4 We've tried very hard to ensure that Friendica will run on commodity hosting
5 platforms - such as those used to host Wordpress blogs and Drupal websites.
6 But be aware that Friendica is more than a simple web application. It is a
7 complex communications system which more closely resembles an email server
8 than a web server. For reliability and performance, messages are delivered in
9 the background and are queued for later delivery when sites are down. This
10 kind of functionality requires a bit more of the host system than the typical
11 blog. Not every PHP/MySQL hosting provider will be able to support Friendica.
12 Many will. But please review the requirements and confirm these with your
13 hosting provider prior to installation.
15 Before you begin: Choose a domain name or subdomain name for your server.
16 Put some thought into this - because changing it is currently not-supported.
17 Things will break, and some of your friends may have difficulty communicating
18 with you. We plan to address this limitation in a future release. Also decide
19 if you wish to connect with members of the Diaspora network, as this will
20 impact the installation requirements.
22 Decide if you will use SSL and obtain an SSL cert. Communications with the
23 Diaspora network MAY require both SSL AND an SSL cert signed by a CA which is
24 recognised by the major browsers. Friendica will work with self-signed certs
25 but Diaspora communication may not. For best results, install your cert PRIOR
26 to installing Friendica and when visiting your site for the initial
27 installation in step 5, please use the https: link. (Use the http: or non-SSL
28 link if your cert is self-signed).
32 - Apache with mod-rewrite enabled and "Options All" so you can use a
37 - PHP *command line* access with register_argc_argv set to true in the
38 php.ini file [or see 'poormancron' in section 8]
40 - curl, gd (with at least jpeg support), mysql, mbstring and openssl extensions
42 - some form of email server or email gateway such that PHP mail() works
44 - Mysql 5.5.3+ or an equivalant alternative for MySQL (MariaDB, Percona Server etc.)
46 - ability to schedule jobs with cron (Linux/Mac) or Scheduled Tasks
47 (Windows) [Note: other options are presented in Section 8 of this document]
49 - Installation into a top-level domain or sub-domain (without a
50 directory/path component in the URL) is preferred. This is REQUIRED if
51 you wish to communicate with the Diaspora network.
54 - For alternative server configurations (such as Nginx server and MariaDB
55 database engine), refer to the wiki at https://github.com/friendica/friendica/wiki
57 2. Unpack the Friendica files into the root of your web server document area.
59 - If you copy the directory tree to your webserver, make sure
60 that you also copy .htaccess - as "dot" files are often hidden
61 and aren't normally copied.
63 3. Create an empty database and note the access details (hostname, username,
64 password, database name).
66 - Friendica needs the permission to create and delete fields and tables in its own database.
67 - Please check the additional notes if running on MySQ 5.7.17 or newer
69 4. If you know in advance that it will be impossible for the web server to
70 write or create files in your web directory, create an empty file called
71 .htconfig.php and make it writable by the web server.
73 5. Visit your website with a web browser and follow the instructions. Please
74 note any error messages and correct these before continuing.
76 If you are using SSL with a known signature authority (recommended), use the
77 https: link to your website. If you are using a self-signed cert or no cert,
80 If you need to specify a port for the connection to the database, you can do
81 so in the host name setting for the database.
83 6. *If* the automated installation fails for any reason, check the following:
85 - ".htconfig.php" exists
86 If not, edit htconfig.php and change system settings. Rename
88 - Database is populated.
89 If not, import the contents of "database.sql" with phpmyadmin
92 7. At this point visit your website again, and register your personal account.
93 Registration errors should all be recoverable automatically.
94 If you get any *critical* failure at this point, it generally indicates the
95 database was not installed correctly. You might wish to move/rename
96 .htconfig.php to another name and empty (called 'dropping') the database
97 tables, so that you can start fresh.
99 ****************************************************************************
100 ****************************************************************************
101 ******** THIS NEXT STEP IS IMPORTANT!!!! ***********
102 ****************************************************************************
103 ****************************************************************************
105 8. Set up a cron job or scheduled task to run the poller once every 5-10
106 minutes to pick up the recent "public" postings of your friends. Example:
108 cd /base/directory; /path/to/php include/poller.php
110 Change "/base/directory", and "/path/to/php" as appropriate for your situation.
112 If you are using a Linux server, run "crontab -e" and add a line like the
113 one shown, substituting for your unique paths and settings:
115 */10 * * * * cd /home/myname/mywebsite; /usr/bin/php include/poller.php
117 You can generally find the location of PHP by executing "which php". If you
118 have troubles with this section please contact your hosting provider for
119 assistance. Friendica will not work correctly if you cannot perform this step.
121 You should also be sure that $a->config['php_path'] is set correctly, it should
122 look like (changing it to the correct PHP location)
124 $a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/local/php53/bin/php'
126 Alternative: You may be able to use the 'poormancron' plugin to perform this
127 step if you are using a recent Friendica release. 'poormancron' may result in
128 perfomance and memory issues and is only suitable for small sites with one or
129 two users and a handful of contacts. To do this, edit the file
130 ".htconfig.php" and look for a line describing your plugins. On a fresh
131 installation, it will look like
133 $a->config['system']['addon'] = 'js_upload';
135 This indicates the "js_upload" addon module is enabled. You may add additional
136 addons/plugins using this same line in the configuration file. Change it to
139 $a->config['system']['addon'] = 'js_upload,poormancron';
141 and save your changes.
