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
35 - PHP 5.6.1+ (PHP 7 recommended for performance).
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, xml, zip and openssl extensions
42 - some form of email server or email gateway such that PHP mail() works
44 - The POSIX module of PHP needs to be activated (e.g. RHEL, CentOS have disabled it)
46 - Mysql 5.5.3+ or an equivalant alternative for MySQL (MariaDB, Percona Server etc.)
48 - ability to schedule jobs with cron (Linux/Mac) or Scheduled Tasks
49 (Windows) [Note: other options are presented in Section 8 of this document]
51 - Installation into a top-level domain or sub-domain (without a
52 directory/path component in the URL) is preferred. This is REQUIRED if
53 you wish to communicate with the Diaspora network.
56 - For alternative server configurations (such as Nginx server and MariaDB
57 database engine), refer to the wiki at https://github.com/friendica/friendica/wiki
59 This guide will walk you through the manual installation process of Friendica.
60 If this is nothing for you, you might be interested in
62 * the Friendica Docker image (https://github.com/friendica/docker) or
63 * how install Friendica with YunoHost (https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/friendica_ynh).
66 2. Unpack the Friendica files into the root of your web server document area.
68 - If you copy the directory tree to your webserver, make sure
69 that you also copy .htaccess - as "dot" files are often hidden
70 and aren't normally copied.
74 2b. Clone the friendica/friendica GitHub repository and import dependencies
76 git clone https://github.com/friendica/friendica -b master [web server folder]
77 cd [web server folder]
78 php bin/composer.phar install
80 Make sure the folder view/smarty3 exists and is writable by the webserver
81 user, in this case `www-data`
84 chown www-data:www-data view/smarty3
85 chmod 775 view/smarty3
87 Get the addons by going into your website folder.
91 Clone the addon repository (separately):
93 git clone https://github.com/friendica/friendica-addons.git -b master addon
95 If you copy the directory tree to your webserver, make sure that you also
96 copy .htaccess - as "dot" files are often hidden and aren't normally copied.
98 If you want to use the development version of Friendica you can switch to
99 the devel branch in the repository by running
102 bin/composer.phar install
106 please be aware that the develop branch may break your Friendica node at any
107 time. If you encounter a bug, please let us know.
109 3. Create an empty database and note the access details (hostname, username,
110 password, database name).
112 - Friendica needs the permission to create and delete fields and tables in its own database.
113 - Please check the additional notes if running on MySQ 5.7.17 or newer
115 4. If you know in advance that it will be impossible for the web server to
116 write or create files in the config/ subfolder, create an empty file called
117 local.config.php and make it writable by the web server.
119 5. Visit your website with a web browser and follow the instructions. Please
120 note any error messages and correct these before continuing.
122 If you are using SSL with a known signature authority (recommended), use the
123 https: link to your website. If you are using a self-signed cert or no cert,
126 If you need to specify a port for the connection to the database, you can do
127 so in the host name setting for the database.
129 6. *If* the automated installation fails for any reason, check the following:
131 - "config/local.config.php" exists
132 If not, edit local-sample.config.php and change system settings. Rename
134 - Database is populated.
135 If not, import the contents of "database.sql" with phpmyadmin
136 or mysql command line
138 7. At this point visit your website again, and register your personal account.
139 Registration errors should all be recoverable automatically.
140 If you get any *critical* failure at this point, it generally indicates the
141 database was not installed correctly. You might wish to move/rename
142 local.config.php to another name and empty (called 'dropping') the database
143 tables, so that you can start fresh.
145 ****************************************************************************
146 ****************************************************************************
147 ******** THIS NEXT STEP IS IMPORTANT!!!! ***********
148 ****************************************************************************
149 ****************************************************************************
151 8. Set up a cron job or scheduled task to run the worker once every 5-10
152 minutes to pick up the recent "public" postings of your friends. Example:
154 cd /base/directory; /path/to/php bin/worker.php
156 Change "/base/directory", and "/path/to/php" as appropriate for your situation.
158 If you are using a Linux server, run "crontab -e" and add a line like the
159 one shown, substituting for your unique paths and settings:
161 */10 * * * * cd /home/myname/mywebsite; /usr/bin/php bin/worker.php
163 You can generally find the location of PHP by executing "which php". If you
164 have troubles with this section please contact your hosting provider for
165 assistance. Friendica will not work correctly if you cannot perform this step.
167 You should also be sure that $a->config['php_path'] is set correctly, it should
168 look like (changing it to the correct PHP location)
170 $a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/local/php56/bin/php'
172 Alternative: If you cannot use a cron job as described above, you can use
173 the frontend worker and an external cron service to trigger the execution
174 of the worker script. You can enable the frontend worker after the installation
175 from the admin panel of your node and call
177 https://example.com/worker
179 with the service of your choice.
181 9. (Recommended) Set up a backup plan
183 Bad things will happen. Let there be a hardware failure, a corrupted
184 database or whatever you can think of. So once the installation of your
185 Friendica node is done, you should make yoursef a backup plan.
187 The most important file is the `config/local.config.php` file in the base directory.
188 As it stores all your data, you should also have a recent dump of your
189 Friendica database at hand, should you have to recover your node.
191 10. (Optional) Reverse-proxying and HTTPS
193 Friendica looks for some well-known HTTP headers indicating a reverse-proxy
194 terminating an HTTPS connection. While the standard from RFC 7239 specifies
195 the use of the `Forwaded` header.
