster reports and report cards will be created Get into the habit of checking the webserver logs for each of the sites Again the location of these log files varies depending on the linux distribution that you are using On Debian Ubuntu servers it is located in var log apache2 while Red Hat stores them in var log httpd A running script must also be able to copy generated PDF files into the download folder in admin or tadmin of the
13. functions will require an ImageMagick installation for the convert program to convert image sizes e LibXML2 from www xmlsoft org an XML library in C This is required to parse the FET scheduler teacher xml file to import your timetable into OA If not using the FET scheduler and not a Saskatchewan school using the SDS system you do not need this xml parser currently This will likely change as new reporting functions require xml markup The following perl modules will also be required e CGI e DBI and the DBD drivers to connect to MySQL or Pg e Text CSV_XS for conversion to from CSV format e XML LibXML a perl module that uses LibXML2 library if using XML e Date Business for date functions such as attendance reports e Time JulianDay other date calculations e FreezeThaw install this before CGI Session since it is required by CGI Session e CGI Session session management for the teacher site e Data Password used for checking staff passwords for security e Crypt GeneratePassword used to generate staff passwords when adding new staff e Number Format a rounding function used in place of sprintf In order to install the perl modules the easiest approach is to use the packages and package manager that comes with your Linux version The Debian Ubuntu package manager apt get makes this fairly straight forward More is found under the Debian Ubuntu installation Another metho
14. gt AllowOverride All Options FollowSymLinks Includes Order allow deny Allow from all lt Directory gt lt Directory var www openadmin myschool tcgi gt AllowOverride All Options FollowSymLinks Includes Order allow deny Allow from all lt Directory gt lt Directory var www openadmin myschool pcgi gt AllowOverride All Options FollowSymLinks Includes Order allow deny Allow from all lt Directory gt No further changes from ErrorLog var log apache2 error log to the end Now create a symbolic link etc apache2 sites enabled 000 ssl to etc apache2 sites available ssl CO a5 cd sites enabled ln s etc apache2 sites available ssl 000 ssl cd Generate a self signed SSL certificate using the following commands mkdir etc apache2 ssl The following comand must all on one commandline openssl req a new x509 days 3650 nodes out etc apache2 ss1 apache pem keyout etc apache2 ssl apache pem 34 Use the same fully qualified domain name when prompted for Common Name that you used in etc hosts i e caserver2 myschool dnsalias net to keep apache2 from giving an error about the domain name or you can go to http launchpadlibrarian net 7477840 apache2 ssl tar gz and grab the old apache2 ssl certificate which is an easier way to generate a good self signed SSL certificate Extract the package and put ssleay cnf in usr share apache2 put apach
15. main or teacher site Scripts must also be able to change the term file studentnumber receiptnumber files in the school level etc folder as well You will have to change the permissions on these files and directories if you don t reset the ownership to that of the User Id UID that the webserver runs as as outlined above Copy your School Logo file Gf you have one into the school directory admin images For example opt openadmin stpeter admin images folder and name it logo gif It should already be in GIF format You should replace erase the existing files logo gif and logotn gif The size of your logo gif should be approximately 150 200 pixels high or so and a rea sonable width Excessive width more than 300 pixels or so may cause layout problems on smaller screens Pick a size that is pleasing when displayed on the main page This should give a good starting point A smaller version of the school logo about 100 pixels high should be saved and renamed to logotn gif Logo Thumbnail This is the logo vis ible on the attendance discipline report card pages etc To conserve bandwidth these should be as small as possible The other 2 small image files tabactive gif tabmain gif total 2k in size implement the menu system on the admin site Edit the configuration file called admin conf located in the school etc directory For example opt openadmin stpeter etc This is read by all of the scripts cgi tegi pcgi and is req
16. make any other necessary changes in file locations etc Do the same with the repcard conf and the new repcard conf 475 and update changes at the top of the file Copy the previous 2 school logo files logo gif and logotn gif in admin images into their new location Do the same for the admin css file which contains the color information you may have modified previously in admin Backup your data using your backup tool of choice Mysqldump works well too Update the database table structure using the provided update scripts in the util ity sql 450t0475 folder of the download The sql files should be used for earlier versions of OA first if updating from a much earlier version Now update the meta data by using the metadata update script on the eoy end of year page It is the Update Metadata button You could also empty the meta table and use the meta475 sql script also However I would suggest the the latter method with minimal changes 28 7 If you would like to use the iep special education application please read the installa tion notes It is a separate website with it s own html and cgi folders It would normally be installed into opt openadmin iep 8 TaDa Sit down and gloat Gloating is Important Tell your Spouse or Significant Other how wonderfully talented you are etc 29 Model OpenAdmin Installation Single Site with SSL This section written by Andy Figueroa 1 Operating System
17. now ready to set up OpenAdmin Downloading Installing and Setting up OpenAdmin The following is a simplified version of what is found in the official OpenAdmin documen tation for setting up a single school on a single server For more complex arrangements please see the official OpenAdmin documentation It is recommended that you at least read through the official OpenAdmin documentation in order to better understand how OpenAdmin works Download the latest Open Admin version from http richtech ca openadmin and then untar it into opt We will create symlinks from var www to the installation path a little later cd opt tar xzf path to download openadmin 2 50 tgz To make it easier to work with the new directory create a symlink to the resulting openadmin directory ln s openadmin 2 50 openadmin Change the owner and group of the OpenAdmin directory and everything below it to the apache2 user chown R www data www data openadmin Enter the OpenAdmin directory and copy the base school directory to a school directory for your own school 36 cd openadmin cp a school myschool The new myschool directory is where OpenAdmin will run and where we will do almost all of our configuration You may substitute any short single word for myschool if you would like to better distinguish your school identification i e da stpeter stmary hhcs and so on Next we ll create symbolic links from the apache2 root httpd direct
18. reset the password on accounts In order to unlock user accounts you would simply reset the password The first screen allows you to select to either Reset Password or Lock User which sets the password to a locked value Selecting checking the appropriate checkboxes and clicking Continue will result in the desired action and a confirmation box for each se lected action LDAP Installation Open Admin OA can manage an external server running LDAP server software OpenL DAP This stores both staff and students that can then be used by other programs such as library software printing software cups workstations for login access and home directory mounts CMS Content Management Systems and others This installation is based on a Debian Ubuntu server Other Linux servers will be similar The stages include 1 Install the OpenLDAP software on the server making sure that you have the domain name of the server set as desired since the installation will setup an ldap domain based on the server domain 2 Get the User Account information from an existing server if necessary This includes both the UID and GID information from that server Otherwise new accounts in OA can have unique values added to their user account which can then populate both the LDAP system as well as the user account information on a File Server for home directory mounts from workstations terminals Place this information into OA for staff and stud
19. still have go to the right place RedirectMatch apache2 default lt Directory gt lt IfModule alias _module gt it tt ttt ttt itt it tt Se od Sh dh de de OE de Se e Se Note This entire section to the end is required to allow openadmin to run perl scripts from the right path operating in a single SSL protected site It is not necessary for the purpose of getting the SSL site running The portion that is comment out below is from the original file and must remain so ScriptAlias cgi bin usr lib cgi bin lt Directory usr lib cgi bin gt lt AllowOverride Non Options ExecCGI MultiViews SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow deny Allow from all Directory gt ScriptAlias This controls which directories contain server scripts ScriptAliases ar ssentially the same as Aliases except that documents in the realname directory are treated as applications and run by the server when requested rather 33 than as documents sent to the client The same rules about trailing apply to ScriptAlias directives as to Alias ScriptAlias cgi bin var www localhost cgi bin ScriptAlias cgi bin var www openadmin myschool cgi ScriptAlias tcgi bin var www openadmin myschool tcgi ScriptAlias pcgi bin var www openadmin myschool pcgi lt TfModule gt lt Directory var www openadmin myschool cgi
