Installing BibleSuperSearch on Debian

Basic software

• Apache2
• MariaDB

sudo apt update && sudo apt install apache2 mariadb-server

Laravel dependencies

Reference: https://shape.host/resources/laravel-setup-debian-12-tutorial

Install Laravel dependencies:

sudo apt install php php-curl php-bcmath php-json php-mysql php-mbstring php-xml php-tokenizer php-zip php-gd php-sqlite3

Bible SuperSearch source

Install Bible SuperSearch source files:

• API: https://www.biblesupersearch.com/downloads/
• Client: https://sourceforge.net/projects/biblesuper/files/

Extract and copy to:

/var/www/html/biblesupersearch_api/

/var/www/html/biblesupersearch_client/

This assumes you're using the default site, otherwise copy into the directory for whichever Apache 'site' is enabled.

Configure Apache

Edit apache.conf:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

AllowOverride All:

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All # change from None to All
        Require all granted
</Directory>

Configure PHP:

sudo a2enmod php8.2 # change 8.2 to your version
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Restart Apache:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Configure MariaDB

References:

• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-mariadb-on-debian-11
• https://raspberrytips.com/install-mariadb-raspberry-pi/

Start the MariaDB installation:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Answer the following prompts:

• Enter current password for root (enter for none): Leave blank, press enter
• Switch to unix_socket authentication [Y/n] n Not necessary, enter n
• Change the root password? [Y/n] n Should not change, enter n
• Enter Y (default) for all remaining questions

Start the DB prompt:

sudo mariadb

Create an admin account (set my_admin_password):

GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'admin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '<my_admin_password>' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Create a biblesupersearch user (set my_password):

CREATE USER 'biblesupersearch'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '<my_password>';

Create a biblesupersearch database:

CREATE DATABASE biblesupersearch;

Grant privileges:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON biblesupersearch.* TO 'biblesupersearch'@'localhost';

Flush privileges:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit the DB prompt:

exit

Configure Bible SuperSearch

Change directory to the root API directory:

cd /var/www/html

Copy .env.example to .env and edit:

sudo cp .env.example .env
sudo nano .env

Update the following lines:

APP_URL=http://bible.local/biblesupersearch_api/ # or whatever your root path is
DB_DATABASE=biblesupersearch
DB_USERNAME=biblesupersearch
DB_PASSWORD=<my_password> # whatever database password was configured

Change ownership recursively to the httpd user (www-data) for biblesupersearch_api and biblesupersearch_client directories:

sudo chown -R www-data biblesupersearch_*

Bible SuperSearch admin console

Open the /public directory in a browser (relative to whatever the root path is):

 http://bible.local/biblesupersearch_api/public

If you get a 404 Not Found error, try appending /index.php.  If that appears to work, then Apache is not rewriting Laravel routes correctly.  This will need to be troubleshot and fixed before the admin console will work correctly.

• Under the Bibles tab, select 100 rows to be displayed (drop-down at bottom), select all (box at upper left corner), and click Install.
• Under the Options tab, set the Application URL to http://bible.local/biblesupersearch_api (whatever the base URL should be).

Bible SuperSearch client

In the biblesupersearch_client directory, copy config-example.js to config.js and edit the following in config.js:

    "apiUrl": "http://bible.local/biblesupersearch_api/public",

As a bug-workaround for Linux web clients, change client.os.toLowerCase() to client.os in biblesupersearch.js

At this point you should be able to open http://bible.local/biblesupersearch_client/ and see a functioning example!