Welcome to elabftw’s documentation!

Website:

https://www.elabftw.net

Live demo:

https://demo.elabftw.net

Chat: License:

Introduction

eLabFTW is a PHP application using MySQL to store data persistently. Once installed on a server, users can register an account and start using their electronic lab notebook.

Several teams can be hosted on the same install. Ideally, it is installed at the institution/company level. But individual teams can install it for themselves, too. Or you can run it locally on your computer.

It is distributed through Docker images, ensuring portability and added security. See the Docker documentation for more infos.

Check out the list of features.

See this page to install it on your server.

See this page if you don’t own a server already.

Installation

• Install on a GNU/Linux server
  • Prerequisites
    • Dependencies:
  • Install eLabFTW
  • Post install
  • Documentation for advanced setups
    • Using mod_proxy to run eLabFTW Docker container behind Apache2 (https enabled)
    • Using mod_proxy to run eLabFTW Docker container behind Apache2 (https disabled)
    • Using nginx to run eLabFTW Docker container
• Install in the cloud
  • Create your droplet
  • Install eLabFTW
  • Video tutorial
• Install on Nanobox.io
  • Deploy elabftw
• Install on a Qnap NAS
  • Prerequisites
  • Get the config file
  • Edit the config file
  • Starting the containers
  • Accessing elabftw
  • Post install
• Install on Mac OS X
  • Install with Docker
• Install on Windows
• Install without Docker
  • Prerequisites
  • Getting the files
  • SQL part
    • Option 1: Command line way
    • Option 2: Graphical way with phpmyadmin
  • Configuring the webserver correctly
    • Nginx or Apache config
    • PHP config
    • Miscellaneous config
  • Final step
• Install on FreeBSD
  • Installing a FEMP stack
  • Installing the gmagick extension
  • Installing elabftw
  • Creating the database
  • Final step

Usage

• Post install
  • Setting up email
  • Set up backup
  • Set up the teams ^(optional)
  • Set up timestamping ^(optional)
  • Set up a cronjob to renew TLS certificates ^(optional)
  • Set up a cronjob to clear the exported files:
  • Update often
• Quickstart
  • Registering an account
  • Creating your first experiment
  • Editing the experiment
    • Tags
    • Date
    • Visibility
    • Status
    • Title
    • Experiment
    • Experiments steps
    • Linked items
    • Attach a file
    • Draw something
  • Viewing the experiment
  • Using the database
  • Conclusion
• Manual
  • General overview
    • The principles
    • Creating an account
    • The Sysadmin
    • The Admin
      • User groups
  • Experiments
    • Templates
    • Edit mode
      • Tags
      • Date
      • Visibility
      • Status
      • Title
      • Experiment (body)
      • Linked items
      • Attach a file
    • View mode of experiment
      • Edit
      • Duplicate
      • Make a pdf
      • Make a zip archive
      • Lock
      • Timestamp
      • elabid
      • Comments
  • Database
  • Team
    • Scheduler
  • Miscellaneous
• How to backup
  • Using elabctl
  • Using a script
  • Making it automatic using cron
  • How to backup a Docker installation
    • With elabctl
    • Without elabctl
  • How to restore a backup
  • How to backup a NAS
• How to update
  • If you installed it with elabctl
  • If you installed it with git
  • If you are using Docker without elabctl
  • If you installed it from a .zip or .tar.gz archive
  • Complete upgrade guide from 2.0.7 to 3.0.0
    • Updating the database structure
    • Breaking update
  • Complete upgrade guide from 1.8.x to 2.0.0
    • Docker vs. non docker
    • Breaking update
    • PHP version
    • Web root
    • Minified files
    • PHP Dependencies
    • The cache directory