20. the templates at a desired location or use the template creator This will allow for addition and editing of the new fields during enrollment and demographic updates as well as searching and viewing of the field s They can also be printed out on the student viewing page 41 3 Run the metaupdate pl script to add those new field definitions to the meta table Each new field in the student table will become a new record in the meta table Now run the metaedit pl script choose to edit the student table and then add your new field characteristics 4 You now have a customized version of OA with more student fields As new releases of OA come out your custom templates will have to be placed in the new versions s template directory to match your extended student table s The meta data will not be altered so this may be left If you are using MySQL version 4 x the studentall table must be rebuilt due to the extended student table MySQL version 5 x will not require any change since it uses a view The simplest approach is to first get the data from the current student table and put into a text file mysqldump d ppassword u user database student gt student sgl where password is your mysql user password user is your mysql user and database is your database Now do the same thing to create a data dump of the studentall table mysqldump d ppassword u user database student gt student sgl Edit the student sql
21. the virtual hosting capabilities of the Apache web server will show you different websites based on the name that you re looking for which is sent in the HTTP header The St Peter secretaries and administrators go to spa mysd ca to enter attendance etc while teachers at St Peter would go to spt mysd ca to print their classlists etc Parents could go to spp mysd ca to see their children s attendance reportcards and ongoing grades from the gradebook where allowed This would be similar for other schools running on this same server Central Office staff and special education teachers would go to iep mysd ca to view special needs student programs There is also a single central office application to show combined school enrollments ethnic enrollments and other functions All these addresses are going to the same server This is the basic idea behind this adminis tration system The entire school division can run from one medium performance server that can be housed and maintained at some central location The parents site is not protected by a common password since the scripts require individual passwords from parents while the other two per school are protected by passwords stored in a file or database for the main admin site and in the staff table for the teacher site 27 How to Upgrade Open Admin for Schools Versions Installation for OA 4 75 July 2010 There have not been any large changes to the installation pr
22. to edit the file when doing upgrades from previous OA versions New in 3 50 password settings used by Crypt GeneratePassword also Data Password Spassword_minlen 5 Spassword_maxlen 6 Spassword_lang en Spassword_signs 0 Spassword_caps 1 Spassword_minfreq 001 Spassword_avgfreq 001 New in 2 50 For translation purposes this has to be in configuration Files now use this to display Months Days of Week etc month January February March April May June July August September October November December s_month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct No dow Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturd s_dow Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Location of special ed config file in your filesystem Actual filesystem location of the file ON YOUR SERVER Siepdir opt openadmin iep Paper Size Letter Legal A4 entered as letterpaper legalpaper a4paper Sdefaultpapersize letterpaper End of New Section for 2 50 Basic Constants for the database Suser USER Spassword PASSWORD Sdbase DATABASE Sdbtype mysql mysql or P
23. to that of the external server and the password to that of the openadmin account or whatever account created on the external server This will al low the script to copy a created user file and or reset file in CSV format to that external computer In order for the scripts to run you will need to add perl modules Text CSV_XS and Expect on the external server typically with the CPAN method command perl MCPAN e install Text CSV_XS or via apt get for libtext csv perl library You will also have to edit the external adduser_cron5 p l if your version of Unix Linux uses different commands syntax to add users and passwords 44 On the Open Admin server the new scripts also require the Net SCP Expect perl module apt get install libnet scp expect perl that moves the files to the external server This re quirement has been added to the updated documentation There are also additional settings in the adduser_cron5 pl script on the external server and initially located in the download in utility usermanage These settings can be used to chain user updates to multiple servers etc 45 LDAP Directory Management Ldap is an acronym for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol A directory in this sense is like a telephone directory which stores user information and other things rather than just phone numbers Open Admin can be used to manage an external LDAP server which contains student and staff accounts Open Ad
24. will display the additional fields added to the student tables and templates 1 Student Search cgi studsearch pl uses the studsearch tpl template 2 Student Enrollment cgi entry sentryX pl scripts use the student tpl template 3 Student Editing cgi studed pl and studeled pl now supports editing of any of the 3 student tables also uses the student tpl template The templating technology is currently making use of simple regex matching and replacement Future use of templating modules is being considered as other needs develop and the pros and cons of each module are weighed 40 The templates themselves are simply HTML markup blocks with the following tags that are replaced during script execution 1 lt desc gt tags that are replaced by a fieldname descriptor from the meta table These descriptors will be replaced during system configuration with alternate language ver sions stored in the meta table 2 lt value gt tags that are replaced with an entry form with features controlled by the meta table input type field length maxlength etc when editing These replaced with actual values from tables during search and viewing The meta table currently has 2 scripts 1 metaupdate pl a script to read the current database and update the metatable to match any additional fields added to or fields removed from the underlying tables 2 metaedit pl a script to allow edits to any of the field settings in the m
25. 11 19 Sg_termstart h 2 2008 11 22 Sg_termend h 2 2009 01 28 Sg_termstart h 3 2009 01 31 Sg_termend h 3 2009 01 28 Sg_termstart h 4 2009 02 01 Sg_termend h 4 2009 07 28 Sg_termtype K e S g_termtype 1 e Sg_termtype 2 e Sg_termtype 3 e Sg_termtype 4 e Sg_termtype 5 e Sg_termtype 6 e Sg_termtype 7 h Sg_termtype 8 h Sg_termtype 9 h Sg_termtype 10 h Sg_termtype 11 h S g_termtype 12 Ces Saskatchewan Specific constants 19 Sschoolnumber 123456 An english stream program in Saskatchewan used by export sds program Note that each student record also has a program code This is just a default so no need to add all records unless special ed etc Sprogram 10 Used by Saskatchewan SDS code to disable functions for non native schools Disables reserve residency band affiliation and treaty number xml updates Snativeschool 0 Main controls for Sask Learning Surl https www sasked gov sk ca spls sdsxml pkgb_xml_interface sl_message Ssds_userid USERID Ssds_password PASSWORD Smaxfilesize 30000 Max Filesize for transfers SL has 32k limit for xml file transfers Must be too big for oracle 30k setting above it relatively safe limit Don t go higher unless
26. CSV_XS apt get install libfreezethaw perl FreezeThaw apt get install libcgi session perl CGI Session apt get install libcrypt ssleay perl Crypt SSLeay apt get install libxml writer perl XML Writer apt get install libdata uuid perl Data UUID apt get install libcrypt generatepassword perl apt get install libgd graph perl apt get install libmail sender perl apt get install libnet scp expect perl apt get install libnumber format perl The following perl modules were not identified in the Debian repositories and may be retrieved from CPAN The first time you invoke CPAN you will be walked through a configuration dialog The defaults suggested are correct and work fine Enter appropriate responses when prompted for your geographic location and the servers you want to use perl MCPAN e install Date Business perl MCPAN e install Time JulianDay perl MCPAN e install XML Writer String You now have a working Apache2 MySLQ server on port 80 normal http port that meets all the program requirements of OpenAdmin 2 50 You may test it from an other computer on your network by visiting http 192 168 1 50 with a web browser 31 substitute your own IP address if different You may also test it locally using lynx from the shell if you don t have another computer on your network handy lynx http 192 168 1 50 3 Configuring Apache2 for OpenAdmin using
