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+ (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 2. Unpack the Friendica files into the root of your web server document area.
61 - If you copy the directory tree to your webserver, make sure
62 that you also copy .htaccess - as "dot" files are often hidden
63 and aren't normally copied.
67 2b. Clone the friendica/friendica GitHub repository and import dependencies
69 git clone https://github.com/friendica/friendica [web server folder]
70 cd [web server folder]
71 php bin/composer.phar install
73 Make sure the folder view/smarty3 exists and is writable by the webserver
74 user, in this case `www-data`
77 chown www-data:www-data view/smarty3
78 chmod 775 view/smarty3
80 Get the addons by going into your website folder.
84 Clone the addon repository (separately):
86 git clone https://github.com/friendica/friendica-addons.git addon
88 If you copy the directory tree to your webserver, make sure that you also
89 copy .htaccess - as "dot" files are often hidden and aren't normally copied.
91 3. Create an empty database and note the access details (hostname, username,
92 password, database name).
94 - Friendica needs the permission to create and delete fields and tables in its own database.
95 - Please check the additional notes if running on MySQ 5.7.17 or newer
97 4. If you know in advance that it will be impossible for the web server to
98 write or create files in your web directory, create an empty file called
99 .htconfig.php and make it writable by the web server.
101 5. Visit your website with a web browser and follow the instructions. Please
102 note any error messages and correct these before continuing.
104 If you are using SSL with a known signature authority (recommended), use the
105 https: link to your website. If you are using a self-signed cert or no cert,
108 If you need to specify a port for the connection to the database, you can do
109 so in the host name setting for the database.
111 6. *If* the automated installation fails for any reason, check the following:
113 - ".htconfig.php" exists
114 If not, edit htconfig.php and change system settings. Rename
116 - Database is populated.
117 If not, import the contents of "database.sql" with phpmyadmin
118 or mysql command line
120 7. At this point visit your website again, and register your personal account.
121 Registration errors should all be recoverable automatically.
122 If you get any *critical* failure at this point, it generally indicates the
123 database was not installed correctly. You might wish to move/rename
124 .htconfig.php to another name and empty (called 'dropping') the database
125 tables, so that you can start fresh.
127 ****************************************************************************
128 ****************************************************************************
129 ******** THIS NEXT STEP IS IMPORTANT!!!! ***********
130 ****************************************************************************
131 ****************************************************************************
133 8. Set up a cron job or scheduled task to run the worker once every 5-10
134 minutes to pick up the recent "public" postings of your friends. Example:
136 cd /base/directory; /path/to/php bin/worker.php
138 Change "/base/directory", and "/path/to/php" as appropriate for your situation.
140 If you are using a Linux server, run "crontab -e" and add a line like the
141 one shown, substituting for your unique paths and settings:
143 */10 * * * * cd /home/myname/mywebsite; /usr/bin/php bin/worker.php
145 You can generally find the location of PHP by executing "which php". If you
146 have troubles with this section please contact your hosting provider for
147 assistance. Friendica will not work correctly if you cannot perform this step.
149 You should also be sure that $a->config['php_path'] is set correctly, it should
150 look like (changing it to the correct PHP location)
152 $a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/local/php56/bin/php'
154 Alternative: If you cannot use a cron job as described above, you can use
155 the frontend worker and an external cron service to trigger the execution
156 of the worker script. You can enable the frontend worker after the installation
157 from the admin panel of your node and call
159 https://example.com/worker
161 with the service of your choice.
163 9. (Recommended) Set up a backup plan
165 Bad things will happen. Let there be a hardware failure, a corrupted
166 database or whatever you can think of. So once the installation of your
167 Friendica node is done, you should make yoursef a backup plan.
169 The most important file is the `.htconfig.php` file in the base directory.
170 As it stores all your data, you should also have a recent dump of your
171 Friendica database at hand, should you have to recover your node.
173 10. (Optional) Reverse-proxying and HTTPS
175 Friendica looks for some well-known HTTP headers indicating a reverse-proxy
176 terminating an HTTPS connection. While the standard from RFC 7239 specifies
177 the use of the `Forwaded` header.
179 Forwarded: for=192.0.2.1; proto=https; by=192.0.2.2
181 Friendica also supports a number on non-standard headers in common use.
184 X-Forwarded-Proto: https
190 It is however preferable to use the standard approach if configuring a new server.
192 #####################################################################
194 If things don't work...
196 #####################################################################
199 #####################################################################
200 - If you get the message
201 "System is currently unavailable. Please try again later"
202 #####################################################################
204 Check your database settings. It usually means your database could not
205 be opened or accessed. If the database resides on the same machine, check that
206 the database server name is "localhost".
