TurnKey Mahara Live CD For Linux

TurnKey Mahara Live CD is an open source software appliance that is based on the Debian GNU/Linux operating system and designed to provide users with a simple, easy-to-use, easy-to-install, and free solution for deploying dedicated Mahara servers with minimum effort.

Mahara is an open source, web-based social networking and electronic portfolio application, designed to help users collect and share their achievements. The appliance comes with all of the upstream Mahara configurations, which are installed by default in /var/www/mahara.

Key features include support for secure connections using the latest SSL technologies, the phpPgAdmin administration front-end for the PostgreSQL database, a Postfix MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) for sending emails to users, as well as Webmin modules for configuring Postfix, Apache, PHP and PostgreSQL.

It can be downloaded from the dedicated download section (see above) as Live CD ISO images that can be burned onto CD discs or written to USB flash drives. Users can grab virtual machine images from the project's website.

Please note that the default username for the SSH and Webmin components is root, the default username for phpPgAdmin and PostgreSQL is postgres, and the default Mahara username is admin. These accounts have no password set up, so you'll need to enter new passwords after installation.

The text-mode installation process is painless and requires users to choose a target disk and where to install the boot loader. Keep in mind that the target disk drive will be automatically formatted and partitioned with a Linux filesystem during the installation process, so make sure you don't have important data on it.

After the installation, the first boot configuration wizard will kick in, allowing users to set some passwords and email addresses for the default accounts mentioned above. Don't forget to write down the IP addresses and ports of the the Web Shell, SSH, Webmin, SFTP, and phpPgAdmin services.