How to install Orchestra register

These instructions should mostly seem fairly familiar if you have ever installed a web application written in PHP before.

System requirements

Orchestra register needs to be installed on a web server that can execute PHP code, and that can connect to a MySQL database. As far as I am aware, it does not require any special PHP modules. The minimum required versions are:

I'm afraid those requirements are currently rather vague. If you discover that Orchestra register does, or does not, work with particular versions of PHP or MySQL, it would be helpful if you could let us know.

Creating a database

you need to create a database for Orchestra register to store its data in. Below I will assume that the database is called registerdb.

I would also recommend that you create a database user that is only allowed to access that database. Whichever user account you plan to use to let the Orchestra register system connect to the database needs to have all privileges (except for GRANT OPTION) over that database. In what follows I will assume you are connecting to the database using username registeruser with password secret!.

Getting the code

You need to download all the Orchestra register code, and put it somewhere where your web server can execute it. For example, in a typical Apache install, you might put the code in /var/www/register.

How you do that is up to you. You could download a zip file of the code, uncompress it, and then upload it using FTP. Alternatively, you could use a command like

git clone git://github.com/timhunt/Orchestra-register.git register

from the command line in /var/www. The latter method would make it easier to update to future releases when the time comes.

Create config.php

In the place where you put the the Orchestra register code, you need to create a file called config.php that contains the information needed to connect to the database, and a couple of other values.

The easiest way to create config.php is to edit make a copy of the example file config-example.php, and then edit that copy. You need to fill in the database information, the URL that points to this instance of Orchestra register, and a 'password salt'.

Password salt is used for extra security when storing passwords in the database. You should set it to a 40-character random value. There are useful online scripts that can help you generate such a value, for example This one provided by the Moodle project.

Using the example values from above, a config.php file would look something like:

<?php

$config->dbhost = 'localhost';
$config->dbuser = 'registeruser';
$config->dbpass = 'secret!';
$config->dbname = 'registerdb';

$config->wwwroot = 'http://example.com/register/';

$config->pwsalt = 'J1sb132ZkIouCNPEAek95ZRDuEUZy9ofIp65U15W';

Prepare some initial data

When Orchestra register installs itself, there the option to automatically load the list of sections, parts, players and events. To do this you need to edit the files in the data folder. There is a reasonable default set of parts and sections already set up. If you want to automatically create players or events, you will need to start with a copy of users-example.txt renamed to users.txt (or a copy of events-example.txt renamed to events.txt).

Allow Orchestra register to install itself

Now everything is ready, so you just need to go the the URL where you put Orchestra register (http://example.com/register/ in the example above). You will see a form requesting details of the first user account to create. This account will be created, and made a adminstrator, as part of the installation process.

When you submit that form, Orchestra register will install itself. That is, it will create the necessary database tables, and populate some of them with data.

Once the installation is complete, you will see the register screen with all the attendance information blank. The system is now ready for use.

Customising the appearance

If you want to adjust how Orchestra register looks, you can create a new CSS file styles-extra.css in the same folder as styles.css. This will then be linked ot as well as styles.css, and you can put your own style rules in there.

See also