ChemDB is a PHP-based web application that assists in the collection of data generated during the preparation of samples for cosmogenic nuclide measurements. Currently it supports Al-26 and Be-10. ChemDB was developed for use at the University of Washington's Cosmogenic Nuclide Laboratory. It is open-source software, so you are free to use it and change it to adapt it to your needs.
- Collect sample location and field notes.
- Organize samples by Project.
- Store all of your sample preparation data in one place.
- Collect weighings and measurements at each step in the chemistry procedure.
- Import ICPMS data.
- Generate reports by sample batch.
ChemDB requires a working installation of php5 and has been tested with the apache2 webserver. The chemdb directory should be placed in the web content directory of the web server. You will need to be running an SQL server. ChemDB is known to work with MySQL and MariaDB, but should support other database servers that are supported by Doctrine1.
To install using git:
git clone https://github.com/cosmolab/chemdb.git /path/to/chemdb
cd /path/to/chemdb
Now we need to install our dependencies (Doctrine version 1 and CodeIgniter). CodeIgniter is the web framework on which ChemDB is built. Doctrine is a database abstraction layer and object-relational mapper used to interact with the internal database. First, install Composer (https://getcomposer.org/).
If you installed the composer executable somewhere in your path, execute the following command in the project directory:
composer install
Or if you downloaded the composer.phar, execute:
php composer.phar install
You will need to edit configuration files to initially set up the application.
Copy site-specific configuration template files to their appropriate locations:
cp app/config/config.php.changeme app/config/config.php
cp app/config/database.php.changeme app/config/database.php
The changeme files may be updated in future releases.
In app/config/config.php, set the base URL of the site:
$config['base_url'] = 'http://localhost/path/to/chemdb/'
In chemdb/app/config/database.php, set the hostname, username, password and
database name for your SQL server. The default SQL server is mysql. If you use
a different database you will need to change $db['default']['dbdriver'] to the
appropriate value according to the Doctrine 1.x connection documentation,
located at:
General Doctrine 1 documentation can be found at:
http://docs.doctrine-project.org/projects/doctrine1/en/latest/en/index.html
To configure your database to connect on a unix socket, set your hostname as:
$db['default']['hostname'] = 'unix(/path/to/socket)';
Once your database is properly configured, run the setup script to create the databases and tables. From the chemdb directory, run:
app/setup
Additional command line line tools are available using the doctrine script. See a summary of the commands by running:
app/doctrine
Or for more detail:
app/doctrine help
After installation, if the links on the welcome page are not working and
returning 404 errors, then you may have to change the $config['index_page']
variable from index.php to index.php?. For more information see:
https://www.codeigniter.com/user_guide/installation/troubleshooting.html
Logging is disabled by default. To enable logging you will need to ensure that
the user under which PHP runs has write access to the app/logs/ directory.
Enable logging by setting $config['log_threshold'] in app/config/config.php
to a non-zero value. See the comments in that section for threshold values.
ChemDB can optionally encrypt session data.
If you are not concerned about the visibility of user search queries on the
filesystem you can skip this step.
Typically these files would only be readable by a privileged user
and are transitory.
To encrypt your sessions you will need to set a unique encryption key.
In app/config/config.php, set $config['encryption_key'] to a 32
character passphrase/key containing numbers and upper- and lower-case letters.
By default, ChemDB does not provide a login mechanism. Unless you want the database to be publicly accessible (not recommended), you will need to limit access only to users who you want to allow to edit the database. If you are at a university or other large institution, they may provide such a mechanism that you can put into your .htaccess file in the base of the installation directory. Otherwise you can configure limited access with password protection by using an .htpasswd file. See the documentation for your web server on how to create one.
Once you have finished the above tasks, you should be able to navigate to the location where you installed ChemDB on your webserver and load the front page.
If you run in to problems, find a bug, or wish to see an improvement, please create an issue and I will do my best to help get it resolved.