5 StatusNet 0.9.0 ("Stand") Beta 5
8 This is the README file for StatusNet (formerly Laconica), the Open
9 Source microblogging platform. It includes installation instructions,
10 descriptions of options you can set, warnings, tips, and general info
11 for administrators. Information on using StatusNet can be found in the
12 "doc" subdirectory or in the "help" section on-line.
17 StatusNet (formerly Laconica) is a Free and Open Source microblogging
18 platform. It helps people in a community, company or group to exchange
19 short (140 characters, by default) messages over the Web. Users can
20 choose which people to "follow" and receive only their friends' or
21 colleagues' status messages. It provides a similar service to sites
22 like Twitter, Jaiku, Yammer, and Plurk.
24 With a little work, status messages can be sent to mobile phones,
25 instant messenger programs (GTalk/Jabber), and specially-designed
26 desktop clients that support the Twitter API.
28 StatusNet supports an open standard called OpenMicroBlogging
29 <http://openmicroblogging.org/> that lets users on different Web sites
30 or in different companies subscribe to each others' notices. It
31 enables a distributed social network spread all across the Web.
33 StatusNet was originally developed for the Open Software Service,
34 Identi.ca <http://identi.ca/>. It is shared with you in hope that you
35 too make an Open Software Service available to your users. To learn
36 more, please see the Open Software Service Definition 1.1:
38 http://www.opendefinition.org/ossd
40 StatusNet, Inc. <http://status.net/> also offers this software as a
41 Web service, requiring no installation on your part. The software run
42 on status.net is identical to the software available for download, so
43 you can move back and forth between a hosted version or a version
44 installed on your own servers.
49 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
50 it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as
51 published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
52 License, or (at your option) any later version.
54 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
55 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
56 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
57 Affero General Public License for more details.
59 You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public
60 License along with this program, in the file "COPYING". If not, see
61 <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
63 IMPORTANT NOTE: The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) has
64 *different requirements* from the "regular" GPL. In particular, if
65 you make modifications to the StatusNet source code on your server,
66 you *MUST MAKE AVAILABLE* the modified version of the source code
67 to your users under the same license. This is a legal requirement
68 of using the software, and if you do not wish to share your
69 modifications, *YOU MAY NOT INSTALL STATUSNET*.
71 Additional library software has been made available in the 'extlib'
72 directory. All of it is Free Software and can be distributed under
73 liberal terms, but those terms may differ in detail from the AGPL's
74 particulars. See each package's license file in the extlib directory
80 This is a major feature release since version 0.8.2, released Nov 1 2009.
81 It is also a security release since 0.9.0beta4 January 27 2010. Beta
82 users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to deal with a security alert.
84 http://status.net/wiki/Security_alert_0000002
86 Notable changes this version:
88 - Records of deleted notices are stored without the notice content.
89 - Much of the optional core featureset has been moved to plugins.
90 - OpenID support moved from core to a plugin. Helps test the strength of
91 our plugin architecture and makes it easy to disable this
92 functionality for e.g. intranet sites.
93 - Many additional hook events (see EVENTS.txt for details).
94 - OMB 0.1 support re-implemented using libomb.
95 - Re-structure database so notices, messages, bios and group
96 descriptions can be over 140 characters. Limit defined by
97 site administrator as configuration option; can be unlimited.
98 - Configuration data now optionally stored in the database, which
99 overrides any settings in config files.
100 - Twitter integration re-implemented as a plugin.
101 - Facebook integration re-implemented as a plugin.
102 - Role-based authorization framework. Users can have named roles, and
103 roles can have rights (e.g., to delete notices, change configuration
104 data, or ban uncooperative users). Default roles 'admin' (for
105 configuration) and 'moderator' (for community management) added.
106 - Plugin for PubSubHubBub (PuSH) support.
107 - Considerable code style cleanup to meet PEAR code standards.
108 - Made a common library for HTTP-client access which uses available
109 HTTP libraries where possible.
110 - Added statuses/home_timeline method to API.