27. Linux filesystems Windows NTFS filesystems have limited symbolic link support as far as I know This would allow you to install an updated version of OA in a different folder and then use a symbolic link to point to this new folder rather than another older folder If you have installation problems and your site is very active as it normally is with school admin you can quickly switch back to older code as long as the table structures haven t changed with the newer version These directions assume that Apache has it s configuration installed in etc httpd or etc apache2 These are the normal locations for most Unixlike operating systems Step 4 Set up MySQL See the Installation Appendix for the PostgreSQL instructions if using that database engine I will assume that you have a basic installation of MySQL and that the MySQL engine is running If you re not sure doa ps aux and you should see several mysql processes running Normal installation of Linux should give you a working copy of this You may also download and install versions from www mysql com as well 1 Create a database for the application mysqladmin create pROOTPASSWORD myschool where rootpassword is the root password for the MySQL server which is the not same thing as the root password for the entire computer and myschool is the name of the database to be created This is the name that will be placed in the cgi admin conf file with dbase 2 Now crea
28. Open Administration for Schools 4 75 Administrator Documentation Les Richardson July 2010 Contents Installation Overview for Newbies 2 0 ee e File Locations oo e we ee cs ai dedica Program Requirements osoa Installation Overview a a ew ee eS EME HE Step 1 Install Linux oras A OES Step 2 Copy the Ple ca a Step 3 Configure the Webserver Step d Setup MYSQL ociosa ROH ESE ES eS Step 5 Converting Student Data Step 6 Configuration a eh aw be aR ww BO ee ae ak eS Step 7 Getting Started on the Browser Side Install Appendix A Setting up the PostgreSQL Database Install Appendix B Setting Up Webname Resolution How to Upgrade Open Admin for Schools ELSA o caca RE RSS a GAS a ee ee A a Be ee a Model OpenAdmin Installation Single Site with SSL Customize OA Adding New Fields to Students and Staff SO oeoc hk ht Bk a Ok eh A at a eaea e a E aa Extending Student Demographics 2000 eee eens Security Wep Security gt ee ssa eA Oe GR A RARER eS a External User Management Add External Server User Accounts 0 000000 0s LDAP Directory Management LOAP rb hi ARA wee AA AA 30 40 40 40 43 43 44 44 46 LDAP Installation ars ok gh 3 bP te bE a i a a OE a a E e e a Maintenance Multiple Ceres AA Ubuntu 10 04 Server Install 47 47 50
29. _gidnumber 500 gid numbers from server Sldap_staff_gidnumber 600 Sslappasswd usr local sbin slappasswd location of LDAP password uti Sbasedn dc jp2 dc loccsd dc ca Change to YOUR domain setup Sservername 127 0 0 1 IP address of the LDAP server to manage Sadminuser cn admin dc jp2 dc loccsd dc ca Change to YOUR domain s Sadminpassword password Ldap Admin password you wrote down on ins Sgroup_staff staff Sgroup_student student Sorg jp2 loccsd ca Change to YOUR domain setup We now need to populate the OA student staff records with LDAP field information If you have an existing file server that has account information you should first put that information into OA In order to extract the account information copy the utility program getuserinfo pl from the utility ldap section of the download Place that on your file server and run it to create a CSV file containing account information Next upload this CSV file using the Fill button on the LDAP area of the main OA page This will place the account information into the OA database For this to work correctly the account information for students must be based on the student number with a leading s The staff information must have the same userid as found on the OA server If this is not the case you will have to manually edit the CSV file to fix this You will now have OA ldap fiel
30. apache2 sites available ssl etc apache2 ports conf opt openadmin myschool etc admin conf opt openadmin myschool tadmin index shtml script symlink scr Creates the necessary symlinks in etc apache2 var www opt and creates the directory etc apache2 ssl Note Look at this script before you run it Edit it if necessary for your particular in stallation You will have to delete and recreate the symlink at opt openadmin if your in stalled version of OpenAdmin changes from openadmin 2 50 The other symlinks should never have to change except to suit your own situation Optional apache2 ssl tgz 38 A script included in earlier versions of Apache for easily generating a self signed cer tificate The files from the archive ssleay cnf is to be copied into usr share apache2 and apache 2 ssl certificate into usr sbin Execute the sript by running apache2 ssl certificate from the shell as described in the Apache2 configuration section Section 3 above 39 Customize OA Adding New Fields to Students and Staff Overview Open Admin can have both student demographics and staff information extended with addi tional fields with very little effort The staff table already contains several additional fields for use by international schools for storing staff certification etc The only negative to this process is that a report must be created to actually display this information The Student Roster reports are temp
31. ates to reset the assun dayInCycle no reset values her 1 SH He SE e HE of year page under r then th for the school year with a N only needed for Scheduling ne a 6 day cycle to throughout schoolstart value the year and days loop through the cycle from there DayInCycle field in the is assun If there are ned to be Day omitting any dates set Date Management on Start End 18 Sreset Date 2008 08 31 1 These are ONLY needed if your school is a K 12 school and has two or more different school term dates in same school ie 3 terms for K 6 and 4 terms for 7 12 All programs support the structure above this S g_termstart 1l date in any case You may use other values rather than e and h as long as the Sg_termtype Grade MyValue matches Sg_termstart MyValue TermNumber TermStartDate SmultiTrack 0 l yes O no Scripts supporting this date structure are repcard card script soon then SDS scripts etc Sg_termstart e 1 2008 08 27 Sg_termend e 1 2008 11 19 Sg_termstart e 2 2008 11 22 Sg_termend e 2 2009 03 28 Sg_termstart e 3 2009 03 31 Sg_termend e 3 2009 06 28 Sg_termstart h 1 2008 08 27 Sg_termend h 1 2008
32. be created if using the SIS site central office This will allow a global user to read all of the school databases but not change them This is required for the central office application and some global view scripts Create the database tables Run the following command using the file in the utility sql folder of the download called blankxxx sql It contains the SQL statements necessary to create the entire database where xxx is the latest version mysql pmypassword u myuser myschool lt blankxxx sql If all went well and no errors were shown you should now have tables in your database ready to accept records You can verify this by doing a show tables command when in the mysql client The meta table data dictionary is initially blank The metaxxx sq file in the utility sql folder contains starting student and staff tables defaults for this Run this just like you did for the blank sql file above and it will put in defaults etc required by the templates used with these 2 tables for forms etc If you add more fields to the student and or staff tables then after doing so you can update the meta table by running the Meta Update script located on the Start End of Year page of the admin site See also the section on customizing OA If you are using the Special Needs application it has a different database design It is installed in the same fashion as outlined above using the file called epdataXXX sql located in the uti
33. cated in the school etc folder and called global conf that stores information about all of the schools on the local server normally that would be all participating schools in the division This information is used to enable global reporting This is used by central office for reporting as well as used by the schools to enable school transfers of demographic information Once a secretary or admin in a school finds the student number of a withdrawn student they can simply put that number into the normal 22 entry withdraw input box on the main page to register that student and have all demographic information transferred I ve located the global config file in the school etc folder and set the admin conf configuration file to point to it s location there This is because most installations are for single schools not large division installs If you are doing a multiple school installation then move this file to a global folder at top level ie opt openadmin global Add all databases to it Then edit all school admin conf files so that their globaldir setting points to this folder The Look and Feel of all school sites can be changed by simply changing the stylesheet files css located in admin tadmin and padmin folders Normally I just change the color scheme slightly to match colors in the school logos ie school colors I do this by searching and replacing the 049 RGB with a color triplet matching the logo The scri
