Before you can be let loose on your Mahara, there is one last thing that you must remember to do to complete the installation — set up a cron job. If, like me, when I installed Mahara for the first time, you are thinking, "What on earth is a cron job?", don't worry, it is relatively simple.

The cron job is a process that simply enables a number of tasks to be performed regularly, typically every 10 minutes. This is useful for updating RSS feeds, among other things. The easiest way to add a cron process on a Debian or Ubuntu Linux Server is to add a new entry in a file called crontab by using the following command:

crontab -e

This will open up the default cron file for editing. Add a line similar to the following:

* * * * www-data php /path/to/Mahara/htdocs/lib/cron.php

Stars in the above example simply mean any value. If you are interested, see http://www.adminschoice.com/crontab-quick-reference for more information on crontab files. Also have a look at the Mahara information on using cron at https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator's_Guide/Cron_Job. That's it, you're all done with the installation, so you can log in and start using your new software!

Mahara partners can help you with ongoing support, if you need that little bit of extra help.