The first step when installing or upgrading ATutor is to check if the minimum requirements are met. The following describes those checks.
The Case Sensitivity check verifies that file names were not converted to lower-case during the extraction process. This is not an issue on case-insensitive operating systems like MS Windows, but is an issue on case-sensative ones like Linux.
The ATutor development and testing processes are done primarily on Apache 1.3 and Apache 2 (using pre-forking), and as such we strongly recommend them for production environments. ATutor has been successfully installed on other web servers, including, Zeus, lighttpd, Abyss, Zazou Mini Web Server, Microsoft IIS, and Jana-Server.
The web server can be configured with SSL for added security or to use a non-standard port and ATutor will function without modification.
ATutor is written in the PHP language. The PHP configuration file contains many configuration settings that can be changed. The following are the minimum requirements needed to install and use ATutor.
Additionally, the following php.ini configuration settings are recommended:
display_errors = Off arg_separator.input = ";&" register_globals = Off magic_quotes_gpc = Off magic_quotes_runtime = Off allow_url_fopen = On allow_url_include = Off register_argc_argv = Off zlib.output_compression = On session.use_trans_sid = 0
Currently ATutor only supports the MySQL database. MySQL 4.1.10 or higher is required.
A database user account with database creation privileges is required if your database does not already exist. That same user will then need table creation privileges for the chosen database. See the MySQL chapter How the Privilege System Works for additional information.
ATutor makes use of many new HTML features that are only supported in recent web browsers. Though ATutor is designed to function effectively in older browsers we strongly recommend using the latest version of your favorite browser. We recommend FireFox for either Windows, *nix or Mac OS X.