111 - Hooks for plugins to handle notices offline, either by defining
112 their own queue handler scripts or to use a default plugin queue
114 - Plugins can now modify the database schema, adding their own tables
115 or modifying existing ones.
117 - Twitter API supports Web caching for some methods.
118 - Twitter API refactored into one-action-per-method.
119 - Realtime plugin supports a tear-off window.
121 - Moved all JavaScript tags to just before </body> by default,
122 significantly speeding up apparent page load time.
123 - Added a Realtime plugin for Orbited server.
124 - Added a mobile plugin to give a more mobile-phone-friendly layout
125 when a mobile browser is detected.
126 - Use CSS sprites for most common icons.
127 - Fixes for images and buttons on Web output.
128 - New plugin requires that users validate their email before posting.
129 - New plugin UserFlag lets users flag other profiles for review.
130 - Considerably better i18n support. Use TranslateWiki to update
132 - Notices and profiles now store location information.
133 - New plugin, Geonames, for turning location names and lat/long pairs
134 into structured IDs and vice versa. Architecture reusable for other
136 - Better check of license compatibility between site licenses.
137 - Some improvements in XMPP output.
138 - Media upload in the API.
139 - Replies appear in the user's inbox.
140 - Improved the UI on the bookmarklet.
141 - StatusNet identities can be used as OpenID identities.
142 - Script to register a user.
143 - Script to make someone a group admin.
144 - Script to make someone a site admin or moderator.
146 - Pluggable authentication.
147 - LDAP authentication plugin.
148 - Script for console interaction with the site (!).
149 - Users don't see group posts from people they've blocked.
150 - Admin panel interface for changing site configuration.
151 - Users can be sandboxed (limited contributions) or silenced
152 (no contributions) by moderators.
153 - Many changes to make language usage more consistent.
154 - Sphinx search moved to a plugin.
156 - Profile and group lists support hAtom.
157 - Massive refactoring of util.js.
158 - Mapstraction plugin to show maps on inbox and profile pages.
159 - Play/pause buttons for realtime notices.
160 - Support for geo microformat.
161 - Partial support for feed subscriptions, RSSCloud, PubSubHubBub.
162 - Support for geolocation in browser (Chrome, Firefox).
163 - Quit trying to negotiate HTML format. Always use text/html.
164 We lose, and so do Web standards. Boo.
165 - Better logging of request info.
166 - Better output for errors in Web interface.
167 - No longer store .mo files; these need to be generated.
169 - Events to allow pluginizing logger.
170 - New framework for plugin localization.
172 - Add support for "repeats" (similar to Twitter's "retweets").
173 - Support for repeats in Twitter API.
174 - Better notification of direct messages.
175 - New plugin to add "powered by StatusNet" to logo.
176 - Returnto works for private sites.
177 - Localisation updates, including new Persian translation.
178 - CAS authentication plugin
179 - Get rid of DB_DataObject native cache (big memory leaker)
180 - setconfig.php script to set configuration variables
181 - Blacklist plugin, to blacklist URLs and nicknames
182 - Users can set flag whether they want to share location
183 both in notice form (for one notice) and profile settings
185 - notice inboxes moved from normalized notice_inbox table to
186 denormalized inbox table
187 - Automatic compression of Memcache
188 - Memory caching pluginized
189 - Memcache, XCache, APC and Diskcache plugins
190 - A script to update user locations
191 - cache empty query results
192 - A sample plugin to show best plugin practices
193 - CacheLog plugin to debug cache accesses
194 - Require users to login to view attachments on private sites
195 - Plugin to use Mollom spam detection service
196 - Plugin for RSSCloud
197 - Add an array of default plugins
198 - A version action to give credit to contributors and plugin
200 - Daemon to read IMAP mailbox instead of using a mailbox script
201 - Pass session information between SSL and non-SSL server
202 when SSL set to 'sometimes'
203 - Major refactoring of queue handlers to manage very
204 large hosting site (like status.net)
205 - SubscriptionThrottle plugin to prevent subscription spamming
206 - Don't enqueue into plugin or SMS queues when disabled (breaks unqueuehandler if SMS queue isn't attached)
207 - Improve name validation checks on local File references
208 - fix local file include vulnerability in doc.php
209 - Reusing fixed selector name for 'processing' in util.js
210 - Removed hAtom pattern from registration page.