208 #####################################################################
210 #####################################################################
212 This could be the result of one of our Apache directives not being
213 supported by your version of Apache. Examine your apache server logs.
214 You might remove the line "Options -Indexes" from the .htaccess file if
215 you are using a Windows server as this has been known to cause problems.
216 Also check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must generally
219 It is likely that your web server reported the source of the problem in
220 its error log files. Please review these system error logs to determine what
221 caused the problem. Often this will need to be resolved with your hosting
222 provider or (if self-hosted) your web server configuration.
224 #####################################################################
225 - 400 and 4xx "File not found" errors
226 #####################################################################
228 First check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must
229 generally be world-readable.
231 Ensure that mod-rewite is installed and working, and that your
232 .htaccess file is being used. To verify the latter, create a file test.out
233 containing the word "test" in the top directory of Friendica, make it world
234 readable and point your web browser to
236 http://yoursitenamehere.com/test.out
238 This file should be blocked. You should get a permission denied message.
240 If you see the word "test" your Apache configuration is not allowing
241 your .htaccess file to be used (there are rules in this file to block access
242 to any file with .out at the end, as these are typically used for system logs).
244 Make certain the .htaccess file exists and is readable by everybody, then
245 look for the existence of "AllowOverride None" in the Apache server
246 configuration for your site. This will need to be changed to
249 If you do not see the word "test", your .htaccess is working, but it is
250 likely that mod-rewrite is not installed in your web server or is not working.
252 On most flavour of Linux,
255 % /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
257 Consult your hosting provider, experts on your particular Linux
258 distribution or (if Windows) the provider of your Apache server software if
259 you need to change either of these and can not figure out how. There is
260 a lot of help available on the web. Google "mod-rewrite" along with the
261 name of your operating system distribution or Apache package (if using
265 #####################################################################
266 - If you are unable to write the file .htconfig.php during installation
267 due to permissions issues:
268 #####################################################################
270 create an empty file with that name and give it world-write permission.
273 % touch .htconfig.php
274 % chmod 777 .htconfig.php
276 Retry the installation. As soon as the database has been created,
278 ******* this is important *********
280 % chmod 755 .htconfig.php
282 #####################################################################
283 - Some configurations with "suhosin" security are configured without
284 an ability to run external processes. Friendica requires this ability.
285 Following are some notes provided by one of our members.
286 #####################################################################
288 On my server I use the php protection system Suhosin
289 [http://www.hardened-php.net/suhosin/]. One of the things it does is to block
290 certain functions like proc_open, as configured in /etc/php5/conf.d/suhosin.ini:
292 suhosin.executor.func.blacklist = proc_open, ...
294 For those sites like Friendica that really need these functions they can be
295 enabled, e.g. in /etc/apache2/sites-available/friendica:
297 <Directory /var/www/friendica/>
298 php_admin_value suhosin.executor.func.blacklist none
299 php_admin_value suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist none
302 This enables every function for Friendica if accessed via browser, but not for
303 the cronjob that is called via php command line. I attempted to enable it for
304 cron by using something like
306 */10 * * * * cd /var/www/friendica/friendica/ && sudo -u www-data /usr/bin/php
307 -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none -d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none
310 This worked well for simple test cases, but the friendica-cron still failed with
312 suhosin[22962]: ALERT - function within blacklist called: proc_open() (attacker
313 'REMOTE_ADDR not set', file '/var/www/friendica/friendica/boot.php', line 1341)
315 After a while I noticed, that bin/worker.php calls further php script via
316 proc_open. These scripts themselves also use proc_open and fail, because they
317 are NOT called with -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none.
319 So the simple solution is to put the correct parameters into .htconfig.php:
320 // Location of PHP command line processor
321 $a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/bin/php -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none
322 -d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none';
325 This is obvious as soon as you notice that the friendica-cron uses proc_open to
326 execute php-scripts that also use proc_open, but it took me quite some time to
327 find that out. I hope this saves some time for other people using suhosin with
330 ########################################################################
331 Unable to create all mysql tables on MySQL 5.7.17 or newer
332 #######################################################################
334 If the setup fails to create all the database tables and/or manual
335 creation from the command line fails, with this error:
337 ERROR 1067 (42000) at line XX: Invalid default value for 'created'
339 You need to adjust your my.cnf and add the following setting under
340 the [mysqld] section :
344 After that, restart mysql and try again.