aula API

Backend API for serving aula. Visit the aula documentation for more information about the project.

Self-Hosting

See SELF_HOSTING.md for up-to-date information. At the moment, running aula-backend and aula-frontend docker images is NOT enough.

License

See LICENSE.txt. Licensed under the EUPL-1.2 or later. You may obtain a copy of the license at https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12.

Contribution

Thank you for your interest. See contribution guidelines at CONTRIBUTION.md.

Development

Running

Choose one of the following:

# Run aula-backend:v2 locally (doesn't include the legacy aula-backend:v1)
docker compose --profile v2-only up --build -d

# Stop aula-backend:v2 and run legacy aula-backend:v1
docker compose --profile v2-only down \
  && make run-legacy-local

# Run both legacy aula-backend:v1 (:8080) and current Laravel-based aula-backend:v2 (:???)
docker build -f Dockerfile . \
  && docker compose --profile v2-only down \
  && make run-legacy-local \
  && docker compose up --build -d aula-backend

Legacy aula-backend code

We're currently rewriting the API to use Laravel and be RESTful. New feature development using code in the ./legacy/ folder is stopped since 2025-11-15. Security patches and bugs are welcome. As parts of the system get refactored, and API clients updated, we will remove the related code from the legacy codebase.

Legacy part of API

• ./legacy/src contains all PHP source files that are served by Apache2.
• ./legacy/config has templates for configuration. You can manually edit them.
• ./legacy/init has SQL scripts to init the legacy DB structure, for local development use only.
• ./legacy/docker-local is local-only folder bound to Docker volumes storing database and uploaded files.

Running the legacy code locally through Docker Compose

You can use one of the two following:

# Run the latest published release locally
make run-legacy-release

# Run locally live development environment (files you edit get updated immediately)
make run-legacy-local