197 Forwarded: for=192.0.2.1; proto=https; by=192.0.2.2
199 Friendica also supports a number on non-standard headers in common use.
202 X-Forwarded-Proto: https
208 It is however preferable to use the standard approach if configuring a new server.
210 #####################################################################
212 If things don't work...
214 #####################################################################
217 #####################################################################
218 - If you get the message
219 "System is currently unavailable. Please try again later"
220 #####################################################################
222 Check your database settings. It usually means your database could not
223 be opened or accessed. If the database resides on the same machine, check that
224 the database server name is "localhost".
226 #####################################################################
228 #####################################################################
230 This could be the result of one of our Apache directives not being
231 supported by your version of Apache. Examine your apache server logs.
232 You might remove the line "Options -Indexes" from the .htaccess file if
233 you are using a Windows server as this has been known to cause problems.
234 Also check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must generally
237 It is likely that your web server reported the source of the problem in
238 its error log files. Please review these system error logs to determine what
239 caused the problem. Often this will need to be resolved with your hosting
240 provider or (if self-hosted) your web server configuration.
242 #####################################################################
243 - 400 and 4xx "File not found" errors
244 #####################################################################
246 First check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must
247 generally be world-readable.
249 Ensure that mod-rewite is installed and working, and that your
250 .htaccess file is being used. To verify the latter, create a file test.out
251 containing the word "test" in the top directory of Friendica, make it world
252 readable and point your web browser to
254 http://yoursitenamehere.com/test.out
256 This file should be blocked. You should get a permission denied message.
258 If you see the word "test" your Apache configuration is not allowing
259 your .htaccess file to be used (there are rules in this file to block access
260 to any file with .out at the end, as these are typically used for system logs).
262 Make certain the .htaccess file exists and is readable by everybody, then
263 look for the existence of "AllowOverride None" in the Apache server
264 configuration for your site. This will need to be changed to
267 If you do not see the word "test", your .htaccess is working, but it is
268 likely that mod-rewrite is not installed in your web server or is not working.
270 On most flavour of Linux,
273 % /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
275 Consult your hosting provider, experts on your particular Linux
276 distribution or (if Windows) the provider of your Apache server software if
277 you need to change either of these and can not figure out how. There is
278 a lot of help available on the web. Google "mod-rewrite" along with the
279 name of your operating system distribution or Apache package (if using
283 #####################################################################
284 - If you are unable to write the file config/local.config.php during installation
285 due to permissions issues:
286 #####################################################################
288 create an empty file with that name and give it world-write permission.
291 % touch config/local.config.php
292 % chmod 664 config/local.config.php
294 Retry the installation. As soon as the database has been created,
296 ******* this is important *********
298 % chmod 644 config/local.config.php
300 #####################################################################
301 - Some configurations with "suhosin" security are configured without
302 an ability to run external processes. Friendica requires this ability.
303 Following are some notes provided by one of our members.
304 #####################################################################
306 On my server I use the php protection system Suhosin
307 [http://www.hardened-php.net/suhosin/]. One of the things it does is to block
308 certain functions like proc_open, as configured in /etc/php5/conf.d/suhosin.ini:
310 suhosin.executor.func.blacklist = proc_open, ...
312 For those sites like Friendica that really need these functions they can be
313 enabled, e.g. in /etc/apache2/sites-available/friendica:
315 <Directory /var/www/friendica/>
316 php_admin_value suhosin.executor.func.blacklist none
317 php_admin_value suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist none
320 This enables every function for Friendica if accessed via browser, but not for
321 the cronjob that is called via php command line. I attempted to enable it for
322 cron by using something like
324 */10 * * * * cd /var/www/friendica/friendica/ && sudo -u www-data /usr/bin/php
325 -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none -d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none
328 This worked well for simple test cases, but the friendica-cron still failed with
330 suhosin[22962]: ALERT - function within blacklist called: proc_open() (attacker
331 'REMOTE_ADDR not set', file '/var/www/friendica/friendica/boot.php', line 1341)
333 After a while I noticed, that bin/worker.php calls further php script via
334 proc_open. These scripts themselves also use proc_open and fail, because they
335 are NOT called with -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none.
337 So the simple solution is to put the correct parameters into config/local.config.php:
340 //Location of PHP command line processor
341 'php_path' => '/usr/bin/php -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none -d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none',
344 This is obvious as soon as you notice that the friendica-cron uses proc_open to
345 execute php-scripts that also use proc_open, but it took me quite some time to
346 find that out. I hope this saves some time for other people using suhosin with
349 ########################################################################
350 Unable to create all mysql tables on MySQL 5.7.17 or newer
351 #######################################################################
353 If the setup fails to create all the database tables and/or manual
354 creation from the command line fails, with this error:
356 ERROR 1067 (42000) at line XX: Invalid default value for 'created'
358 You need to adjust your my.cnf and add the following setting under
359 the [mysqld] section :
363 After that, restart mysql and try again.