7 - Getting it up and running
23 The following software packages are *required* for this software to
26 - PHP 5.4+ For newer versions, some functions that are used may be
27 disabled by default, such as the pcntl_* family. See the
28 section on 'Queues and daemons' for more information.
29 - MariaDB 5+ GNU Social uses, by default, a MariaDB server for data
30 storage. Versions 5.x and 10.x have both reportedly
31 worked well. It is also possible to run MySQL 5.x.
32 - Web server Apache, lighttpd and nginx will all work. CGI mode is
33 recommended and also some variant of 'suexec' (or a
34 proper setup php-fpm pool)
35 NOTE: mod_rewrite or its equivalent is extremely useful.
37 Your PHP installation must include the following PHP extensions for a
38 functional setup of GNU Social:
40 - openssl (compiled in for Debian, enabled manually in Arch Linux)
41 - php5-curl Fetching files by HTTP.
42 - php5-gd Image manipulation (scaling).
43 - php5-gmp For Salmon signatures (part of OStatus).
44 - php5-json For WebFinger lookups and more.
45 - php5-mysqlnd The native driver for PHP5 MariaDB connections. If you
46 use MySQL, 'mysql' or 'mysqli' may work.
48 The above package names are for Debian based systems. In the case of
49 Arch Linux, PHP is compiled with support for most extensions but they
50 require manual enabling in the relevant php.ini file (mostly php5-gmp).
55 For some functionality, you will also need the following extensions:
57 - opcache Improves performance a _lot_. Included in PHP, must be
58 enabled manually in php.ini for most distributions. Find
59 and set at least: opcache.enable=1
60 - mailparse Efficient parsing of email requires this extension.
61 Submission by email or SMS-over-email uses this.
62 - sphinx A client for the sphinx server, an alternative to MySQL
63 or Postgresql fulltext search. You will also need a
64 Sphinx server to serve the search queries.
65 - gettext For multiple languages. Default on many PHP installs;
66 will be emulated if not present.
67 - exif For thumbnails to be properly oriented.
69 You may also experience better performance from your site if you configure
70 a PHP cache/accelerator. Most distributions come with "opcache" support.
71 Enable it in your php.ini, it is documented there together with its settings.
76 Getting it up and running
77 -------------------------
79 Installing the basic GNU Social web component is relatively easy,
80 especially if you've previously installed PHP/MariaDB packages.
82 1. Unpack the tarball you downloaded on your Web server. Usually a
83 command like this will work:
85 tar zxf gnusocial-*.tar.gz
87 ...which will make a gnusocial-x.y.z subdirectory in your current
88 directory. (If you don't have shell access on your Web server, you
89 may have to unpack the tarball on your local computer and FTP the
92 2. Move the tarball to a directory of your choosing in your Web root
93 directory. Usually something like this will work:
95 mv gnusocial-x.y.z /var/www/gnusocial
97 This will often make your GNU Social instance available in the gnusocial
98 path of your server, like "http://example.net/gnusocial". "social" or
99 "blog" might also be good path names. If you know how to configure
100 virtual hosts on your web server, you can try setting up
101 "http://social.example.net/" or the like.
103 If you have "rewrite" support on your webserver, and you should,
104 then please enable this in order to make full use of your site. This
105 will enable "Fancy URL" support, which you can read more about if you
106 scroll down a bit in this document.
108 3. Make your target directory writeable by the Web server.
110 chmod a+w /var/www/gnusocial/
112 On some systems, this will probably work:
114 chgrp www-data /var/www/gnusocial/
115 chmod g+w /var/www/gnusocial/
117 If your Web server runs as another user besides "www-data", try
118 that user's default group instead. As a last resort, you can create
119 a new group like "gnusocial" and add the Web server's user to the group.
121 4. You should also take this moment to make your avatar, background, and
122 file subdirectories writeable by the Web server. An insecure way to do
125 chmod a+w /var/www/gnusocial/avatar
126 chmod a+w /var/www/gnusocial/background
127 chmod a+w /var/www/gnusocial/file
129 You can also make the avatar, background, and file directories
130 writeable by the Web server group, as noted above.
132 5. Create a database to hold your site data. Something like this
135 mysqladmin -u "root" --password="rootpassword" create gnusocial
137 Note that GNU Social should have its own database; you should not share
138 the database with another program. You can name it whatever you want,
141 (If you don't have shell access to your server, you may need to use
142 a tool like phpMyAdmin to create a database. Check your hosting
143 service's documentation for how to create a new MariaDB database.)
145 6. Create a new database account that GNU Social will use to access the
146 database. If you have shell access, this will probably work from the
149 GRANT ALL on gnusocial.*
150 TO 'gnusocial'@'localhost'
151 IDENTIFIED BY 'agoodpassword';
153 You should change the user identifier 'gnusocial' and 'agoodpassword'
154 to your preferred new database username and password. You may want to
155 test logging in to MariaDB as this new user.
157 7. In a browser, navigate to the GNU Social install script; something like:
159 http://social.example.net/install.php
161 Enter the database connection information and your site name. The
162 install program will configure your site and install the initial,
163 almost-empty database.