143 9. (Recommended) Set up a backup plan
145 Bad things will happen. Let there be a hardware failure, a corrupted
146 database or whatever you can think of. So once the installation of your
147 Friendica node is done, you should make yoursef a backup plan.
149 The most important file is the `.htconfig.php` file in the base directory.
150 As it stores all your data, you should also have a recent dump of your
151 Friendica database at hand, should you have to recover your node.
153 10. (Optional) Reverse-proxying and HTTPS
155 Friendica looks for some well-known HTTP headers indicating a reverse-proxy
156 terminating an HTTPS connection. While the standard from RFC 7239 specifies
157 the use of the `Forwaded` header.
159 Forwarded: for=192.0.2.1; proto=https; by=192.0.2.2
161 Friendica also supports a number on non-standard headers in common use.
164 X-Forwarded-Proto: https
170 It is however preferable to use the standard approach if configuring a new server.
172 #####################################################################
174 If things don't work...
176 #####################################################################
179 #####################################################################
180 - If you get the message
181 "System is currently unavailable. Please try again later"
182 #####################################################################
184 Check your database settings. It usually means your database could not
185 be opened or accessed. If the database resides on the same machine, check that
186 the database server name is "localhost".
188 #####################################################################
190 #####################################################################
192 This could be the result of one of our Apache directives not being
193 supported by your version of Apache. Examine your apache server logs.
194 You might remove the line "Options -Indexes" from the .htaccess file if
195 you are using a Windows server as this has been known to cause problems.
196 Also check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must generally
199 It is likely that your web server reported the source of the problem in
200 its error log files. Please review these system error logs to determine what
201 caused the problem. Often this will need to be resolved with your hosting
202 provider or (if self-hosted) your web server configuration.
204 #####################################################################
205 - 400 and 4xx "File not found" errors
206 #####################################################################
208 First check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must
209 generally be world-readable.
211 Ensure that mod-rewite is installed and working, and that your
212 .htaccess file is being used. To verify the latter, create a file test.out
213 containing the word "test" in the top directory of Friendica, make it world
214 readable and point your web browser to
216 http://yoursitenamehere.com/test.out
218 This file should be blocked. You should get a permission denied message.
220 If you see the word "test" your Apache configuration is not allowing
221 your .htaccess file to be used (there are rules in this file to block access
222 to any file with .out at the end, as these are typically used for system logs).
224 Make certain the .htaccess file exists and is readable by everybody, then
225 look for the existence of "AllowOverride None" in the Apache server
226 configuration for your site. This will need to be changed to
229 If you do not see the word "test", your .htaccess is working, but it is
230 likely that mod-rewrite is not installed in your web server or is not working.
232 On most flavour of Linux,
235 % /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
237 Consult your hosting provider, experts on your particular Linux
238 distribution or (if Windows) the provider of your Apache server software if
239 you need to change either of these and can not figure out how. There is
240 a lot of help available on the web. Google "mod-rewrite" along with the
241 name of your operating system distribution or Apache package (if using
245 #####################################################################
246 - If you are unable to write the file .htconfig.php during installation
247 due to permissions issues:
248 #####################################################################
250 create an empty file with that name and give it world-write permission.
253 % touch .htconfig.php
254 % chmod 777 .htconfig.php
256 Retry the installation. As soon as the database has been created,
258 ******* this is important *********
260 % chmod 755 .htconfig.php
262 #####################################################################
263 - Some configurations with "suhosin" security are configured without
264 an ability to run external processes. Friendica requires this ability.
265 Following are some notes provided by one of our members.
266 #####################################################################
268 On my server I use the php protection system Suhosin
269 [http://www.hardened-php.net/suhosin/]. One of the things it does is to block
270 certain functions like proc_open, as configured in /etc/php5/conf.d/suhosin.ini:
272 suhosin.executor.func.blacklist = proc_open, ...
274 For those sites like Friendica that really need these functions they can be
275 enabled, e.g. in /etc/apache2/sites-available/friendica:
277 <Directory /var/www/friendica/>
278 php_admin_value suhosin.executor.func.blacklist none
279 php_admin_value suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist none
282 This enables every function for Friendica if accessed via browser, but not for
283 the cronjob that is called via php command line. I attempted to enable it for
284 cron by using something like
286 */10 * * * * cd /var/www/friendica/friendica/ && sudo -u www-data /usr/bin/php
287 -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none -d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none
288 -f include/poller.php
290 This worked well for simple test cases, but the friendica-cron still failed with
292 suhosin[22962]: ALERT - function within blacklist called: proc_open() (attacker
293 'REMOTE_ADDR not set', file '/var/www/friendica/friendica/boot.php', line 1341)
295 After a while I noticed, that include/poller.php calls further php script via
296 proc_open. These scripts themselves also use proc_open and fail, because they
297 are NOT called with -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none.
299 So the simple solution is to put the correct parameters into .htconfig.php:
300 // Location of PHP command line processor
301 $a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/bin/php -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none
302 -d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none';
305 This is obvious as soon as you notice that the friendica-cron uses proc_open to
306 execute php-scripts that also use proc_open, but it took me quite some time to
307 find that out. I hope this saves some time for other people using suhosin with
310 ########################################################################
311 Unable to create all mysql tables on MySQL 5.7.17 or newer
312 #######################################################################
314 If the setup fails to create all the database tables and/or manual
315 creation from the command line fails, with this error:
317 ERROR 1067 (42000) at line XX: Invalid default value for 'created'
319 You need to adjust your my.cnf and add the following setting under
320 the [mysqld] section :
324 After that, restart mysql and try again.