34. cess to the teacher site is by means of a single shared password via a single password file Other apache modules could be used to store separate passwords for each teacher in a mysql database and in fact use the teacher table for these passwords Apache 2 x has some advanced authentication modules to allow this Thus the admin site could be used to directly manage teacher access to the website as well as the attendance entry marks entry etc Since passwords are the first line of defense they should be carefully chosen so that people can remember them but not be so simple that they can easily be guessed or cracked by a brute force attack Some other ideas 1 Don t provide links on any publicly visible web sites to your admin or teacher sites This is only security by obscurity but it can t hurt 2 For the truly paranoid don t place the virtual admin and teacher sites into your DNS records Instead configure client workstations by placing these records in your hosts file either in etc hosts or c windows hosts The hosts file would contain the IP address and then the domain name of the school division server 43 External User Management Since the secretary and or administrators maintain a list of enrolled students it makes sense to use this information to manage users on external servers This would allow a student once enrolled to have his her login to workstations email accounts and other school based
35. d for installation e tmp openadmin 4 xx iep contains the IEP special education website application This is the IEP site It contains a cgi folder for the perl scripts and a www folder for the html files e tmp openadmin 3 xx docs contains a Readme file telling where real docs are found Also contains the Gnu GPL license file e tmp openadmin 3 xx sis Contains a central office application to see all school en rollments search for students in all schools ethnic enrollments and also Google App Gmail controls for external servers Create a directory to hold the files for a school or several if it doesn t already exist mkdir opt openadmin We will assume that you are using opt openadmin Just substitute another filepath ie opt Library Webserver if OSX etc Copy the directory containing the main OA school site files into this new directory with a short single word for the school cp r tmp openadmin 3 xx school opt openadmin stpeter where stpeter is replaced with your school name if it s not St Peter You now have the main school files in place to run the 3 main St Peter websites main teacher parent Copy the school folder as many times as required to get one school folder for each school ie cp r tmp openadmin 4 xx school opt openadmin stmary This assumes a multi school installation Just do this once if a single school Check change the ownership and permissions on the files
36. d is the CPAN method The CPAN Comprehensive Perl Archive Network is a worldwide network of servers from which you can automaticallY download and install the modules The first time this is used you configure the server locations you want to use etc The defaults suggested work fine One syntax is as follows perl MCPAN e install PERLMO DULE where PERLMODULE is the name of the module to install such as FreezeThaw Case appears to be an issue If you can t find the right name go to the CPAN search site http search cpan org and have a look around If you are using the software in Saskatchewan and would like to communicate directly to the provincial SDS system then additional software and perl modules are required since we cre ate a secure HTTPS connection to the Sask Learning server and send and receive transactions in an XML format You will also need 1 OpenSSL from www openssl org SSL library required for https 2 Perl Modules a Bundle LWP which includes LWP UserAgent HTTP Headers and HTTP Request Common used to connect via https b Crypt SSLeay for SSL connections c XML Writer used to write the output XML d XML Writer String holds xml output in a string e Data UUID GD Graphics for the Reading Report Graphs from libgd org Then the supporting perl modules GD Graph We also need zlib and libjpg and also libpng if you d like Installation Over
37. ds filled with the correct information If there are more users in OA that don t have LDAP information since they don t exist on the file server 48 use the Fill button again to fill in any other LDAP user info automatically Once done all users staff and students will have LDAP info uid uidnumber gidnumber You can then use the Syncrhonize buttons for students and staff to get this LDAP user information into the LDAP server 49 Maintenance Multiple Servers In order to maintain multiple servers running Open Admin I have done the following 1 In the opt openadmin folder where all schools are located I have created an updates folder In this folder place a copy of the oacopy pl perl script from the utility directory of the download and modify them to copy files into all of your school folders add your school directories to the list An upcoming version will have to take into account modifications to a file that are specific to a school ie customization If those changed files are placed in a directory at the school level ie same level as etc and cgi instead of where they normally run and then a symbolic link added to the normal folder pointing to the custom folder a new oafscopy pl script could detect the presence of the symbolic link and not copy the update for this school although it should warn the user of this event When updating scripts you would copy the update s to this u
38. e and mypassword caadmin99 in the example are the user and password to get access to the program They do not have to exist on the system as a real user but are merely used by the scripts These are the user and password variables used in the etc admin conf file we will set up later And then 35 A new mysql identity called rouser read only user should be created that has only read sql select capability for that school s database This is particularly important for use with the publicly accessible parent page site that allows students and parents to view attendance report and gradebook marks Other scripts may use this as well as development of OpenAdmin continues grant select on myschool to rouser localhost identified by ropassword as in the example below on one line grant select on myschool to oauser localhost identified by oauser99 where rouser causer in the example and ropassword oauser99 in the example are the values also entered in the etc admin conf configuration file for rouser and ropass word Also enter a global user with read only cabability to be used in global conf as shown grant select on myschool to global localhost identified by global99 Exit MySql by entering exit or quit Be sure to write down all the names and passwords you just created You will need them again to configure OpenAdmin Now that you have a database name and users you are
39. e ht passwd program used to create entries in the auth_users stpeteradmin file Only these users will have access to the admin site Normally only a few passwords are used for these sites Read the man page for htpasswd program to see how to do this The teacher site normally uses database authentication but a file based authentication like the main admin site may be used also 2 Mysql Access Control user information is read from the staff table The file called apache2 teacherauth conf in the utility folder contains the directory commands 11 that may be copied in place of the teacher site directory commands in your school conf stpeter conf file This will allow teachers to log into the teacher site using their own userid and password The mod_auth_mysql module will also have to be installed and working in your Apache installation if not already installed Setup Log Files Next are the log files which record site activity The log files are very important to signal any problems or errors In the event of white screens with nothing on them Secretaries notice things like this I call them WSOD White Screens of Death Look at the Log Files Normally we create a logs symbolic link to point to where the log files are actually located ie var log apache2 This simplifies the query for problems tail logs stpetera error log view main site error log Also note that if doing updates you can use symbolic links in
40. e2 ssl certificate in usr sbin Create etc apache2 ssl with mkdir etc apache2 ssl Then the apache2 ssl certificate script should run from the commandline Finally restart apache2 with the following command etc init d apache2 restart Test your work from another computer on your network with https 192 168 1 50 If it does not work check the error message on the screen and the logs in var log apache2 Assuming that you do not also want an unsecured http connection to port 80 delete or comment out the Listen 80 line in etc apache2 ports Also delete the symbolic link 000 default in etc apache2 sites enabled with rm etc apache2 sites enabled 000 default Next setup your school s MySql database Setting Up the MySQL database Create a database for your school where the database name is myschool and the root MySQL password in the example is not the same as the system root password 0a99 which you established when installing the server mysqladmin create poa99 myschool Now create a non root password for this school by using the mysql grant command by first entering the MySQL client mysql poa99 u root myschool Then type on one line grant all on myschool to myuser localhost identified by mypassword like the following on one line of course grant all on myschool to oaadmin localhost identified by oaadmin99 where myschool is the name of the database and myuser caadmin in the exampl