211 - restructuring of User::registerNew() lost password munging
212 - Add a script to clear the cache for a given key
213 - buggy fetch for site owner
214 - Added missing concat of </li> in Realtime response
215 - Updated XHR binded events to work better in jQuery 1.4.1. Using .live() for event delegation instead of jQuery.data() and checking to see if an element was previously binded.
216 - Updated jQuery Form Plugin from v2.17 to v2.36
217 - Updated jQuery JavaScript Library from v1.3.2 to v1.4.1
218 - move schema.type.php to typeschema.php like other files
219 - Add Really Simple Discovery (RSD) support
220 - Add a robots.txt URL to the site root
221 - error clearing tags for profiles from memcached
222 - on exceptions, stomp logs the error and reenqueues
223 - add lat, lon, location and remove closing tag from geocode.php
224 - Use passed-in lat long in geocode.php
225 - better handling of null responses from geonames.org
226 - Globalized form notice data geo values
227 - Using jQuery chaining in FormNoticeXHR
228 - Using form object instead of form_id and find(). Slightly faster and easier to read.
229 - removed describeTable from base class, and fixed it up in pgsql
230 - getTableDef() mostly working in postgres
231 - move the schema DDL sql off into seperate files for each db we support
232 - plugin to limit number of registered users
233 - add hooks for user registration
234 - live fast, die young in bash scripts
235 - for single-user mode, retrieve either site owner or defined nickname
236 - method to get the site owner
237 - define a constant for the 'owner' role of a site
238 - add simple cache getter/setter static functions to Memcached_DataObject
239 - Adds notice author's name to @title in Realtime response
240 - Hides .author from XHR response in showstream
241 - Hides .author from XHR response in showstream
242 - Fix more fatal errors in queue edge cases
243 - Don't attempt to resend XMPP messages that can't be broadcast due to the profile being deleted.
244 - Wrap each bit of distrib queue handler's saving operation in a try/catch; log exceptions but let everything else continue.
245 - Log exceptions from queuedaemon.php if they're not already caught
246 - Move sessions settings to its own panel
247 - Fixes for status_network db object .ini and tag setter script
248 - Add a script to set tags for sites
249 - Adjust API authentication to also check for OAuth protocol params in the HTTP Authorization header, as defined in OAuth HTTP Authorization Scheme.
250 - Last-chance distribution if enqueueing fails
251 - Manual failover for stomp queues.
252 - lost config in index.php made all traffic go to master
253 - "Revert "move RW setup above user get in index.php so remember_me works""
254 - Revert "move RW setup above user get in index.php so remember_me works"
255 - move RW setup above user get in index.php so remember_me works
256 - hide most DB_DataObject errors
257 - always set up database_rw, regardless, so cached sessions work
258 - update mysqltimestamps on insert and update
259 - additional debugging data for Sessions
260 - 'Sign in with Twitter' button img
261 - Update to biz theme
262 - Remove redundant session token field from form (was already being added by base class).
263 - 'Sign in with Twitter' button img
264 - Can now set $config['queue']['stomp_persistent'] = false; to explicitly disable persistence when we queue items
265 - Showing processing indicator for form_repeat on submit instead of form
266 - Removed avatar from repeat of username (matches noticelist)
267 - Removed unused variable assignment for avatar URL and added missing fn
268 - Don't preemptively close existing DB connections for web views (needed to keep # of conns from going insane on multi-site queue daemons, so just doing for CLI) May, or may not, help with mystery session problems
269 - dropping the setcookie() call from common_ensure_session() since we're pretty sure it's unnecessary
270 - append '/' on cookie path for now (may still need some refactoring)
271 - set session cookie correctly
272 - Fix for Mapstraction plugin's zoomed map links
273 - debug log line for control channel sub
274 - Move faceboookapp.js to the Facebook plugin
275 - fix for fix for bad realtime JS load
276 - default 24-hour expiry on Memcached objects where not specified.
