1 Installation Instructions
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4 OSI Certified Open Source Software
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8 I...................Overview of files
9 II..................Unpacking
10 III.................Setup
11 IV..................Upgrading
12 V...................Version History
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16 I. Overview of Directories
18 accounting - Contains information and scripts to support SQL-Ledger
19 contrib - Contains many user-contributed encounter forms and utilities
20 custom - Contains scripts and other text files commonly customized
21 Documentation - Contains useful documentation
22 interface - Contains User Interface scripts and configuration
23 library - Contains scripts commonly included in other scripts
24 sql - Contains initial database images
28 The OpenEMR release archive should be named as follows:
30 openemr-<version>.tar.gz -or- openemr-<version>.zip
32 To extract the archive, use either of the following commands from the command line:
34 bash# tar -pxvzf openemr-<version>-release.tar.gz
35 bash# unzip openemr-<version>-release.tar.gz
37 Be sure to use the -p flag when using tar, as certain permissions must be preserved.
39 OpenEMR will be extracted into a directory named openemr.
43 To run OpenEMR, MySQL and Apache or another PHP-capable webserver must be configured.
44 To download Apache, visit www.apache.org
45 For information on how to install MySQL, visit www.mysql.com
46 PHP may be downloaded from www.php.net
48 OpenEMR requires a number of webserver and PHP features which may not be
49 enabled on your system. These include:
51 - PHP Index support (ensure that index.php is in your Index path in httpd.conf)
53 - PHP libcurl support (optional for operation, mandatory for billing
55 Copy the OpenEMR folder into the root folder of the webserver. On Mandrake
56 Linux, for example, use the command:
58 bash# mv openemr /var/www/html/
60 Make sure the webserver is running, and point a web-browser to setup.php located
61 within the openemr web folder. If you installed OpenEMR in the root web
62 directory, the URL would read: http://localhost/openemr/setup.php.
63 The setup script will step you through the configuration of the database.
65 In step 1, you need to tell setup whether it needs to create the databases on
66 its own, or if they you have already created them. MySQL root priveleges will
67 be required to create a database.
69 In step 2, you will be presented with a number of fields which specify the MySQL
72 The "Server Host" field is the hostname of the MySQL server. If you use the
73 mysql command line client, this is the string you would type after the -h flag.
74 If this is on the same machine as the webserver, leave this as "localhost".
76 The "Server Port" field specifies the port to use when connecting to the MySQL
77 server over TCP/IP. This should be left as 3306 unless you changed it in your
80 The "Database Name" field is the database where OpenEMR will reside. If you
81 selected to have the database created for you, this database will be created,
82 along with the user specified in "Login Name". If this database exists, setup
83 will not be able to create it, and will return an error. If you selected that
84 you have already created the database, then setup will use the information you
85 provide to connect to the MySQL server. Note that setup will not accept a
86 password that is not at least one (1) character in length.
88 The "User Hostname" field accompanies the Login Name field. It is the hostname
89 from which the user is permitted to connect to the database. This will only
90 appear if setup is creating the database.
92 The "Root Pass" field will likewise only appear when setup is creating the
93 database. It is the password of your existing root user, and is used to acquire
94 the privileges to create the new database and user. The rest of the fields are
95 specific to your practice.
97 The "Initial User" is the username of the first user, which is what they will
98 use to login. Their default password will always be "pass", without the quotes.
99 The "Initial User's Name" is the value to be used as their last name. This
100 information may be changed in the user administration page.
102 The "Initial Group" is the first group that will be created. A user may belong
103 to multiple groups, which again, can be altered on the user administration page.
104 It is suggested that no more than one group per office be used.
106 Step 3 is where setup will install the database and connect to it to create the
107 initial tables. If no errors occur, you will see a "Continue" button at the
108 bottom. Before clicking this, you need to ensure that the webserver user
109 (often "nobody", "apache", or "www-data") has write privileges on the
110 library/sqlconf.php file. The command "chmod a+w library/sqlconf.php" will
111 grant global write permissions to the file. Be sure to set them back to
112 something more secure (such as chmod 644) before actively using OpenEMR.
114 Should anything fail during step 3, you may have to remove the existing database
115 or tables before you can try again.
117 Step 4 is very much like step 3, except the only thing taking place is the
118 writing of SQL configuration to disk. Should it fail due to permissions or any
119 other reason, you may click the reload button to try again.
121 Once setup is completed, one last thing must be done before OpenEMR can be used.
122 The file openemr/interface/globals.php must be edited by hand to reflect the
123 path and address of your webserver. The values for $webserver_root and $web_root
124 must be set accordingly. Also, to change the appearance of OpenEMR, uncomment or
125 comment theme-description lines at the bottom of config.php.
127 Once the system has been configured properly, you may login. Connect to the
128 webserver where the files are stored with your web browser. Login to the system
129 using the username that you picked (default 'admin' without quotes), and the
130 password 'pass', without the quotes. From there, select the "Administration"
131 option, and customize the system to your needs. Add users and groups as is
132 needed. For information on using OpenEMR, consult the User Documentation located
133 in the Documentation folder.
135 To create custom encounter forms, see the files
137 openemr/Documentation/3rd Party Form API.txt
138 openemr/interface/forms/OpenEMR_form_example-rev2.tar.gz
140 and read the included documentation. Many forms exist in contrib/forms as well
141 as in interface/forms and may be used as examples.
143 Other configuration settings are stored under includes/config.php.
144 Everything should work out of the installation without touching those, but if
145 you want fax, sql-ledger, and/or Freeb integration you will need to adjust some
146 parameters in that file.
148 General-purpose fax support requires customization of interface/globals.php
149 and custom/faxcover.txt; it also requires the following utilities:
151 * faxstat and sendfax from the HylaFAX client package
152 * mogrify from the ImageMagick package
153 * tiff2pdf, tiffcp and tiffsplit from the libtiff-tools package
157 IV. Setting Up Access Control
159 You can either choose to install phpGACL, which is very powerful access control
160 software, or you can use the default OpenEMR access controls, which are very
161 limited. If you choose to install phpGACL (see http://phpgacl.sourceforge.net/),
162 recommend reading the phpGACL manual, the /openemr/Documentation/README.phpgacl
163 file, and the online wiki at www.oemr.org for installation and configuration
164 instructions. Also recommend reading the comments in /openemr/library/acl.inc
165 and also modifying that file to point to your phpGACL installation directory.
167 It is reasonable to first get a basic OpenEMR installation working and then add
168 these extended access controls later.
172 Upgrading OpenEMR is currently done by replacing the old openemr directory with
173 a newer version. Before replacing the old openemr directory, copy the following
174 two files out, and replace them into the new openemr folder afterwards:
176 openemr/interface/globals.php
177 openemr/library/sqlconf.php
178 openemr/library/sql-ledger.inc
179 openemr/includes/config.php (if you have modified it)
181 But before replacing them, compare the old and new files in case there are
182 new parameters that need to be included. If there are other files that you
183 have customized, then you will also need to treat those carefully.
185 When upgrading, check the directory openemr/sql/ for files named *upgrade.sql
186 Those files have sql statements to modify tables in your database so they will
187 match the layout of the current version.
188 Be sure to backup the content of your database before doing so.
190 If phpGACL is installed, then you should should upgrade your Access Controls
191 by running the acl_upgrade.php program using your web browser
192 (e.g. http://openemr.location/acl_upgrade.php).