Description

eLabFTW is an electronic lab notebook manager for research teams. It also features a database where you can store any kind of objects (think antibodies, plasmids, cell lines, boxes, etc…) It is accessed via the browser by the users. Several research teams can be hosted on the same install.

Tired of that shared excel file for your antibodies or plasmids ? Want to be able to search in your past experiments as easily as you'd do it on google ? Want an electronic lab notebook that let's you timestamp legally your experiments ? Then you are at the right place !

• Official website
• Live demo

Keep in mind that eLabFTW is currently in beta and is under heavy developpement. Your input is very welcome :)

Installation

Thank you for choosing eLabFTW as a lab manager =) Please report bugs on github.

eLabFTW was designed to be installed on a server, and people from the team would just log into it from their browser.

Don't have a server ? That's okay, you can use an old computer with 1 Go of RAM and an old CPU, it's more than enough. Just install a recent GNU/Linux distribution on it and plug it to the intranet.

Don't have an old computer ? That's okay, you can install eLabFTW on a Raspberry Pi (you can buy one on Radiospares). It's a 30€ computer on which you can install GNU/Linux and run a server in no time ! That's what we use in our lab. Check out the wiki to know more.

But you can also install it locally and use it for yourself only. Here is how :

• Install locally on Mac.
• Install locally on Windows.

NEW : Install on a drop (easiest method)

With this method, you can have a running elabftw server in no time. You need to purchase a drop from DigitalOcean.com. It starts at 5$/month. This setup is enough to run eLabFTW for a team or two. Everything is explained here :

• Install eLabFTW on a drop

Install on Unix-like OS (GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc…) (the recommended way !)

Please refer to your distribution's documentation to install :

• a webserver (like Apache, nginx, lighttpd or cherokee)
• php version > 5 with the following extensions : gettext, gd, openssl, hash
• mysql version > 5.6.6
• git

The quick way to do that on a Debian/Ubuntu setup :

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.6 mysql-client apache2 php5 php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5 phpmyadmin git

Make sure to put a root password on your mysql installation :

$ sudo /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

Getting the files

The first part is to get the files on your server, with git.

Connect to your server with SSH

ssh user@12.34.56.78

Cd to the public directory where you want eLabFTW to be installed

(can be /var/www, ~/public_html, or any folder you'd like, as long as the webserver is configured properly, in doubt use /var/www)

$ cd /var/www
# make the directory writable by your user (if it's not already the case)
$ sudo chown `whoami`:`whoami` .

Note the . at the end that means current folder.

Get latest stable version via git :

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/NicolasCARPi/elabftw.git

(this will create a folder elabftw) The --depth 1 option is to avoid downloading the whole history.

If you cannot connect, try exporting your proxy settings in your shell like so :

$ export https_proxy="proxy.example.com:3128"

If you still cannot connect, tell git your proxy :

$ git config --global http.proxy http://proxy.example.com:8080

If you can't install git or don't manage to get the files, you can download a zip archive. But it's better to use git, it will allow easier updates (and they are frequent !).

SQL part

The second part is putting the database in place.

Command line way (graphical way below)

# first we connect to mysql
$ mysql -u root -p
# we create the database (note the ; at the end !)
mysql> create database elabftw;
# we create the user that will connect to the database.
mysql> grant usage on *.* to elabftw@localhost identified by 'YOUR_PASSWORD';
# we give all rights to this user on this database
mysql> grant all privileges on elabftw.* to elabftw@localhost;
mysql> exit

You will be asked for the password you put after identified by three lines above.

*<- Ignore this (it's to fix a markdown syntax highlighting problem)

Graphical way with phpmyadmin

You need to install the package phpmyadmin if it's not already done.

$ sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

Now you will connect to the phpmyadmin panel from your browser on your computer. Type the IP address of the server followed by /phpmyadmin.

Example : http://12.34.56.78/phpmyadmin

Login with the root user on PhpMyAdmin panel (use the password you setup for mysql root user).

Create a user elabftw with all rights on the database elabftw

Now click the Users tab and click .

Do like this :

Final step

Finally, point your browser to the install folder (install/) and read onscreen instructions.

For example : http://12.34.56.78/elabftw/install

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Post install things to do

You can read this page to finish fully the configuration of your install.

Updating

To update, just cd in the elabftw folder and do :

$ git pull
$ php update.php

Backup

It is important to backup your files to somewhere else, in case anything bad happens. Please refer to the wiki.

Bonus stage

• It's a good idea to use a php optimizer to increase speed. I recommand installing XCache.
• You can show a TODOlist by pressing 't'.
• You can duplicate an experiment in one click.
• You can export in a .zip, a .pdf or a spreadsheet.
• You can share an experiment by just sending the URL of the page to someone else.
• Experiments can be locked by your PI

~Thank you for using eLabFTW :) Please open a github issue if you have any problem (or send me an email !).

http://www.elabftw.net

\o/