The last step — setting up a cron process
Before you can be let loose on your Mahara, there is one last thing that you must remember to do to complete the installation — set up a cron job. If, like me, when I installed Mahara for the first time, you are thinking, "What on earth is a cron job?", don't worry, it is relatively simple.
The cron job is a process that simply enables a number of tasks to be performed regularly, typically every 10 minutes. This is useful for updating RSS feeds, among other things. The easiest way to add a cron process on a Debian or Ubuntu Linux Server is to add a new entry in a file called crontab by using the following command:
crontab -e
This will open up the default cron file for editing. Add a line similar to the following:
* * * * www-data php /path/to/Mahara/htdocs/lib/cron.php
Stars in the above example simply mean any value. If you are interested, see http://www.adminschoice.com/crontab-quick-reference for more information on crontab files. Also have a look at the Mahara information on using cron at https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator's_Guide/Cron_Job. That's it, you're all done with the installation, so you can log in and start using your new software!
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