README.md

# Mahara Readme

Mahara is an open source ePortfolio system. An ePortfolio is a type of
web application that allows users to record and share evidence of lifelong learning.

For more information about Mahara and ePortfolios, see the Mahara user manual's
introduction chapter:

// TODO: Update the link closer to the release date.

 * http://manual.mahara.org/en/15.04/intro/introduction.html#what-is-mahara

# SUPPORT

The best ways of obtaining support are:

 * http://manual.mahara.org - the Mahara online user manual
 * https://mahara.org/forums - the Mahara project community forums
 * https://wiki.mahara.org - the Mahara wiki
 * #mahara on freenode (IRC) - live chat with other users and developers

# INSTALLATION

For detailed installation instructions, see the installation page on our wiki:

 * https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Installing_Mahara

The basic installation instructions are:

 1. Create a Postgres or MySQL database for Mahara.
 2. Copy the Mahara files under "htdocs" into your web root.
 3. Create a Mahara "dataroot" directory outside of your web root.
 4. Copy htdocs/config-dist.php to config.php.
 5. Edit config.php with the correct details for your installation.

# UPGRADING

Mahara 16.10 supports direct upgrades from previous Mahara versions 1.6.0 and later.
To upgrade an existing Mahara installation, follow the instructions here:

 * https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Upgrading_Mahara

# SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Here are the system requirements needed to run Mahara 16.10.

### OS

Mahara is only officially supported on Debian (5.0/"Lenny" or later) and
Ubuntu (10.04/"Lucid Lynx" or later), however it will probably run in any
OS with a suitable web server.

### Web Server

Mahara is only officially supported on Apache 2 or later, although it will
probably run in any web server with the proper PHP extensions.

### Database

Mahara requires either Postgres or MySQL. It would require extensive
modification to support other databases.
 * Postgres 8.3 or later
 * MySQL 5.1 or later (or MariaDB equivalent)

### PHP

Mahara requires PHP version 5.4 or later. The "magic_quotes" and "register_globals"
settings should be turned *off* (which is the default on modern PHP installations).

The following PHP extensions are also required:
 * curl
 * gd (including Freetype support)
 * json
 * ldap
 * libxml
 * mbstring
 * mcrypt
 * mime_magic; or fileinfo
 * pgsql; or mysqli; or mysql
 * session
 * SimpleXML
 * bz2 (optional)
 * imagick (optional)
 * openssl and xmlrpc (optional; for networking support)
 * zlib (optional)
 * adodb (optional; improves performance)
 * enchant or pspell (optional; for TinyMCE spellcheck button)

### Web Browser

Mahara should be accessible in any modern web browser with Javascript support.
However, it is only actively tested in the most recent versions of Firefox,
Chrome (also for Android), Safari (also for iOS), and Opera. Microsoft browsers,
i.e. Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, are supported to a maximum of the
three most recent versions that are officially supported by Microsoft.

You can still use Mahara on older browsers, but may not have all functionality
available.

For Mahara 16.10, the supported browser versions are:
// TODO: Review list of browsers closer to the release date.
 * Firefox - 44.0
 * Chrome - 48.0
 * Safari - 9.0
 * Opera - 32.0
 * IE - 11 and Edge
 * Safari for iOS
 * Chrome for Android

# TRANSLATIONS

Mahara has been translated into many languages. You can get language packs from:

* https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/Language_Packs

# MOODLE

Documentation on integrating Mahara with Moodle can be found in the
3.1MB PDF here:

 * https://wiki.mahara.org/images/d/d5/Mahoodle.pdf

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# Copyright notice

Copyright (C) 2006-2015 Catalyst IT and others; see:
https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/Contributors

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, version 3 or later of the License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Additional permission under GNU GPL version 3 section 7:

If you modify this program, or any covered work, by linking or
combining it with the OpenSSL project's OpenSSL library (or a
modified version of that library), containing parts covered by the
terms of the OpenSSL or SSLeay licenses, the Mahara copyright holders
grant you additional permission to convey the resulting work.
Corresponding Source for a non-source form of such a combination
shall include the source code for the parts of OpenSSL used as well
as that of the covered work.