281 The following software packages are *required* for this software to
284 - PHP 5.2.3+. It may be possible to run this software on earlier
285 versions of PHP, but many of the functions used are only available
287 - MySQL 5.x. The StatusNet database is stored, by default, in a MySQL
288 server. It has been primarily tested on 5.x servers, although it may
289 be possible to install on earlier (or later!) versions. The server
290 *must* support the MyISAM storage engine -- the default for most
291 MySQL servers -- *and* the InnoDB storage engine.
292 - A Web server. Preferably, you should have Apache 2.2.x with the
293 mod_rewrite extension installed and enabled.
295 Your PHP installation must include the following PHP extensions:
297 - Curl. This is for fetching files by HTTP.
298 - XMLWriter. This is for formatting XML and HTML output.
299 - MySQL. For accessing the database.
300 - GD. For scaling down avatar images.
301 - mbstring. For handling Unicode (UTF-8) encoded strings.
302 - gettext. For multiple languages. Default on many PHP installs.
304 For some functionality, you will also need the following extensions:
306 - Memcache. A client for the memcached server, which caches database
307 information in volatile memory. This is important for adequate
308 performance on high-traffic sites. You will also need a memcached
309 server to store the data in.
310 - Mailparse. Efficient parsing of email requires this extension.
311 Submission by email or SMS-over-email uses this extension.
312 - Sphinx Search. A client for the sphinx server, an alternative
313 to MySQL or Postgresql fulltext search. You will also need a
314 Sphinx server to serve the search queries.
316 You will almost definitely get 2-3 times better performance from your
317 site if you install a PHP bytecode cache/accelerator. Some well-known
318 examples are: eaccelerator, Turck mmcache, xcache, apc. Zend Optimizer
319 is a proprietary accelerator installed on some hosting sites.
324 A number of external PHP libraries are used to provide basic
325 functionality and optional functionality for your system. For your
326 convenience, they are available in the "extlib" directory of this
327 package, and you do not have to download and install them. However,
328 you may want to keep them up-to-date with the latest upstream version,
329 and the URLs are listed here for your convenience.
331 - DB_DataObject http://pear.php.net/package/DB_DataObject
332 - Validate http://pear.php.net/package/Validate
333 - OpenID from OpenIDEnabled (not the PEAR version!). We decided
334 to use the openidenabled.com version since it's more widely
335 implemented, and seems to be better supported.
336 http://openidenabled.com/php-openid/
337 - PEAR DB. Although this is an older data access system (new
338 packages should probably use PHP DBO), the OpenID libraries
339 depend on PEAR DB so we use it here, too. DB_DataObject can
340 also use PEAR MDB2, which may give you better performance
341 but won't work with OpenID.
342 http://pear.php.net/package/DB
343 - OAuth.php from http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/php/
344 - markdown.php from http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/
345 - PEAR Mail, for sending out mail notifications
346 http://pear.php.net/package/Mail
347 - PEAR Net_SMTP, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications
348 http://pear.php.net/package/Net_SMTP
349 - PEAR Net_Socket, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications
350 http://pear.php.net/package/Net_Socket
351 - XMPPHP, the follow-up to Class.Jabber.php. Probably the best XMPP
352 library available for PHP. http://xmpphp.googlecode.com/. Note that
353 as of this writing the version of this library that is available in
354 the extlib directory is *significantly different* from the upstream
355 version (patches have been submitted). Upgrading to the upstream
356 version may render your StatusNet site unable to send or receive XMPP
358 - Facebook library. Used for the Facebook application.
359 - PEAR Services_oEmbed. Used for some multimedia integration.
360 - PEAR HTTP_Request is an oEmbed dependency.
361 - PEAR Validate is an oEmbed dependency.
362 - PEAR Net_URL2 is an oEmbed dependency.
363 - Console_GetOpt for parsing command-line options.
