Install on Ubuntu

These instructions describe a Linux/Apache/MariaDB/PHP installation path for OpenCATS 0.11.1. Commands may need small adjustments for your Ubuntu release and package repositories.

Install MariaDB and Apache

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client apache2 unzip wget
sudo mysql_secure_installation

MariaDB is the documented database family for OpenCATS. Current CI Docker tests use MariaDB 10.7.

Install PHP 8.4 and extensions

OpenCATS 0.11.1 requires PHP 8.4.1 or later within PHP 8. Project CI tests PHP 8.4.1 and PHP 8.5. If your Ubuntu release does not provide PHP 8.4 packages directly, use a trusted package source such as the Ondrej Surý PHP PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php8.4 php8.4-cli php8.4-fpm php8.4-mysql php8.4-gd php8.4-soap php8.4-ldap php8.4-xml php8.4-curl php8.4-mbstring php8.4-zip
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Depending on your Apache configuration, you may use PHP-FPM or an Apache PHP module. Confirm that the web server is actually using PHP 8.4.1 or later before running the installer.

Optional document parsing utilities

Install these if you want OpenCATS to extract text from common resume and document formats:

sudo apt-get install antiword poppler-utils html2text unrtf

After installation, verify or update the parser paths in config.php if your distribution installs binaries in non-standard locations.

Create the MariaDB database and user

Log in to MariaDB as root:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database and user. Replace databasepassword with a strong unique password.

CREATE DATABASE opencats CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
CREATE USER 'opencats'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'databasepassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON opencats.* TO 'opencats'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

These database credentials are separate from your OpenCATS application login.

Download OpenCATS

Download the latest prepared full release archive from GitHub Releases. For OpenCATS 0.11.1:

cd /var/www/html
sudo wget https://github.com/opencats/OpenCATS/releases/download/v0.11.1/opencats-v0.11.1-full.zip
sudo unzip opencats-v0.11.1-full.zip -d opencats

The full release archive includes production Composer dependencies. If a future release asset name differs, use the exact filename shown on GitHub Releases.

Installing from source instead

If you clone the repository or download source code instead of using a prepared full release archive, install Composer dependencies:

cd /var/www/html/opencats
composer install --no-dev

Use --no-dev for production-style installs.

Configure ownership and permissions

The web server user must own or be able to write OpenCATS runtime directories:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/opencats
sudo chmod 750 /var/www/html/opencats
sudo chmod 770 /var/www/html/opencats/attachments
sudo chmod 770 /var/www/html/opencats/upload
sudo chmod 770 /var/www/html/opencats/temp

If you restore from a GUI backup file, also create and make a restore/ directory writable by the web server user.

Start the installer

Open your browser at your OpenCATS URL, for example:

http://your-server/opencats/

If an INSTALL_BLOCK file exists before first install, remove it so the installer can run:

sudo rm /var/www/html/opencats/INSTALL_BLOCK

After installation, confirm INSTALL_BLOCK exists so the installer is not exposed again.

Now continue to Run the Installer.