This is a step by step account of how I was able to install Advokit on an Ubuntu Server for use in a small office environment. The result of this process is the basic utilization of the contact list structure used in Advokit, allowing for the ability to capture Questionnaire data in real time, over a typical small-to-medium sized office network. A lot of the other, more advanced features in Advokit are beyond the scope of this article, here we focus on a very specific use which is meaningful for small to medium sized applications. In this instance, fifteen to twenty phone-bankers at-a-time entering data into computers; Advokit has proven to be quite robust for the task.

I am currently running an Ubuntu Linux server in a VMWare-Server Virtual Machine. It is networked via bridge and has it's own IP address and Apache Web Server. Setting up a Virtual Machine is exaclty like that of an actual server computer, I prefer VMWare because I lack the budget for hardware in most cases.

Part One

Server set-up:

The first thing you'll need to do is install Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server (Dapper Drake) on your machine. Although I am using a VMWare console for testing, there will be no differences between a virtual server and an actual metal box server set up. The basic Ubuntu LAMP Server install is all you'll need, which provides the basic shell, which is a command line interface.

Here is the Ubuntu Server login screen:

I recommend logging in as root right off the bat, but if you prefer to use sudo, that is your perogative. If you don't know how to enable the root account, you are probably better off with sudo anyway.

So I log in as root:

Next we must create our directories, change permissions, ownership and depackage the installer. I am going to assume you've found the installer and ftp'd it to your server. If you need help downloading or unzipping the installer, see the Documentation page for details. If you'd like to grab the latest development tarball now, be my guest! As a rule I always rename the installer directory to 'advokit-installer' and move it out of my web root [/var/www] and into the Advokit directory under the server root [/demo-advokit] for safe storage when I am finished using it.
Do not install Advokit into the same web directory as the advokit-installer [/var/www/advokit-installer]!

Here we create a directory called demo-advokit inside our web root directory [/var/www/demo-advokit], This is the directory in which we will install the Advokit web files. Then we change permissions to allow read, write and execute permissions by everyone [chmod 0777]. Next we change ownership of the directory to the user and group under which the Apache Web Server runs [chown www-data.www-data]. In Ubuntu the user and group have the same name, which in this case is www-data.

And then we create the demo-advokit directory inside our server root directory [/demo-advokit] and then basically do the same thing with ownership and permissions [chmod 0755], [chown www-data.www-data]. This is the directory in which the installer will put all of the important Advokit configuration files, scripts, and templates.

Part Two

MySQL set-up:

So next you should create a MySQL database for the Advokit installer to populate. Because this installation is not going to be used on the internet, we can just use the MySQL root user account. If you plan on putting your Advokit on the internet, be sure to make a unique user account for your Advokit database. Using the root account on the web is insecure.

Here is a list of my databases, as you can see, I created the demo_advokit database for this instance:

So now we are ready to run the installer and get to work!

Part Three

Installer set-up:

So now you should unzip the advokit-installer tarball to your web directory. Once you get it in there you should change read, write, execute permissions to chmod 0777. Don't forget to remove the entire advokit-installer directory from your web root once you have finished installing Advokit!

Once you have done that, use your server's IP address to point your browser to your Apache server. Mine is located at http://192.168.1.35/ as illustrated below.

As you can see, the Advokit installer is ready to go, all we need to do is click on it and we are off!

Part Four

Running the Installer:

It is pretty straight forward from here. For a new installation click the corresponding button.

Step 3:

Step 5 is very important. This is where we specify the directories we created in the first couple of steps.

If all goes as planned the installer should now populate your server and web directories with all of the necessary goodies, you should see this at the bottom of step 6.

After clicking the Continue button, you should automatically be taken to the login screen, where you can log in with the user name 'admin' and the password 'admin'. Be sure to change these right away!

Next:

Part Five

Uploading a Voter File