Install Free School Management Software: LAVSMS on XAMPP
Install Free School Management Software: LAVSMS on XAMPP
By Webotapp Academy•Published: •Updated:
📦 Official GitHub Repository:https://github.com/4jean/lav_sms (Open-Source Laravel 8 School Management System) | 💻 Architecture: Laravel 8 MVC & MySQL
Quick Overview & Executive Summary
Most commercial school management software costs hundreds to thousands of dollars every year in ongoing licensing fees. The few free alternatives available online either feature outdated legacy user interfaces from over a decade ago or arbitrarily lock essential features behind paid subscription tiers.
is different. It is a complete, production-grade built on the Laravel 8 MVC framework. With 1,000+ GitHub stars and 650+ forks, it includes comprehensive core modules: student marksheets, tabulation sheets, printable PDF report cards, class timetables, fee and receipt management, a librarian catalogue, and seven distinct role-based access levels.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
QIs LAVSMS truly 100% free and open-source?
Yes. LAVSMS is released under the permissive MIT License on GitHub. There are no licensing fees, seat restrictions, or locked enterprise tiers. You can inspect the source code, modify it, and host it on your own servers without paying subscription charges.
QCan I run LAVSMS on PHP 8.2 and PHP 8.3?
LAVSMS was originally built on Laravel 8 targeting PHP 7.2–8.0. However, by updating composer.json to require "laravel/framework": "^8.83" and setting a platform override for PHP 8.2 as documented in this guide, it runs cleanly on modern PHP 8.2.
QDoes LAVSMS support parent and student logins?
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LAVSMS
free school management software
This technical guide walks you through setting up and running LAVSMS locally on XAMPP, including tested code patches to make it fully compatible with modern PHP 8.0–8.2.
1. What Is LAVSMS?
LAVSMS (Laravel School Management System) was engineered by Nigerian developer CJ Inspired (Chinedu Okemiri). It is designed specifically for schools, academies, and collegiate institutions seeking a comprehensive administrative ERP without enterprise SaaS overhead.
The platform provides dedicated modules for:
Student Records: Admissions, enrollment, section assignment, and annual academic promotions.
Examinations & Marksheets: Grade configurations, tabulation sheets, and automated PDF report generation.
Timetable Management: Dynamic subject scheduling per class section with teacher assignments.
Library Module: Book indexing, cataloguing, and borrowing request workflows.
Noticeboard & Events: Campus announcements synchronized with an interactive dashboard calendar.
7 Discrete User Roles: Super Admin, Admin, Teacher, Student, Parent, Accountant, and Librarian.
Each role has a purpose-built dashboard. Parents can log in from home to inspect attendance records and download their child's official marksheet as a clean PDF—a feature often restricted to high-tier commercial packages.
2. System Requirements & Prerequisites
Before initiating the installation, ensure your workstation satisfies the following requirements:
Open your terminal or command prompt, navigate to your XAMPP htdocs directory, and clone the repository into a folder named sms:
# macOS XAMPP path:
cd /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs
# Windows XAMPP path:
# cd C:\xampp\htdocs
# Linux XAMPP path:
# cd /opt/lampp/htdocs
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/4jean/lav_sms.git sms
cd sms
4. Step 2 — Fix PHP 8.x Compatibility in composer.json
The original repository was configured for PHP 7.2–8.0. If you are running PHP 8.1 or 8.2, Composer will fail dependency resolution without adjusting package constraints.
Open composer.json in your code editor and apply the following modifications:
Update the php version constraint:
"php": "^7.2||^8.0||^8.1||^8.2||^8.3"
Upgrade the Laravel Framework to ^8.83:
"laravel/framework": "^8.83"
Add a platform configuration override inside the config block so dependencies resolve against PHP 8.2:
Note: You may observe standard deprecation notices during package compilation; these do not interfere with system stability.
5. Step 3 — Fix PSR-4 Namespace Errors (4 Files)
The original repository contains four files with mismatched namespace declarations. Without fixing these, PHP's PSR-4 autoloader throws fatal exceptions that crash the application during bootstrap.
Update the namespace and import the base Controller:
// BEFORE:
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Book;
// AFTER:
namespace App\Http\Controllers\SupportTeam;
use App\Models\Book;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
// BEFORE:
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\BookRequest;
// AFTER:
namespace App\Http\Controllers\SupportTeam;
use App\Models\BookRequest;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
6. Step 4 — Create the MySQL Database
Connect to your local MySQL server using the command line or phpMyAdmin at http://localhost/phpmyadmin:
# macOS XAMPP MySQL client:
/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/mysql -u root
# Windows XAMPP MySQL client:
# C:\xampp\mysql\bin\mysql -u root
Execute the database creation query:
CREATE DATABASE lav_sms CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
EXIT;
The migration builds 29 relational tables—including grading schemas, section enrollments, fee types, payment journals, and marks registers. The database seeder creates standard reference datasets along with default administrative and student credentials.
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Yes. LAVSMS includes seven pre-built role profiles. Parents can log in with their own credentials to view their children's academic performance, class timetables, fee records, and download printable PDF marksheets.
QCan I use LAVSMS for fee collection and printable payment receipts?
Yes. The built-in Accountant module tracks payment transactions per student, computes outstanding balances, and generates professional PDF receipts via the barryvdh/laravel-dompdf integration.
QWhat should I do if I get a "Permission denied" error on the storage directory?
On macOS and Linux systems, Apache needs write permissions on both storage and bootstrap/cache. Run chmod -R 777 storage bootstrap/cache in your terminal. On Windows, grant full write permissions to the Everyone group under folder properties.