365 A design goal of StatusNet is that the basic Web functionality should
366 work on even the most restrictive commercial hosting services.
367 However, additional functionality, such as receiving messages by
368 Jabber/GTalk, require that you be able to run long-running processes
369 on your account. In addition, posting by email or from SMS require
370 that you be able to install a mail filter in your mail server.
375 Installing the basic StatusNet Web component is relatively easy,
376 especially if you've previously installed PHP/MySQL packages.
378 1. Unpack the tarball you downloaded on your Web server. Usually a
379 command like this will work:
381 tar zxf statusnet-0.8.2.tar.gz
383 ...which will make a statusnet-0.8.2 subdirectory in your current
384 directory. (If you don't have shell access on your Web server, you
385 may have to unpack the tarball on your local computer and FTP the
386 files to the server.)
388 2. Move the tarball to a directory of your choosing in your Web root
389 directory. Usually something like this will work:
391 mv statusnet-0.8.2 /var/www/mublog
393 This will make your StatusNet instance available in the mublog path of
394 your server, like "http://example.net/mublog". "microblog" or
395 "statusnet" might also be good path names. If you know how to
396 configure virtual hosts on your web server, you can try setting up
397 "http://micro.example.net/" or the like.
399 3. Make your target directory writeable by the Web server.
401 chmod a+w /var/www/mublog/
403 On some systems, this will probably work:
405 chgrp www-data /var/www/mublog/
406 chmod g+w /var/www/mublog/
408 If your Web server runs as another user besides "www-data", try
409 that user's default group instead. As a last resort, you can create
410 a new group like "mublog" and add the Web server's user to the group.
412 4. You should also take this moment to make your avatar, background, and
413 file subdirectories writeable by the Web server. An insecure way to do
416 chmod a+w /var/www/mublog/avatar
417 chmod a+w /var/www/mublog/background
418 chmod a+w /var/www/mublog/file
420 You can also make the avatar, background, and file directories
421 writeable by the Web server group, as noted above.
423 5. Create a database to hold your microblog data. Something like this
426 mysqladmin -u "username" --password="password" create statusnet
428 Note that StatusNet must have its own database; you can't share the
429 database with another program. You can name it whatever you want,
432 (If you don't have shell access to your server, you may need to use
433 a tool like PHPAdmin to create a database. Check your hosting
434 service's documentation for how to create a new MySQL database.)
436 6. Create a new database account that StatusNet will use to access the
437 database. If you have shell access, this will probably work from the
440 GRANT ALL on statusnet.*
441 TO 'lacuser'@'localhost'
442 IDENTIFIED BY 'lacpassword';
444 You should change 'lacuser' and 'lacpassword' to your preferred new
445 username and password. You may want to test logging in to MySQL as
448 7. In a browser, navigate to the StatusNet install script; something like:
450 http://yourserver.example.com/mublog/install.php
452 Enter the database connection information and your site name. The
453 install program will configure your site and install the initial,
454 almost-empty database.
456 8. You should now be able to navigate to your microblog's main directory
457 and see the "Public Timeline", which will be empty. If not, magic
458 has happened! You can now register a new user, post some notices,
459 edit your profile, etc. However, you may want to wait to do that stuff
460 if you think you can set up "fancy URLs" (see below), since some
461 URLs are stored in the database.
466 By default, StatusNet will use URLs that include the main PHP program's
467 name in them. For example, a user's home profile might be
470 http://example.org/mublog/index.php/mublog/fred
472 On certain systems that don't support this kind of syntax, they'll
475 http://example.org/mublog/index.php?p=mublog/fred
477 It's possible to configure the software so it looks like this instead:
479 http://example.org/mublog/fred
481 These "fancy URLs" are more readable and memorable for users. To use
482 fancy URLs, you must either have Apache 2.x with .htaccess enabled and
483 mod_rewrite enabled, -OR- know how to configure "url redirection" in
486 1. Copy the htaccess.sample file to .htaccess in your StatusNet
487 directory. Note: if you have control of your server's httpd.conf or
488 similar configuration files, it can greatly improve performance to
489 import the .htaccess file into your conf file instead. If you're
490 not sure how to do it, you may save yourself a lot of headache by
491 just leaving the .htaccess file.
