###Official website | Live demo

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 lets you timestamp legally your experiments ? Then you are at the right place !

eLabFTW is 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.

Keep in mind that eLabFTW is currently in beta and is under heavy developpement. Your input is very welcome :) Please report bugs on github.

Installation

The legendary four steps installation instructions (for advanced users)

• Download the latest stable version
• Extract it on your web server
• Create a MySQL database and a MySQL user for elabftw
• Go to https://your-address.org/elabftw/install

Install on your computer (Mac/Win)

Install locally on Mac	Install locally on Windows

Install on a digitalocean's drop (easiest/quickest 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 more. And it's very easy to install, all is automatic!
Install eLabFTW on a drop

Install in a docker container

If you know Docker already and want to use a dockerized elabftw, please see this repo.

Install on a GNU/Linux or BSD server

Please refer to your distribution's documentation to install :

• a webserver (like nginx, Apache, lighttpd or cherokee)
• php version > 5 with the following extensions : gettext, gd, openssl, hash
• mysql version > 5.5
• git

If you don't know how to do that, have a look at installing eLabFTW on a cheap server (drop).

Getting the files

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

Alternatively, you can download the latest release from this page as a zip archive or a tarball.

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

Alternatively, you can download a stable version.

But git will allow for 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.

Note: it is not recommended to have phpmyadmin installed on a production server (for security reasons).

$ 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 : https://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 : https://12.34.56.78/elabftw/install

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Post install things to do

You should read this page to finish your install (configure email, backup, etc…).

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~Thank you for using eLabFTW :)