Hello!

I created my questionnaire via Limesurvey, but now I need to log in remotely via the university servers. So I downloaded FileZilla and did alla the steps I had to do and I can correctly access the server remotely.
When I try to access Limesurvey though, I can't do it since I get the index.php code located in the Limesurvey folder. I suppose I need to modify something to access Limesurvey remotely and configure php, but I don't know how.

Could anyone help me?

Thank you.

Wait, what are you trying to do???

Your university for sure won't give you FTP access to their LS-Installation to configure PHP.

Why do you think you need to access the university server? What are you trying to do?

I agree with several of my professors to connect to a university server since I am using LS for my graduation.
I'm not doing anything without permissions.
I just needed help figuring out what I needed to tweak to use LS remotely.

I am using my LS, not that of my university, since it is in my account that I created the questionnaire. I just need to be able to use it remotely.

Well, Limesurvey is a web based software, if you installed it on a server that is accessible from the internet, you can create your surveys from anywhere.

I am not sure, but I still don't understand the problem.

Hi,
in one of your first posts you told us that you installed LimeSurvey in a XAMPP environment, right?

And now, what are you trying to do?
You cannot access your XAMPP from the university computer.

And: Is LimeSurvey installed on the university computer?
Then the admin of the university will have to give you the credentials to access it.

So, please, explain what you mean by saying "I created my questionnaire via Limesurvey, but now I need to log in remotely via the university servers."

Joffm

Ok, I try to explain it in the best possible way because I probably didn't express myself well.
For my graduation I decided to use LS as a survey tool and my professor told me to make it a webserver through Xampp. I did everything, installed and configured Xampp, installed and configured LS and created the entire questionnaire.
At this point, my professor decided to let me access at university server both to allow him and me to test the questionnaire, and to facilitate the analysis of the answers in the future (the questionnaire is not yet active) . So, through FileZilla and Putty I moved my LS folder into the space dedicated to me on the remote server (precisely via Putty's sudo command). Then I activated Apache via command "sudo service apache2 start" on Putty and I can remotely access the server. But when I try to log in remotely on LS, I can't do it since I get a code (exactly the code of index.php that is inside the LS folder). My professor told me that MySQL and PHP were installed in their server, but not configured and for LS I need to configure them. So my question was: how do I set them up? I ask this in this forum because I think I have to modify some files inside the LS folder and I hope someone can be of help.

To make me understand better.
To access my LS locally, I type in the browser:
http://localhost/limesurvey
To access remotely I have to write in the browser:
http://IP_of_the_server_I_use: port_used / limesurvey (example: 120.180.159.10:80/limesurvey)
But it doesn't open to me because I would have to configure php and mysql first and I don't know how to do it.

My professor told me that MySQL and PHP were installed in their server, but not configured and for LS I need to configure them. So my question was: how do I set them up? I ask this in this forum because I think I have to modify some files inside the LS folder and I hope someone can be of help.

This has nothing to do with Limesurvey. You will need to create a working LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) environment on the university server, if it has not been set up already. I think this is a little bit above a normal survey creation.

I think your professor gave you a lot of bad advice.

The XAMPP enviroment is great for testing, programming and local development of surveys, but it is not good for "production".

So you should transfer your survey via LSS file to a LS installation that is available on a webserver. Your professor gave you access to a server, but without a LAMP environment, which you would have to set up now.

There are a lot of explanations on how to setup a LAMP environment, but honestly, I don't think it is a good idea. Because you obviously don't know what you are doing (no offense, this is nothing that everybody would need to know) and setting up a webserver without some knowledge can work, but creates quite some security issues, I think. I personally wouldn't want to setup a webserver for production, there is just too much involved that can go wrong in my opinion in terms of data security.

I personally would recommend to get a good shared webspace or a VPS with a admin software (e.g. Plesk or Cpanel) and go from there. Yes, this would involve some costs, but I wouldn't recommend a newbie to configure a webserver to run LS on for a production survey. My honest opinion.

Now, if you really want to go down the route of setting up a webserver on the university server, you will need more than the FTP-Access, but access via command line to setup and configure PHP/MySQL. I highly doubt that the administrators of the server will grant you this access, because you could do much more than just setting up PHP/MySQL. If they grant you this access, there are a lot of tutorials out there on how to setup a LAMP environment. But as I said, this has nothing to do with Limesurvey itself (besides that LS requires a working webserver with PHP/MySQL to run).

So you want to install LS on the university computer?

So, through FileZilla and Putty I moved my LS folder into the space

BUT: You did not create the MySQL database on the university computer.

What you can do, if you have the permissions, is to dump your LS database on your computer (by phpMyAdmin) and import it on the university computer. Then adapt the credentials in "application/config/config.php".

But nevertheless the better way ist to install LS on the university computer.
The same procedure as you installed it on your machine.
Then ex- and import your survey.

Joffm

OK, I overlooked somehow that PHP/MySQL is installed, but not configured (whatever that means). But still, this has nothing to do with LS, it is the configuration of the server / LAMP enviroment.

So you would need to ask the person responsible for the server on how to configure this. Once PHP and MySQL is up and running, you just need to install Limesurvey on the server again. And you can't just move your files from XAMPP to the new server, you would still have to setup the database and copy your survey from your XAMPP installation to the new installation.

Now the question would be, what kind of "configuration" does PHP/MySQL need on this new server. Not sure what this would be. Either it is running on the server or it isn't. If it is running and you have a database with all the credentials, you would just run the install routine of Limesurvey to make a new LS setup.

But with the information provided about the server, this is just guess work. No one really can help here, because we don't know anything about the server your professor is providing you with.

We can help you once you have a running LAMP environment, because then the LS part starts. Right now, this is server administration, which can't be covered by this forum.

I sincerely thank you both for your patience and your advice.
However the problem is that I have to configure php which is already installed remotely, but I don't know how to do it. I will look for some solution.