7 - Getting it up and running
26 The following software packages are *required* for this software to
29 - PHP 5.5+ For newer versions, some functions that are used may be
30 disabled by default, such as the pcntl_* family. See the
31 section on 'Queues and daemons' for more information.
32 - MariaDB 5+ GNU Social uses, by default, a MariaDB server for data
33 storage. Versions 5.x and 10.x have both reportedly
34 worked well. It is also possible to run MySQL 5.5+.
35 - Web server Apache, lighttpd and nginx will all work. CGI mode is
36 recommended and also some variant of 'suexec' (or a
37 proper setup php-fpm pool)
38 NOTE: mod_rewrite or its equivalent is extremely useful.
40 Your PHP installation must include the following PHP extensions for a
41 functional setup of GNU Social:
43 - openssl (compiled in for Debian, enabled manually in Arch Linux)
44 - php5-curl Fetching files by HTTP.
45 - php5-gd Image manipulation (scaling).
46 - php5-gmp For Salmon signatures (part of OStatus).
47 - php5-intl Internationalization support (transliteration et al).
48 - php5-json For WebFinger lookups and more.
49 - php5-mysqlnd The native driver for PHP5 MariaDB connections. If you
50 use MySQL, 'php5-mysql' or 'php5-mysqli' may be enough.
52 Or, for PHP7, some or all of these will be necessary. PHP7 support is still
53 experimental and not necessarily working:
65 The above package names are for Debian based systems. In the case of
66 Arch Linux, PHP is compiled with support for most extensions but they
67 require manual enabling in the relevant php.ini file (mostly php5-gmp).
72 For some functionality, you will also need the following extensions:
74 - opcache Improves performance a _lot_. Included in PHP, must be
75 enabled manually in php.ini for most distributions. Find
76 and set at least: opcache.enable=1
77 - mailparse Efficient parsing of email requires this extension.
78 Submission by email or SMS-over-email uses this.
79 - sphinx A client for the sphinx server, an alternative to MySQL
80 or Postgresql fulltext search. You will also need a
81 Sphinx server to serve the search queries.
82 - gettext For multiple languages. Default on many PHP installs;
83 will be emulated if not present.
84 - exif For thumbnails to be properly oriented.
86 You may also experience better performance from your site if you configure
87 a PHP cache/accelerator. Most distributions come with "opcache" support.
88 Enable it in your php.ini where it is documented together with its settings.
93 Getting it up and running
94 -------------------------
96 Installing the basic GNU Social web component is relatively easy,
97 especially if you've previously installed PHP/MariaDB packages.
99 1. Unpack the tarball you downloaded on your Web server. Usually a
100 command like this will work:
102 tar zxf gnusocial-*.tar.gz
104 ...which will make a gnusocial-x.y.z subdirectory in your current
105 directory. (If you don't have shell access on your Web server, you
106 may have to unpack the tarball on your local computer and FTP the
107 files to the server.)
109 2. Move the tarball to a directory of your choosing in your Web root
110 directory. Usually something like this will work:
112 mv gnusocial-x.y.z /var/www/gnusocial
114 This will often make your GNU Social instance available in the gnusocial
115 path of your server, like "http://example.net/gnusocial". "social" or
116 "blog" might also be good path names. If you know how to configure
117 virtual hosts on your web server, you can try setting up
118 "http://social.example.net/" or the like.
120 If you have "rewrite" support on your webserver, and you should,
121 then please enable this in order to make full use of your site. This
122 will enable "Fancy URL" support, which you can read more about if you
123 scroll down a bit in this document.
125 3. Make your target directory writeable by the Web server, please note
126 however that 'a+w' will give _all_ users write access and securing the
127 webserver is not within the scope of this document.
129 chmod a+w /var/www/gnusocial/
131 On some systems, this will work as a more secure alternative:
133 chgrp www-data /var/www/gnusocial/
134 chmod g+w /var/www/gnusocial/
136 If your Web server runs as another user besides "www-data", try
137 that user's default group instead. As a last resort, you can create
138 a new group like "gnusocial" and add the Web server's user to the group.
140 4. You should also take this moment to make your 'avatar' and 'file' sub-
141 directories writeable by the Web server. The _insecure_ way to do
144 chmod a+w /var/www/gnusocial/avatar
145 chmod a+w /var/www/gnusocial/file
147 You can also make the avatar, and file directories just writable by
148 the Web server group, as noted above.
150 5. Create a database to hold your site data. Something like this
151 should work (you will be prompted for your database password):
153 mysqladmin -u "root" -p create social
155 Note that GNU Social should have its own database; you should not share
156 the database with another program. You can name it whatever you want,
159 (If you don't have shell access to your server, you may need to use
160 a tool like phpMyAdmin to create a database. Check your hosting
161 service's documentation for how to create a new MariaDB database.)
163 6. Create a new database account that GNU Social will use to access the
164 database. If you have shell access, this will probably work from the
167 GRANT ALL on social.*
168 TO 'social'@'localhost'
169 IDENTIFIED BY 'agoodpassword';
171 You should change the user identifier 'social' and 'agoodpassword'
172 to your preferred new database username and password. You may want to
173 test logging in to MariaDB as this new user.
