[Koha] Introduction and questions about defaults configuration

Wed May 4 06:45:03 NZST 2016

Note: I think I got most of this right, but corrections from others on the list are welcome. I know a lot more about Koha than I did five years ago, but not everything.

Hi Peter,

Welcome to Koha! I hope you'll find it interesting. I'm running Koha in a small medical library (14,000 or so items including journals, monthly circulation in the high two figures). I have a test system running on an old computer, which sounds a lot like what you're looking for. It's part of our hospital intranet and inaccessible by the outside world. 

Here's the relevant part of /etc/koha/koha-sites.conf

	## Apache virtual hosts creation variables
	#
	# Please note that the URLs are built like this:
	# OPAC:  http://<OPACPREFIX><INSTANCE NAME><OPACSUFFIX><DOMAIN>:<OPACPORT>
	# STAFF: http://<INTRAPREFIX><INSTANCE NAME><INTRASUFFIX><DOMAIN>:<INTRAPORT>
	DOMAIN=".myDNSname.org"
	INTRAPORT="8080"
	INTRAPREFIX=""
	INTRASUFFIX="-intra"
	OPACPORT="80"
	OPACPREFIX=""
	OPACSUFFIX="

I don't have access to our DNS files, so I left the DOMAIN at the default. The disadvantage of this is that you have to get to Koha by its IP address (Let's pretend it's 192.168.5.10. Your router can probably assign static IP addresses.) instead of something easy (koha-test.org). The advantage is that you don't need to mess around configuring a domain name. I think you can do it by editing the HOSTS table on each computer on your network, but I've never gotten around to trying that.

INTRAPORT is what the config file calls the staff interface. I think you can give it a name like koha-test.org-intra (that's what INTRASUFFIX is), but that's another thing I haven't done yet. I found it a lot simpler just to assign it a port number (8080) and get there by going to http://192.168.5.10:8080. Port 80 is the HTTP default port, so the OPACPORT goes there and all you have to type to get there is http://192.168.5.10. 

You also have to make sure the apache server is listening to both ports. This is what my /etc/apache2/ports.conf file looks like:

	# If you just change the port or add more ports here, you will likely also
	# have to change the VirtualHost statement in
	# /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

	Listen 80
	Listen 8080

	<IfModule ssl_module>
		Listen 443
	</IfModule>

	<IfModule mod_gnutls.c>
		Listen 443
	</IfModule>

	# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet

You also have to change 000-default.conf, but my setup has three instances of Koha running on the same box and I don't remember how to change 000-default.conf in a normal system. If the list or Google can't help, I can poke around to see if I can figure it out. I think that if the default apache web page comes up instead of Koha, it's a problem with 000-default.conf.

That being said, and as much as I hate to say it, Koha isn't for every library. Most of my colleagues on the medical librarians' list recommend LibraryThing for small libraries with limited technical and cataloging skills. It's free for the first 200 books, more for $10 per year or $25 for life, and available in quite a few languages, including Welsh.

Fred King
Medical Librarian, MedStar Washington Hospital Center
fred.king at medstar.net
202-877-6670
ORCID 0000-0001-5266-0279

Where’s the diastolic? Everybody ignores the poor little diastolic.
--[Attending Physician]

-----Original Message-----
From: Koha [mailto:koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Peter Bradley
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2016 8:37 AM
To: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
Subject: [Koha] Introduction and questions about defaults configuration

Hi,

I'm a retired librarian interested in some local community library projects.

To this end I'm interested in being able to suggest Free/OSS library 
automation solutions to groups of people who may not normally think 
about using IT solutions because they either consider them to be too 
costly or too complicated.

So what I'm planning to do is to set up a demonstration system on a 
redundant desktop box I've got kicking about the house.  This will be a 
local system (i.e. will not have contact to the wider network) and so 
far I've got as far as installing Debian and Koha (via the Debian 
packages).  MySQL is also installed.

I do have a couple of questions, if I may.

Having got as far as I mention above, the documentation then talks about 
configuring the defaults.  There appear to be two: DOMAIN and 
INTRASUFFIX.  What would I set DOMAIN to, if I wanted other computers on 
the local network to connect to Koha.  Presumably I could always use 
'localhost' for connections from the server itself and the server's NAT 
address (192.168.x.x) from other boxes, or have I misunderstood?  But a 
nice domain name would be more impressive and less scary to the people I 
have in mind, so how would I go about setting that?

And finally, what is INTRASUFFIX and what should I set it to?  It means 
absolutely nothing to me.

Many thanks for any help.

Peter
-- 
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