165 8. You should now be able to navigate to your social site's main directory
166 and see the "Public Timeline", which will probably be empty. You can
167 now register new user, post some notices, edit your profile, etc.
172 By default, GNU Social will use URLs that include the main PHP program's
173 name in them. For example, a user's home profile might be found at:
175 http://example.net/gnusocial/index.php/gnusocial/fred
177 On certain systems that don't support this kind of syntax, they'll
180 http://example.net/gnusocial/index.php?p=gnusocial/fred
182 It's possible to configure the software so it looks like this instead:
184 http://example.net/gnusocial/fred
186 These "fancy URLs" are more readable and memorable for users. To use
187 fancy URLs, you must either have Apache 2.x with .htaccess enabled and
188 mod_rewrite enabled, -OR- know how to configure "url redirection" in
189 your server (like lighttpd or nginx).
191 1. Copy the htaccess.sample file to .htaccess in your StatusNet
194 2. Change the "RewriteBase" in the new .htaccess file to be the URL path
195 to your GNU Social installation on your server. Typically this will
196 be the path to your GNU Social directory relative to your Web root.
197 If you are installing it in the root directory, leave it as '/'.
199 3. Add, uncomment or change a line in your config.php file so it says:
201 $config['site']['fancy'] = true;
203 You should now be able to navigate to a "fancy" URL on your server,
206 http://example.net/gnusocial/main/register
208 If you changed your HTTP server configuration, you may need to restart
211 If it doesn't work, double-check that AllowOverride for the GNU Social
212 directory is 'All' in your Apache configuration file. This is usually
213 /etc/httpd.conf, /etc/apache/httpd.conf, or (on Debian and Ubuntu)
214 /etc/apache2/sites-available/default. See the Apache documentation for
215 .htaccess files for more details:
217 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/htaccess.html
219 Also, check that mod_rewrite is installed and enabled:
221 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_rewrite.html
226 To use a Sphinx server to search users and notices, you'll need to
227 enable the SphinxSearch plugin. Add to your config.php:
229 addPlugin('SphinxSearch');
230 $config['sphinx']['server'] = 'searchhost.local';
232 You also need to install, compile and enable the sphinx pecl extension for
233 php on the client side, which itself depends on the sphinx development files.
235 See plugins/SphinxSearch/README for more details and server setup.
240 StatusNet supports a cheap-and-dirty system for sending update messages
241 to mobile phones and for receiving updates from the mobile. Instead of
242 sending through the SMS network itself, which is costly and requires
243 buy-in from the wireless carriers, it simply piggybacks on the email
244 gateways that many carriers provide to their customers. So, SMS
245 configuration is essentially email configuration.
247 Each user sends to a made-up email address, which they keep a secret.
248 Incoming email that is "From" the user's SMS email address, and "To"
249 the users' secret email address on the site's domain, will be
250 converted to a notice and stored in the DB.
252 For this to work, there *must* be a domain or sub-domain for which all
253 (or most) incoming email can pass through the incoming mail filter.
255 1. Run the SQL script carrier.sql in your StatusNet database. This will
258 mysql -u "statusnetuser" --password="statusnetpassword" statusnet < db/carrier.sql
260 This will populate your database with a list of wireless carriers
261 that support email SMS gateways.
263 2. Make sure the maildaemon.php file is executable:
265 chmod +x scripts/maildaemon.php
267 Note that "daemon" is kind of a misnomer here; the script is more
268 of a filter than a daemon.
270 2. Edit /etc/aliases on your mail server and add the following line:
272 *: /path/to/statusnet/scripts/maildaemon.php
274 3. Run whatever code you need to to update your aliases database. For
275 many mail servers (Postfix, Exim, Sendmail), this should work:
279 You may need to restart your mail server for the new database to
282 4. Set the following in your config.php file:
284 $config['mail']['domain'] = 'yourdomain.example.net';
291 Some activities that StatusNet needs to do, like broadcast OStatus, SMS,
292 XMPP messages and TwitterBridge operations, can be 'queued' and done by
293 off-line bots instead.
295 Two mechanisms are available to achieve offline operations:
297 * New embedded OpportunisticQM plugin, which is enabled by default
298 * Legacy queuedaemon script, which can be enabled via config file.
300 ### OpportunisticQM plugin
302 This plugin is enabled by default. It tries its best to do background
303 job during regular HTTP requests, like API or HTML pages calls.
305 Since queueing system is enabled by default, notices to be broadcasted
306 will be stored, by default, into DB (table queue_item).
308 Each time it can, OpportunisticQM will try to handle some of them.
310 This is a good solution whether you:
312 * have no access to command line (shared hosting)
313 * do not want to deal with long-running PHP processes
314 * run a low traffic GNU social instance
316 In other case, you really should consider enabling the queuedaemon for
317 performance reasons. Background daemons are necessary anyway if you wish
318 to use the Instant Messaging features such as communicating via XMPP.
322 If you want to use legacy queuedaemon, you must be able to run
323 long-running offline processes, either on your main Web server or on
324 another server you control. (Your other server will still need all the
325 above prerequisites, with the exception of Apache.) Installing on a
326 separate server is probably a good idea for high-volume sites.