41. ents 3 Configure the basic information into the LDAP server ie admin account base domain staff and student groups The other student and staff account information can then flow directly from OA into this server 4 Configure OA to communicate with the LDAP server IP address user and password info Installation 1 Install OpenLDAP 47 apt get install slapd Idap utils This is will also ask for the administrator password for the LDAP server Enter this and write it down somewhere This will be needed by OA in order to add and update users Also make sure that you have installed the required perl modules for the ldap scripts apt get install libnet ldap perl In the etc openldap ldap conf file ubuntu or etc Idap debian change BASE de MYSCHOOL dc MYDIVISION dc CA URI Idap MYSCHOOL MYDIVISION CA lIdap localhost database hdb suffix dc myschool dc mydivision dc ca rootdn en admin dc myschool dc mydiv also make sure rootpw is set and modules at the top are loaded core cosine inetorg person nis Turn off ability of users to change passwords in ldap since this is controlled at the OA level by secretaries They change password in OA and then update the LDAP server from there Now edit the ldap conf file in the OA etc directory of your installation and set the access information etc Sldap_maxuidnumber 10000 starting uidnumber value for fill script Sldap_student
42. eta table Cur rently this only applies to the student and staff tables studentwd and prereg tables are ignored and the settings apply to all 3 tables since they are identical structurally This script allows you to e Change the field name desciptor ifa lt gt tag exists in the template for it e Default values these will be the values available if the form entry type is a selec tion list The following rules apply for select entries Each entry must be separated from the other by a space Multiword entries they must be joined together with an underscore _ It will be removed before displaying Initial tilde characters force a blank at the start of a selection box e Formtypes text input boxes selection lists checkboxes textareas are allowed Checkboxes in edit screens become text input boxes since they are impossible to use to clear values e View size controls the size of the box for text input form types e Required controls whether this is a required field when enrolling students The process of customization table extension consists of the following steps 1 Create additional field definitions in a file update sql Use this file to extend the stu dent table mysql ppassword database lt update sql Copy and edit this file so that you also extend the studendwd and prereg tables in the same way updatewd sql up datepre sql 2 Edit the template folder to add the new field s to
43. figure the global conf file in opt openadmin global cd opt openadmin global nano global conf or vi global conf 37 6 Create the database tables Change directories to opt openadmin utility and enter the following to setup the database tables mysql poaadmin99 u oaadmin myschool lt blank sql 250 mysql5x Also do the same with meta sql to create the starting student and staff table values mysql poaadmin99 u oaadmin myschool lt meta sql If you don t get any errors you may be done You can check by looking in var lib mysql myschool to see if it is populated with a screen full of tables How to get started If everything is working you are now ready to enter dates teachers courses schedule and students in that order Then enroll students in classes See the administration manual section 6 and the user manual in the OpenAdmin documentation for details Files available The following files are all included in the archive oasslfiles tgz found in the utility direc tory Current versions are also maintained at http cathedralsoul us oafiles Use the command tar xzpf oasslfiles tgz and they will be extracted into your current path directory oasslfiles i e oasslfiles which it will create if it doesn t exist To use edit the files as may be necessary for your own situation and copy them into their respective directories etc network interfaces etc hosts etc apache2 mods available dir conf etc
44. file and change the name from student to studentall At the bottom of this file copy the identical section of the studentall sql file replacing the MyISAM section with the merge table information Now drop the studentall table from your database drop table studentall and create the new one mysqldump d ppassword u user database student lt student sql the student sq file now changed is actually the file used to create the new version of studentall You are now done 42 Security This section deals with the issues of making sure that your school data remains intact and accessible only to authorized individuals Web Security Currently both the Teacher and Admin sites are protected by basic authentication as out lined in the installation section This method of authentication sends passwords as clear text over the wire The parent site is freely accessible but protected by passwords passed to the running script This could be improved by moving to Digest Authentication which is a step up in security and doesn t send clear text over the wire The configuration setup for this is outlined in the Apache documentation The next step is to add full https SSL support to the server and use certificates to provide banking level protection to the transactions These instructions are now provided by the current installation and are written by Andy Figueroa Another entire area of concern is the use of passwords Ac
45. g postgresql watch case SQL Syntax settings for mysql or Pg Ssql default NULL Change to DEFAULT for Pg Ssgl like like Change to ILIKE for Pg case insensitive searches Language Settings Slangcode en Slanguage English 15 Full Text Name of School and Address Sschoolname YOURSCHOOL Sschooladdrl Addr1 Sschooladdr2 Addr2 Sschooladdr3 Addr3 Sschoolcity City Sschoolprov Province Sschoolpcode Pcode Sschoolphone 306 123 4567 Sschoolfax 306 123 4568 Sschoolemail contact YOURSCHOOL ca CGI areas normal file paths cgi is main admin tchcgidir is teacher These are the pathnames ON YOUR SERVER not part of the URL Scgidir opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL cgi Stchcgidir opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL tcgi Sparcgidir opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL pcgi CGI URL s for self referencing scripts part of Apache configuration not server filesystem Scgiurl cgi bin Stegiurl cgi bin Picture Directories and URL s dir is actual filesystem pathname url is apache config Spicdir opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL admin pic big Spicdirurl pic big Picture area for thumbnails Stndir opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL admin pic sm Stndirurl pic sm Full path to download folders used by scri
46. his is a new install you may get an error If so you probably haven t initialized the database properly See the Postgres instuctructions for running initdb These instructions assume you are running PostgreSQL as the user postgres and that user is also the db administrator If you don t understand the preceding sentence please read the PostgreSQL documentation that came with your binaries or can be found on the PostgreSQL site 1 First if you haven t installed the plpgsql language do so createlang U postgres plpgsql templatel 2 Then if you want better security create a user for openadmin with a password createuser U postgres P openadmin Allow the user to create new databases but decline creating new users The U allows you to specify the user P prompts for a password If you don t want your user to have a password bad idea omit the P It s also a good idea to add a password to your postgres admin user Note if your are refused a connection to your database in 1 or 2 above check your pg hba conf file and change the lines local all postgres ident sameuser local all all ident sameuser host all all 127 0 0 1 255 255 255 255 ident sameuser to local all postgres trust local all all trust host all all 127 0 0 1 255 255 255 255 trust and restart your PostgreSQL server 3 Create the database let s assume you chose openadmin as your username above createdb U openadmin myschool 25 4 Now
47. it GET POST gt require valid user lt Limit gt lt Directory gt lt VirtualHost gt Some key points being DocumentRoot The path to your html files for this virtual site ServerName the name the virtual site should be identified as ScriptAlias where your perl pl scripts are located for this site The server side includes are turned on to process the main admin shtml file so that it will corrrectly display the current date This is done above with the Options Includes This is also true of the teacher site to allow the Apache user to be seen You can test this configuration with the Apache controller apache2ctl configtest You may have to include it s full path typically usr sbin apachectl It should respond with an OK If not fix the problem and try again If all is well then you may restart the web server One method is apache2ctl graceful Setup Access Control There are 2 methods to control access to these sites 1 File Access Control files contain userid and password information that control access to particular site The password file s that control access to the virtual site s are created using the ht passwd program Currently this is only the main admin site since the teacher site can be configured to use the values in the staff table for authentication authorization A folder named auth_users must be created in etc httpd or etc apache2 if it doesn t al ready exist and th