175 7. In a browser, navigate to the GNU Social install script; something like:
177 https://social.example.net/install.php
179 Enter the database connection information and your site name. The
180 install program will configure your site and install the initial,
181 almost-empty database.
183 8. You should now be able to navigate to your social site's main directory
184 and see the "Public Timeline", which will probably be empty. You can
185 now register new user, post some notices, edit your profile, etc.
190 By default, GNU Social will use URLs that include the main PHP program's
191 name in them. For example, a user's home profile might be found at either
192 of these URLS depending on the webserver's configuration and capabilities:
194 https://social.example.net/index.php/fred
195 https://social.example.net/index.php?p=fred
197 It's possible to configure the software to use fancy URLs so it looks like
200 https://social.example.net/fred
202 These "fancy URLs" are more readable and memorable for users. To use
203 fancy URLs, you must either have Apache 2.x with .htaccess enabled and
204 mod_rewrite enabled, -OR- know how to configure "url redirection" in
205 your server (like lighttpd or nginx).
207 1. See the instructions for each respective webserver software:
208 * For Apache, inspect the "htaccess.sample" file and save it as
209 ".htaccess" after making any necessary modifications. Our sample
210 file is well commented.
211 * For lighttpd, inspect the lighttpd.conf.example file and apply the
212 appropriate changes in your virtualhost configuration for lighttpd.
213 * For nginx, inspect the nginx.conf.sample file and apply the appropriate
215 * For other webservers, we gladly accept contributions of
216 server configuration examples.
218 2. Assuming your webserver is properly configured and have its settings
219 applied (remember to reload/restart it), you can add this to your
220 GNU social's config.php file:
221 $config['site']['fancy'] = true;
223 You should now be able to navigate to a "fancy" URL on your server,
226 https://social.example.net/main/register
231 As of right now, your ability change the theme is limited to CSS
232 stylesheets and some image files; you can't change the HTML output,
233 like adding or removing menu items, without the help of a plugin.
235 You can choose a theme using the $config['site']['theme'] element in
236 the config.php file. See below for details.
238 You can add your own theme by making a sub-directory of the 'theme'
239 subdirectory with the name of your theme. Each theme can have the
242 display.css: a CSS2 file for "default" styling for all browsers.
243 logo.png: a logo image for the site.
244 default-avatar-profile.png: a 96x96 pixel image to use as the avatar for
245 users who don't upload their own.
246 default-avatar-stream.png: Ditto, but 48x48. For streams of notices.
247 default-avatar-mini.png: Ditto ditto, but 24x24. For subscriptions
248 listing on profile pages.
250 You may want to start by copying the files from the default theme to
256 A GNU social node can be configured as "private", which means it will not
257 federate with other nodes in the network. It is not a recommended method
258 of using GNU social and we cannot at the current state of development
259 guarantee that there are no leaks (what a public network sees as features,
260 private sites will likely see as bugs).
262 Private nodes are however an easy way to easily setup collaboration and
263 image sharing within a workgroup or a smaller community where federation
264 is not a desired feature. Also, it is possible to change this setting and
265 instantly gain full federation features.
267 Access to file attachments can also be restricted to logged-in users only:
269 1. Add a directory outside the web root where your file uploads will be
270 stored. Use this command as an initial guideline to create it:
272 mkdir /var/www/gnusocial-files
274 2. Make the file uploads directory writeable by the web server. An
275 insecure way to do this is (to do it properly, read up on UNIX file
276 permissions and configure your webserver accordingly):
278 chmod a+x /var/www/gnusocial-files
280 3. Tell GNU social to use this directory for file uploads. Add a line
281 like this to your config.php:
283 $config['attachments']['dir'] = '/var/www/gnusocial-files';
291 To use a Sphinx server to search users and notices, you'll need to
292 enable the SphinxSearch plugin. Add to your config.php:
294 addPlugin('SphinxSearch');
295 $config['sphinx']['server'] = 'searchhost.local';
297 You also need to install, compile and enable the sphinx pecl extension for
298 php on the client side, which itself depends on the sphinx development files.
300 See plugins/SphinxSearch/README for more details and server setup.
305 StatusNet supports a cheap-and-dirty system for sending update messages
306 to mobile phones and for receiving updates from the mobile. Instead of
307 sending through the SMS network itself, which is costly and requires
308 buy-in from the wireless carriers, it simply piggybacks on the email
309 gateways that many carriers provide to their customers. So, SMS
310 configuration is essentially email configuration.
312 Each user sends to a made-up email address, which they keep a secret.
313 Incoming email that is "From" the user's SMS email address, and "To"
314 the users' secret email address on the site's domain, will be
315 converted to a notice and stored in the DB.
317 For this to work, there *must* be a domain or sub-domain for which all
318 (or most) incoming email can pass through the incoming mail filter.
320 1. Run the SQL script carrier.sql in your StatusNet database. This will
323 mysql -u "statusnetuser" --password="statusnetpassword" statusnet < db/carrier.sql
325 This will populate your database with a list of wireless carriers
326 that support email SMS gateways.