328 1. You'll need the "CLI" (command-line interface) version of PHP
329 installed on whatever server you use.
331 Modern PHP versions in some operating systems have disabled functions
332 related to forking, which is required for daemons to operate. To make
333 this work, make sure that your php-cli config (/etc/php5/cli/php.ini)
334 does NOT have these functions listed under 'disable_functions':
336 * pcntl_fork, pcntl_wait, pcntl_wifexited, pcntl_wexitstatus,
337 pcntl_wifsignaled, pcntl_wtermsig
339 Other recommended settings for optimal performance are:
340 * mysqli.allow_persistent = On
341 * mysqli.reconnect = On
343 2. If you're using a separate server for queues, install StatusNet
344 somewhere on the server. You don't need to worry about the
345 .htaccess file, but make sure that your config.php file is close
346 to, or identical to, your Web server's version.
348 3. In your config.php files (both the Web server and the queues
349 server!), set the following variable:
351 $config['queue']['enabled'] = true;
352 $config['queue']['daemon'] = true;
354 You may also want to look at the 'daemon' section of this file for
355 more daemon options. Note that if you set the 'user' and/or 'group'
356 options, you'll need to create that user and/or group by hand.
357 They're not created automatically.
359 4. On the queues server, run the command scripts/startdaemons.sh.
361 This will run the queue handlers:
363 * queuedaemon.php - polls for queued items for inbox processing and
364 pushing out to OStatus, SMS, XMPP, etc.
365 * imdaemon.php - if an IM plugin is enabled (like XMPP)
366 * other daemons, like TwitterBridge ones, that you may have enabled
368 These daemons will automatically restart in most cases of failure
369 including memory leaks (if a memory_limit is set), but may still die
370 or behave oddly if they lose connections to the XMPP or queue servers.
372 It may be a good idea to use a daemon-monitoring service, like 'monit',
373 to check their status and keep them running.
375 All the daemons write their process IDs (pids) to /var/run/ by
376 default. This can be useful for starting, stopping, and monitoring the
377 daemons. If you are running multiple sites on the same machine, it will
378 be necessary to avoid collisions of these PID files by setting a site-
379 specific directory in config.php:
381 $config['daemon']['piddir'] = __DIR__ . '/../run/';
383 It is also possible to use a STOMP server instead of our kind of hacky
384 home-grown DB-based queue solution. This is strongly recommended for
385 best response time, especially when using XMPP.
390 Older themes (version 0.9.x and below) no longer work with StatusNet
391 1.0.x, due to major changes in the site layout. We ship with three new
392 themes for this version, 'neo', 'neo-blue' and 'neo-light'.
394 As of right now, your ability to change the theme is site-wide; users
395 can't choose their own theme. Additionally, the only thing you can
396 change in the theme is CSS stylesheets and some image files; you can't
397 change the HTML output, like adding or removing menu items.
399 You can choose a theme using the $config['site']['theme'] element in
400 the config.php file. See below for details.
402 You can add your own theme by making a sub-directory of the 'theme'
403 subdirectory with the name of your theme. Each theme can have the
406 display.css: a CSS2 file for "default" styling for all browsers.
407 logo.png: a logo image for the site.
408 default-avatar-profile.png: a 96x96 pixel image to use as the avatar for
409 users who don't upload their own.
410 default-avatar-stream.png: Ditto, but 48x48. For streams of notices.
411 default-avatar-mini.png: Ditto ditto, but 24x24. For subscriptions
412 listing on profile pages.
414 You may want to start by copying the files from the default theme to
420 Translations in StatusNet use the gettext system <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/>.
421 Theoretically, you can add your own sub-directory to the locale/
422 subdirectory to add a new language to your system. You'll need to
423 compile the ".po" files into ".mo" files, however.
425 Contributions of translation information to StatusNet are very easy:
426 you can use the Web interface at translatewiki.net to add one
427 or a few or lots of new translations -- or even new languages. You can
428 also download more up-to-date .po files there, if you so desire.
430 For info on helping with translations, see http://status.net/wiki/Translations
435 There is no built-in system for doing backups in StatusNet. You can make
436 backups of a working StatusNet system by backing up the database and
437 the Web directory. To backup the database use mysqldump <http://ur1.ca/7xo>
438 and to backup the Web directory, try tar.
443 The administrator can set the "private" flag for a site so that it's
444 not visible to non-logged-in users. (This is the default for new installs of version 1.0!)
446 This might be useful for workgroups who want to share a social
447 networking site for project management, but host it on a public
450 Total privacy is attempted but not guaranteed or ensured. Private sites
451 currently don't work well with OStatus federation.
453 Access to file attachments can also be restricted to logged-in users only.
455 1. Add a directory outside the web root where your file uploads will be
456 stored. Usually a command like this will work:
458 mkdir /var/www/statusnet-files
460 2. Make the file uploads directory writeable by the web server. An
461 insecure way to do this is:
463 chmod a+x /var/www/statusnet-files
465 3. Tell StatusNet to use this directory for file uploads. Add a line
466 like this to your config.php:
468 $config['attachments']['dir'] = '/var/www/statusnet-files';