48. ite based on that name The conf folder in the Include statement is added since the include file is located relative to DocumentRoot described below Examples of this external file is found in the utility directory and are called apache2 xxxx conf Here is an example of an apache2 conf include file for St Peter School It assumes that the NameVirtualHost 80 has been placed in the main httpd conf file before the Include statement that loads this school configuration file It also includes teacher authentica tion from staff table rather than file Start of Admin Site lt VirtualHost 80 gt ServerAdmin root localhost DocumentRoot opt openadmin stpeter admin ServerName stpeter admin mysd ca Make shtml files be parsed AddType text html shtml AddHandler server parsed shtml DirectoryIndex index shtml ErrorLog var log httpd spa error log CustomLog var log httpd spa access log common ScriptAlias cgi bin opt openadmin stpeter cgi A Directory opt openadmin stpeter admin gt Options Includes turns on Server Side Includes SST to parse date and user in teacher AuthType Basic AuthName Admin AuthUserFile etc httpd auth_users stpeteradmin lt Limit GET POST gt require valid user lt Limit gt lt Directory gt A Directory opt openadmin stpeter cgi gt AuthType Basic AuthName Admin AuthUserFile etc httpd auth_users stpeteradmin lt Lim
49. ition Sq positron So post tion Sg_position Sg_position Sg_position Sg_position Sg_position Sg_position Special Education Teacher Principal Vice Principal Secretary Librarian Community School Room Custodian OINHNAOBWNE O ll Needed by perl scripts to loading this config file 1 Other Configuration Files in the etc directory 1 repcard conf a configuration file to control report card printing Please read this file over carefully so that your report card prints correctly This has lots of comments in it to explain the different features which include column spacing show averages show homeroom teachers show school logo number of terms to show term descriptors per grade evaluation keys student placement text for year end report cards Still missing show per subject attendance 2 image conf a configuration file to control the student staff images It mainly contains limits on filesize uploads and resolution of created student images 3 schedule conf a scheduling system configuration file Currently it only contains the period start and end times during the day 4 transcript conf a configuration file for the transcript system 5 gbook conf gradebook configuration file The special education IEP Individual Education Program application has a similar script with common settings There is also a global configuration file nominally lo
50. l are write able by the webserver user the user the webserver runs as so that scripts which run with the same UID can place created files there for downloading mentioned above A background script running daily ie a cron job should be set to empty out these folders Step 3 Configure the Webserver These are directions to set up the Apache webserver If using other webserver software you re on your own Look for the virtual website documentation for that server It should have name based virtual site capability rather than IP based virtual sites although either method could be used There are several basic variations on configuration depending on your version of Linux 1 Debian Ubuntu In these distros the Apache configuration files are located in etc apache2 In the utility folder of your download there is a file called apache2 debian conf Edit this file and search and replace the SCHOOLNAMEFE text into the folder name of your school ie stpeter As well change the ServerName entries to the domain names for your websites This should provide a good starting point for your school sites Copy and Rename this file into etc apache2 sites available Then create a symbolic link in the etc apache sites enabled folder to point to this file Alternatively just copy the file directly into sites enabled 2 Red Hat and Friends In these distros the Apache configuration files are located in etc httpd In the utili
51. lated so that they can be changed and new templates created with the template generator Staff reports are also template based This is made possible by 1 Templates files located in a template directory hold layouts for student addition and editing student search and student viewing These templates are loaded by scripts to enable editing of the student table s student studentwd withdrawn students and prereg preregistered students 2 A Metadata table a table storing information about the structure of the staff and student tables in OA There are additional fields in each record that are used to control form element length and type default values etc This information can modified by using the meta scripts edit and update on the Eoy page Extending Student Demographics As aresult of this additional fields may be added to the end of the student tables All 3 student tables must remain identical since records are moved directly from one table to another during withdrawal re enrollment etc Fields should not be removed from the current student table format since older scripts may depend on this organization The templates are then updated to add these additional field s to the templates The final part of the process would include possibly some additional custom reports that support these new fields OA really requires a report generator but that must lie in the future The following scripts are now template aware and
52. lity sql folder It is inserted into an iep database or whatever you would like to name it created with mysqladmin as above The central office application also requires a database but only for the reading sys tem default values and the email groups system if using Google Educational domains It mainly queries all of the schools and iep if it exists databases for data 13 Your database setup it now complete Step 5 Converting Student Data The student information can be uploaded from a CSV spreadsheet file using a new import script on the Export page of the main admin site called Import Student Records CSV This is the easiest approach Simply save your spreadsheet student information as a CSV file first There is now a matching script that can also import staff information The following information outlines how to do student data imports using another utility script studentupload pl from the command line It is more complex but is more powerful since it can also munge the data and rearrange information within fields etc The import script studentupload p1 must be edited so that what the script expects matches the input file format This kind of file format can be exported from various spreadsheet and database programs If starting from scratch it might be easiest to quickly type in required student information into a spreadsheet and then import that either with studentupload pl or via the web import script on
53. min stores information including the uid userid uidnumber number of the user account and gid primary group number that the user belongs to This information is used to create entries in the LDAP server for each student and staff member In turn this directory information can be used by other applications to authenticate the users This includes library systems online learning applications etc LDAP Scripts There are several scripts that OA provides e Synchronize Student syncstudent pl This script is used to synchronize students in OA with student entries in the directory server It is used to add students from OA into the directory or remove them from the directory It will have no effect on students enrolled in OA It is simply used to keep the directory up to date with OA as students are enrolled and withdrawn from OA The first screen will ask whether to add or delete as well as whether the next screen should have entries Checked ie selected If you select Add the script will compare users in both systems OA and LDAP and find students not found in LDAP but present in OA You will see a list of those students with checkboxes Select ie check those you wish to add to the LDAP directory server Clicking Continue will add them to the directory If you select Delete all entries in the directory are loaded and you may first select by clicking checkbox and then delete the student entries by clicking on
54. nadmin stpeter padmin for St Peter School parent site opt openadmin stpeter pcgi As well as these 6 folders there are 3 additional folders for e Configuration these values are stored in the etc folder e Templates these templates for reports and editing are stored in the templates folder e Libraries function libraries used by scripts in cgi tegi and pcgi are located in lib Together these 9 folders make up the Open Admin files for a school There is also a global conf configuration file listing all of the schools in a school division consortium etc if more than one installation If not then only the version of this file found in the school s etc directory need be used If more than one school installation is done the global conf file should be placed in opt openadmin global so that all school installations may read it and share data This is so that withdrawn students from one school can be easily enrolled in another ie feeder schools Even single schools have to add their database name to this file This is one of the installation problems people have had in the past The location of this directory in set in the admin conf file and would normally be your schools etc folder by default If you are running the IEP Special Education site you can install those files in opt openadmin iep admin for the special needs website opt openadmin iep cgi Program Requirements One of the design goals of