328 2. Make sure the maildaemon.php file is executable:
330 chmod +x scripts/maildaemon.php
332 Note that "daemon" is kind of a misnomer here; the script is more
333 of a filter than a daemon.
335 2. Edit /etc/aliases on your mail server and add the following line:
337 *: /path/to/statusnet/scripts/maildaemon.php
339 3. Run whatever code you need to to update your aliases database. For
340 many mail servers (Postfix, Exim, Sendmail), this should work:
344 You may need to restart your mail server for the new database to
347 4. Set the following in your config.php file:
349 $config['mail']['domain'] = 'yourdomain.example.net';
354 For info on helping with translations, see the platform currently in use
355 for translations: https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/gnu-social/
357 Translations use the gettext system <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/>.
358 If you for some reason do not wish to sign up to the Transifex service,
359 you can review the files in the "locale/" sub-directory of GNU social.
360 Each plugin also has its own translation files.
362 To get your own site to use all the translated languages, and you are
363 tracking the git repo, you will need to install at least 'gettext' on
364 your system and then run:
370 Some activities that StatusNet needs to do, like broadcast OStatus, SMS,
371 XMPP messages and TwitterBridge operations, can be 'queued' and done by
372 off-line bots instead.
374 Two mechanisms are available to achieve offline operations:
376 * New embedded OpportunisticQM plugin, which is enabled by default
377 * Legacy queuedaemon script, which can be enabled via config file.
379 ### OpportunisticQM plugin
381 This plugin is enabled by default. It tries its best to do background
382 jobs during regular HTTP requests, like API or HTML pages calls.
384 Since queueing system is enabled by default, notices to be broadcasted
385 will be stored, by default, into DB (table queue_item).
387 Whenever it has time, OpportunisticQM will try to handle some of them.
389 This is a good solution whether you:
391 * have no access to command line (shared hosting)
392 * do not want to deal with long-running PHP processes
393 * run a low traffic GNU social instance
395 In other case, you really should consider enabling the queuedaemon for
396 performance reasons. Background daemons are necessary anyway if you wish
397 to use the Instant Messaging features such as communicating via XMPP.
401 If you want to use legacy queuedaemon, you must be able to run
402 long-running offline processes, either on your main Web server or on
403 another server you control. (Your other server will still need all the
404 above prerequisites, with the exception of Apache.) Installing on a
405 separate server is probably a good idea for high-volume sites.
407 1. You'll need the "CLI" (command-line interface) version of PHP
408 installed on whatever server you use.
410 Modern PHP versions in some operating systems have disabled functions
411 related to forking, which is required for daemons to operate. To make
412 this work, make sure that your php-cli config (/etc/php5/cli/php.ini)
413 does NOT have these functions listed under 'disable_functions':
415 * pcntl_fork, pcntl_wait, pcntl_wifexited, pcntl_wexitstatus,
416 pcntl_wifsignaled, pcntl_wtermsig
418 Other recommended settings for optimal performance are:
419 * mysqli.allow_persistent = On
420 * mysqli.reconnect = On
422 2. If you're using a separate server for queues, install StatusNet
423 somewhere on the server. You don't need to worry about the
424 .htaccess file, but make sure that your config.php file is close
425 to, or identical to, your Web server's version.
427 3. In your config.php files (on the server where you run the queue
428 daemon), set the following variable:
430 $config['queue']['daemon'] = true;
432 You may also want to look at the 'Queues and Daemons' section in
433 this file for more background processing options.
435 4. On the queues server, run the command scripts/startdaemons.sh.
437 This will run the queue handlers:
439 * queuedaemon.php - polls for queued items for inbox processing and
440 pushing out to OStatus, SMS, XMPP, etc.
441 * imdaemon.php - if an IM plugin is enabled (like XMPP)
442 * other daemons, like TwitterBridge ones, that you may have enabled
444 These daemons will automatically restart in most cases of failure
445 including memory leaks (if a memory_limit is set), but may still die
446 or behave oddly if they lose connections to the XMPP or queue servers.
448 It may be a good idea to use a daemon-monitoring service, like 'monit',
449 to check their status and keep them running.
451 All the daemons write their process IDs (pids) to /var/run/ by
452 default. This can be useful for starting, stopping, and monitoring the
453 daemons. If you are running multiple sites on the same machine, it will
454 be necessary to avoid collisions of these PID files by setting a site-
455 specific directory in config.php:
457 $config['daemon']['piddir'] = __DIR__ . '/../run/';
459 It is also possible to use a STOMP server instead of our kind of hacky
460 home-grown DB-based queue solution. This is strongly recommended for
461 best response time, especially when using XMPP.
469 There is no built-in system for doing backups in GNU social. You can make
470 backups of a working StatusNet system by backing up the database and
471 the Web directory. To backup the database use mysqldump <https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/mysqldump/>
472 and to backup the Web directory, try tar.
477 Upgrading is strongly recommended to stay up to date with security fixes
478 and new features. For instructions on how to upgrade GNU social code,
479 please see the UPGRADE file.