Other options

Note

Every time you update kalite, you should (re)run kalite manage setup to ensure that the database and contents are kept updated.

Generic installation pip install

You can install KA Lite from the online Python Package Index (PyPi) using its package system pip.

Note

PyPi sources do not contain content and exercise data, so you need to download the contentpack en.zip manually (>700 MB).

If you are installing system-wide, it’s preferable to use ka-lite-static which has dependencies bundled in and doesn’t interfere with your system’s setup:

sudo pip install ka-lite-static

You can also install KA Lite in a virtual environment or on the current user’s local python packages without dependencies bundled in:

pip install ka-lite

Portable tarballs / zip files with setup.py

If you can’t install KA Lite on systems with the standard Windows/Mac/Linux installers, you can fetch the KA Lite python package from PyPi.

To unpack the package for installation on Linux/Mac, run:

tar -xf ka-lite-static-0.17.6.dev.tar.gz

Once it’s unpacked, install it by entering the extracted directory and running:

cd ka-lite-static-0.17.6.dev
sudo python setup.py install

Debian/Ubuntu: Subscribe to updates through a PPA

We maintain a PPA on Launchpad and if you are connected to the internet, this will also give you automatic updates.

To add the PPA as a repository on an apt-based system, you need to ensure that a few libraries are present, and then add our repository and the public key that packages are signed with:

sudo apt-get install dirmngr
sudo su -c 'echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/learningequality/ka-lite/ubuntu xenial main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ka-lite.list'
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 74F88ADB3194DD81
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ka-lite  # ...or 'ka-lite-raspberry-pi'

User interface for Linux/GTK

A Control Panel for simple start/stop functionality and a bit of user setup is available with a user interface. It’s not feature-complete, but good enough for simple usage.

Make sure you have the PPA added (see Debian/Ubuntu: Subscribe to updates through a PPA), then run:

sudo apt-get install ka-lite-gtk

On non-Debian systems, you can install the GTK interface with Pip:

sudo pip install ka-lite-gtk  # Install
ka-lite-gtk  # Launch the KA Lite UI

Development

A guide recommending how to install KA Lite for development is available in Getting started.

Specific system setups

Nginx / Apache setup

This section is written for the Django-knowledgable crowd.

KA Lite includes a web server implemented in pure Python for serving the website, capable of handling hundreds of simultaneous users while using very little memory. So you don’t have to run Apache or Nginx for efficiency.

Apache configuration, using mod_wsgi, example would work for an Ubuntu .deb installation:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName kalite.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/

    <Directory />
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    Alias /static /var/www/.kalite/httpsrv/static
    Alias /media /var/www/.kalite/httpsrv/media
    Alias /content /var/www/.kalite/content

    WSGIScriptAlias / /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/kalite/project/wsgi.py

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/kalite-error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/kalite-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Note

It’s recommended that you install ka-lite-static in a virtualenv. If you are using Apache+mod_wsgi, you should copy & modify wsgi.py to reflect the path of your venv.

If you are using uwsgi+Nginx, this is the critical part of your uwsgi configuration, provided that you have installed kalite from PyPi or .deb:

module = kalite.project.wsgi

Remember that KA Lite runs in user space and creates data files in that user’s home directory. A normal Debian/Ubuntu system has a www-data user for Apache which is the default user for mod_wsgi and will create database files, static files etc. for kalite in /var/www/.kalite/. If you run it as another user, it may be located somewhere else.

Note

Log in as the Django application server’s user, e.g. www-data and initialize the kalite static files and database before anything you can run kalite with uwsgi / mod_wsgi !

Example of setting up kalite for the www-data user:

sudo su -s /bin/bash www-data
kalite manage setup
exit