55. ocess in this release The usual process is Move the old version out of the way and insert the new version I would suggest the excellent file management tool called Midnight Commander mc based on a much earlier piece of software called Norton Commander You can mark files with the insert key and move copy files with F6 F5 keys between alternate panes of files e Move Rename the old version to for example stpeterold e Create a new directory of the same name and copy the new folders of OA 4 75 school into this stpeter folder normally opt openadmin stpeter e Change the ownership of the new stpeter folder so that it matches that of the UID GID that the web server is running as Copy the configuration files from the old etc folder into the new etc folder Copy the admin conf and rename the new one as admin conf 475 if not extant Copy the studentnumber file which contains the next available student number the term file which contains the current term and the receiptnumber file if present which contains the next receipt number for the fees system Copy the repcard conf file report card system to the new etc folder from the old etc folder if changed while renaming the new ones with a 475 ending Do the same for any other conf files that have been changed in previous install Look at file dates Edit the old admin conf and the admin conf 475 Copy the changes at the top of the new 4 75 file and
56. ory var www to our installed OpenAdmin in opt openadmin where openadmin is an existing symbolic link to the current installation cd var www s opt openadmin openadmin s opt openadmin myschool admin oaadmin s oaadmin js js s oaadmin images favicon ico favicon ico s opt openadmin myschool tadmin oateacher s opt openadmin myschool padmin oastudent eee el A ee ee ee es A E F F F F F F 5 5H 5 55 95 Change to the opt openadmin myschool etc directory and edit the admin conf file cd opt openadmin myschool etc Use your favorite editor to configure admin conf nano admin conf orvi admin conf The first 3 entries of the admin conf configuration file following the added section at the top for release 2 50 are for user password and database These were established when we set up the database section above Although many of the entries changes that are needed are specific to a particular school others are common to single site SSL operation A model is included at the end of this guide All of the entries are important but most important are those providing paths to OpenAdmin s files When finished with admin conf change to the myschool tadmin directory and edit the index shtml file changing all the references to cgi bin to tcgi bin cd opt openadmin myschool tadmin Such a global search and replace is easily done in vi as follows vi index shtml s cgi bin tcgi bin g LZ Also edit and con
57. pdate folder and use oa copy to update all of the other schools on the same server If there are multiple scripts they can then be tarred zipped into a single archive file This file is then copied to the other server using scp I use date archive names i e OA20101010a tgz for the first archive of October 10th 2010 On the other server move the archive file into the opt openadmin updates folder un compress it and then use oacopy to update all of the other schools This can be done quite quickly for small numbers of servers In the Notes folder mentioned above I place notes to myself about particular settings in each school any customizations for any school etc This is particularly important for student numbers since I assign each school a particular range of student numbers which is stored in the cgi entry studentnumber file I use a large range to that this setting would last at least 6 years or better At that point a centralized per division routine can be used to assign division student numbers For now this method of storing the next available student number in a file is simple and reliable 50 Ubuntu 10 04 Server Install Steps to take to setup a server for Open Admin OA use 10 11 12 Install the base server package Do not pick any extra addons unless you need this server for something else We will add the required packages by apt get and thus mini mize the number of bells and whistles
58. pts that generate webpage reports etc also use the same stylesheet so that this one file can control the overall look of the application Currently this has only been done to a very limited degree to make sure browser compatibility doesn t become an issue As browser support continues this will evolve The HTML pages are basically separate from the scripting so that the look of all school sites can be changed extensively if desired by simply changing the html files and the CSS files The only issue will be to maintain those elements in the CSS files used by the scripts to control report rendering etc As well within the stylesheets are settings to it hide the religion fields in the student table and also the high school functions in the SDS update section of the export page Step 7 Getting Started on the Browser Side From this point on secretaries may take over if desired The following functions are on the Start End of Year page There is more about this in the User Documentation under Getting Started 1 Add your teachers and other staff members For a teacher in a split situation teaching 2 grades in the same classroom add those 2 grades into the grade area but with the same homeroom value For jobsharing teachers add each one separately with the same homeroom In a middle years or high school or with any subject specialists who only teach certain subjects such as music or foreign languages the homeroom and grade field
59. pts to copy files there Actual pathname ON YOUR SERVER Sdownloaddir opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL admin download Stchdownloaddir opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL tadmin download Web location of download put into URL Apache configured values Part of the URL Swebdownloaddir download Stchwebdownloaddir download CSS File locations and name Scss admin css Stchess tadmin css 16 Sparcss padmin css Location of global config file to integrate school databases Actual filesystem location of the file ON YOUR SERVER Sglobdir opt openadmin global Path for PDFLatex Executable Spdflatex usr bin pdflatex Administrator Contact Info used by scripts for error contacts Sadminname ADMIN Sadminemail ADMIN YOURBOX Return Address address of school or secretary administrator Currently used by Sask SDS code for enrollment resolution Sreturnaddress SECRETARY YOURSCHOOL Appended to top of generated HTML Sdoctype lt DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC W3C DTD HTML 4 01 Transitional EN http www w3 org TR html4 loose dtd gt Character Type Schartype lt meta http equiv Content Type content text html charset ISO 8 CSS Files Webspace Links Sg_maincss lt link type text css rel stylesheet href admin css gt Sg_tchcess lt link type text
60. resources added from this information Add External Server User Accounts This system consists of 2 parts 1 Scripts to export the user information ie name student number and password and or account changes reset password lock or unlock account to an openadmin account on an external server 2 A script run periodically by cron on the external server to take this user information and add missing user accounts on the external server or reset password or lock unlock the account The steps in the process are 1 On the external server create an openadmin user account This will be the account into whose home directory the OA user file will be copied Also create a students group to which the added user accounts will be added 2 On this server place the adduser_cron5 pl script into a location such as opt openadmin userman and make sure it is executable Then create a cron job to execute this script periodically once every 10 or 15 minutes or as desired This script will check for the presence of the user file or reset file and if found add new users and reset values Typically the cron job is added into the root file in var spool cron as a line like 0 10 20 30 40 50 opt openadmin usermanage adduser cron5 pl Restart the cron service so it will read and check every 10 minutes in this example 3 On the Open Admin server edit the opt openadmin YOURSCHOOL etc usermanage conf and change the IP address
61. s are nor mally left blank The teacher is grouped with students by their subject enrollment in his her class 2 Enter school dates that school is not in session Monday to Friday This is located on the Start End of Year page also This includes any school holidays within the year and teacher inservices etc The sys tem automatically assumes that school is not in session on Saturday Sunday This should now correctly do attendance calculations etc The DayInCycle setting is used 23 to mark those days that actually count in schools using different types of cycles ie 6 day cycles for classes even though the students may not be in class ie due to teacher professional development You are now ready to enter attendance discipline etc 24 Install Appendix A Setting up the PostgreSQL Database Courtesy of David Bandel Note July 2007 This section hasn t been updated in a while so some options may have changed etc You re on your own with this since I have no test versions running pgsql any more Ensure you have installed the PostgreSQL server and associated tools including plpgsq Most distributions include PostgreSQL but if not you can probably find binaries at the Post greSQL site http www postgresql org Make sure Postgres is running and starts on bootup If running you should find a postmaster daemon ps ax grep postmaster If the postmaster process is not running start it If t