Documentation

• Contributing
  • What can you do to help this project?
  • Reporting a security issue
  • Translating
  • Contributing to the code
    • Note about branches
    • Environment installation
    • Making a pull request
    • Code organization
    • Miscellaneous
    • Glossary
    • Build
    • Tests
    • API Documentation
  • Exceptions handling
  • Making a gif
  • Adding a lang
  • Accessing Docker MySQL database with phpmyadmin
  • Using a trusted certificate for local dev
    • Step 1: use a real domain name
    • Step 2: get certs
    • Step 3: edit config to use certificates
    • Step 4: restart containers
• Frequently asked questions
  • Is it totally free?
  • But how is it better than something I can buy?
  • What about patents and intellectual property?
  • Why use eLabFTW?
  • Is this system stable? Can I trust my data with it?
  • Who else is using it?
  • Is the data encrypted?
  • Is eLabFTW still maintained?
  • Will I be able to import my plasmids/antibodies/whatever in the database from a Excel file?
  • Can I try it before I install it?
  • What about compliance to standards?
  • What are the technical specifications?
  • How to have folders or projects grouping experiments?
  • Failed creating uploads/ directory
  • I can’t upload a file bigger than 2 Mb
  • I can’t export my (numerous) experiments in zip, I get an error 500
  • Languages don’t work
  • Time is wrong
  • How to change the team of a user?
  • Can I change the date format?
• Features
  • General
  • Experiments
  • Database
  • Security
  • Intellectual property
  • User experience
  • Planned features
• About Docker
  • Introduction
  • How does it work?
  • About the docker image
• Upgrade a normal install to a Docker install
  • Description
  • Preparation
    • Install Docker
    • Install elabftw normally
    • Export current install
  • Installation
    • Editing the config file
    • Copy the uploaded files
    • About HTTPS (SSL/TLS)
    • Starting the containers
• API
  • What’s that?
  • Prerequisite
  • Getting started
  • Using Bash/cURL
  • Using Python
    • How to install
    • Features
    • Examples
      • Initialization
      • Listing the experiments
      • Get info for an experiment
      • Create an experiment
      • Change the body, title and date
      • Upload a file
• Configure SAML2 authentication
  • Setup the Service Provider
  • Setup the IDentity Provider
  • Disable local login/register
  • How does it work?
• Debug
  • Docker logs
  • PHP logs

Miscellaneous

• Thanks
• Changelog
  • Version 3.3.8
  • Version 3.3.7
  • Version 3.3.6
  • Version 3.3.5
  • Version 3.3.4
  • Version 3.3.3
  • Version 3.3.2
  • Version 3.3.1
  • Version 3.3.0
  • Version 3.2.2
  • Version 3.2.1
  • Version 3.2.0
  • Version 3.1.2
  • Version 3.1.1
  • Version 3.1.0
  • Version 3.0.3
  • Version 3.0.2
  • Version 3.0.1
  • Version 3.0.0
  • Version 2.0.7
  • Version 2.0.6
  • Version 2.0.5
  • Version 2.0.4
  • Version 2.0.3
  • Version 2.0.2
  • Version 2.0.1
  • Version 2.0.0
    • Why this update?
    • What changed?
  • Version 1.8.5
  • Version 1.8.4
  • Version 1.8.3
  • Version 1.8.2
  • Version 1.8.1
  • Version 1.8.0
  • Version 1.7.8
  • Version 1.7.7
  • Version 1.7.6
  • Version 1.7.5
  • Version 1.7.4
  • Version 1.7.3
  • Version 1.7.2
  • Version 1.7.1
  • Version 1.7.0
  • Version 1.6.2
  • Version 1.6.1
  • Version 1.6.0
  • Version 1.5.7
  • Version 1.5.6
  • Version 1.5.5
  • Version 1.5.4
  • Version 1.5.3
  • Version 1.5.2
  • Version 1.5.1
  • Version 1.5.0
  • Version 1.4.3
  • Version 1.4.2
  • Version 1.4.1
  • Version 1.4.0
  • Version 1.3.1
  • Version 1.3.0
  • Version 1.2.6
  • Version 1.2.5
  • Version 1.2.4
  • Version 1.2.3
  • Version 1.2.2
  • Version 1.2.1
  • Version 1.2.0-p3
  • Version 1.2.0-p2
  • Version 1.2.0-p1
  • Version 1.2.0
  • Version 1.1.8-p2
  • Version 1.1.8-p1
  • Version 1.1.8
  • Version 1.1.7
  • Version 1.1.6
  • Version 1.1.5-p2
  • Version 1.1.5-p1
  • Version 1.1.5
  • Version 1.1.4-p3
  • Version 1.1.4-p2
  • Version 1.1.4-p1
  • Version 1.1.4
  • Version 1.1.3
  • Version 1.1.2-p1
  • Version 1.1.2
  • Version 1.1.1
  • Version 1.1.0
  • Version 1.0.0
  • Version 1.0.0-beta
  • Version 1.0.0-alpha
  • Version 0.12.6
  • Version 0.12.5
  • Version 0.12.4
  • Version 0.12.0
  • Version 0.11.0
  • Version 0.10.2
  • Version 0.10.1
  • Version 0.10.0
  • Version 0.9.5
  • Version 0.9.4.2
  • Version 0.9.4.1
  • Version 0.9.4
  • Version 0.9.3
  • Version 0.9.2
  • Version 0.9.1
  • Version 0.9
  • Version 0.8.2
  • Version 0.8.1
  • Version 0.8
  • Version 0.7.3.2
  • Version 0.7
  • Version 0.6
  • Version 0.5.8 and 0.5.9
  • Version 0.5.7
  • Version 0.5.6
  • Version 0.5.5
  • Version 0.5.4
  • Version 0.5.3
  • Version 0.5.2
  • Version 0.5.1
  • Version 0.5
  • Version 0.4
  • Version 0.3
  • Version 0.2
  • Version 0.1