62. site Activate the SSI module if you desired to see the current date on your website use a2enmod include Use apache2ctl graceful to gracefully restart apache Restart apache and you should now have your website s Create the database for your school and then populate it mysqladmin pPASSWORD create SCHOOLDATABASE mysql pPASSWORD SCHOOLDATABASE lt blank475 sql The blank475 sql file is found in the download in the utility sql directory You can also use metaupdate pl to populate the meta table or use the metaXXX sql file to populate this with useful defaults 51 13 Now add the Perl modules needed by the scripts to run correctly These are found in the module475 txt file also in the utility directory Install the modules where possible using apt get install LIBRARYNAME Otherwise the CPAN method is perl MCPAN e install LIBRARYNAME You should now have a functional server for Open Admin Any problems please contact me Les Richardson openadmin gmail com 52
63. te a non root password for this school by using the mysql grant command First go into the mysql client by typing mysql prootpassword u root myschool 12 Then type the following to create an entry so that you may use your own user and pass word to access the database grant all on myschool to myuser localhost identified by mypassword where myschool is the name of the database and myuser and mypassword are the user and password to get access to the program They do not have to exist on the system as a real user but are merely used by the scripts These are the user and password variables in the admin conf file You can now use this userid and password to access your database A new mysql identity rouser read only user should be created that has only read sql select capability for that school s database This is particularly important for use with the publicly accessible parent page site that allows students and parents to view attendance report and gradebook marks Other scripts will use this as well grant select on myschool to rouser localhost identified by ropassword where rouser and ropassword are the values also entered in the admin conf configuration file for rouser and ropassword A utility called mysql_setpermission can also be used to set access control like the grant command Another mysql identity which I call global with read capabilities for all of the school databases should
64. teacher site spp mysd ca 142 165 5 25 parent site Using hosts files will help hide the virtual sites to some degree since there will not be DNS records for them However they have to individually maintained Also in terms of security avoid placing links to admin sites on school web pages security by obscurity The next step up in security is the use of SSL to give encrypted connections to from websites The DNS System The webserver is setup for several virtual OA websites You must setup your DNS records on your DNS server to match These DNS names are set to point to the same server 26 Let s assume that you are setting up the webserver and DNS for the Tiny School Division and they have a registered domain name for mysd ca and a server located at 142 165 5 25 called gandalf You would setup a DNS record to point to the server gandalf IN A 142 165 5 25 and also several aliases that also point to the same server spa IN CNAME gandalf St Peter School Office Administration spt IN CNAME gandalf St Peter School Teacher Admin spp IN CNAME gandalf St Peter School Parent Site bruna IN CNAME gandalf Bruno School Office Administration brunt IN CNAME gandalf Bruno School Teacher Admin brunp IN CNAME gandalf Bruno School Parent Site iep IN CNAME gandalf Special Education Student Site central IN CNAME gandalf Central Office Site Even though you are going to the same computer
65. the Export page Run it assuming your data file is mydata csv with studentupload pl mydata csv This should correctly put the students into the student table in the school database In the event of errors simply empty the student table and try again You can do this with mysql pmypassword u myuser myschool Once in the MySql client enter the SQL command to empty the student table without delet ing it delete from student and try try again It will take a couple of times at least to get the data in a format that you like or will accept You can also edit the CSV file in a spreadsheet before importing it here to quickly get the data in the form that you would like Once you have imported student data either using the simple import button or the complex studentupload script set the etc studentnumber file to the student number for the next stu dent enrolled as mentioned above This will ensure that once the secretar y ies start adding students the student numbers are assigned starting with the next available number Step 6 Configuration OA is configured by editing configuration files located in the etc folder of each school The main configuration file is called admin conf and is read by all scripts from main admin cgi teacher tcgi and parent pcgi Setting correct values is very important since it affects all program operations 14 New options are now placed at the top of the file making it easier
66. ty folder of your download there is a file called apache2 redhat conf Edit this file and search and replace the SCHOOLNAMEFE text into the folder name of your school ie stpeter As well change the ServerName entries to the domain names for your websites This should provide a good starting point for your school sites Copy this file into etc httpd conf and rename it with a school name ie stpeter conf Then edit the httpd conf file in the same folder At the bottom of the file where Vir tual Sites are normally configured add a line Include conf stpeter conf where stpeter conf is the name of the file renamed above The text NameVirtualHost 80 should also be added above the Include if not present somewhere above the Include line This turns on virtual hosting 3 Other Distros More General Instructions The webserver settings are located in a file called httpd conf This file is normally located in the server s etc apache2 or etc httpd directories The virtual websites are normally at the bottom of this file External config files are the easiest way to configure OA and can be pulled in with include statements in the httpd conf It would look like NameVirtualHost 80 Include conf myhttpd school conf Include conf another school conf The NameVirtualHost directive turns on name based virtual hosting so that web browsers can send a site name in an http header and the webserver will provide a s
67. uired to access the database put in the right navigational links etc Three important entries of the admin conf configuration file are for user database and password The user and password would be set when installing the database More on this below The fourth entry dbtype selects whether you are using MySQL mysql or PosgreSQL Pg The rest of the entries in this file should be obvious from the comments around them More on this below also There is also a file called studentnumber located in the school etc folder that stores the next available student number This should be set once students have been imported into this system It stores the next available student number For small standalone schools a 3 digit starting number would be a good choice ie 100 This is the default Other files in this folder term receiptnumber must also be writeable by the webserver user If you are installing multiple copies of openadmin for division schools then blocks of numbers should be set aside for each school There is currently no checking for overlap of numbers so give each lots of room This will give a unique student number to each student in the division thus enabling easy data transfers and enabling use of the shared IEP system which require unique student numbers for all students in that system and still requiring access back to their home school database Make sure that the download folders in admin and tadmin for each schoo
68. view The installation process consists of the following steps Install Linux Copy the files Configure the Webserver Add the Data to the database Import Student Data Edit the Configuration NO NM A WO N e Get Started on the Browser Side Step 1 Install Linux Download the latest Ubuntu Server or Debian Installation or your Linux distribution of choice Make sure that you add Apache Perl MySql or PosgreSQL and TeXLive Please see the Ubuntu Debian Installation instructions If creating an Open Admin only server then a minimal lightweight installation would be a good choice The idea is to create a server appliance that needs only minimal if any manage ment As well only a minimal hardware platform will be required if only a few schools are running on it 6 Step 2 Copy the Files 1 Download the latest Open Admin version from http richtech ca openadmin into tmp or some other commonly used file location If you download to your workstation desktop you can copy to your server using a secure copy program like scp or simply copy it to a flash drive and copy onto the server in this way Untar the download tar xvzf openadmin 4 xx tgz This will create tmp openadmin 4 xx with e tmp openadmin 4 xx school containing the main files required for each school site e tmp openadmin 4 xx utility contains files needed for installation These first 2 are the main directories neede

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