493 2. Change the "RewriteBase" in the new .htaccess file to be the URL path
494 to your StatusNet installation on your server. Typically this will
495 be the path to your StatusNet directory relative to your Web root.
497 3. Add or uncomment or change a line in your config.php file so it says:
499 $config['site']['fancy'] = true;
501 You should now be able to navigate to a "fancy" URL on your server,
504 http://example.net/mublog/main/register
506 If you changed your HTTP server configuration, you may need to restart
509 If it doesn't work, double-check that AllowOverride for the StatusNet
510 directory is 'All' in your Apache configuration file. This is usually
511 /etc/httpd.conf, /etc/apache/httpd.conf, or (on Debian and Ubuntu)
512 /etc/apache2/sites-available/default. See the Apache documentation for
513 .htaccess files for more details:
515 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/htaccess.html
517 Also, check that mod_rewrite is installed and enabled:
519 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_rewrite.html
524 To use a Sphinx server to search users and notices, you'll need to
525 enable the SphinxSearch plugin. Add to your config.php:
527 addPlugin('SphinxSearch');
528 $config['sphinx']['server'] = 'searchhost.local';
530 You also need to install, compile and enable the sphinx pecl extension for
531 php on the client side, which itself depends on the sphinx development files.
533 See plugins/SphinxSearch/README for more details and server setup.
538 StatusNet supports a cheap-and-dirty system for sending update messages
539 to mobile phones and for receiving updates from the mobile. Instead of
540 sending through the SMS network itself, which is costly and requires
541 buy-in from the wireless carriers, it simply piggybacks on the email
542 gateways that many carriers provide to their customers. So, SMS
543 configuration is essentially email configuration.
545 Each user sends to a made-up email address, which they keep a secret.
546 Incoming email that is "From" the user's SMS email address, and "To"
547 the users' secret email address on the site's domain, will be
548 converted to a notice and stored in the DB.
550 For this to work, there *must* be a domain or sub-domain for which all
551 (or most) incoming email can pass through the incoming mail filter.
553 1. Run the SQL script carrier.sql in your StatusNet database. This will
556 mysql -u "lacuser" --password="lacpassword" statusnet < db/carrier.sql
558 This will populate your database with a list of wireless carriers
559 that support email SMS gateways.
561 2. Make sure the maildaemon.php file is executable:
563 chmod +x scripts/maildaemon.php
565 Note that "daemon" is kind of a misnomer here; the script is more
566 of a filter than a daemon.
568 2. Edit /etc/aliases on your mail server and add the following line:
570 *: /path/to/statusnet/scripts/maildaemon.php
572 3. Run whatever code you need to to update your aliases database. For
573 many mail servers (Postfix, Exim, Sendmail), this should work:
577 You may need to restart your mail server for the new database to
580 4. Set the following in your config.php file:
582 $config['mail']['domain'] = 'yourdomain.example.net';
584 At this point, post-by-email and post-by-SMS-gateway should work. Note
585 that if your mail server is on a different computer from your email
586 server, you'll need to have a full installation of StatusNet, a working
587 config.php, and access to the StatusNet database from the mail server.
592 XMPP (eXtended Message and Presence Protocol, <http://xmpp.org/>) is the
593 instant-messenger protocol that drives Jabber and GTalk IM. You can
594 distribute messages via XMPP using the system below; however, you
595 need to run the XMPP incoming daemon to allow incoming messages as
598 1. You may want to strongly consider setting up your own XMPP server.
599 Ejabberd, OpenFire, and JabberD are all Open Source servers.
600 Jabber, Inc. provides a high-performance commercial server.
602 2. You must register a Jabber ID (JID) with your new server. It helps
603 to choose a name like "update@example.com" or "notice" or something
604 similar. Alternately, your "update JID" can be registered on a
605 publicly-available XMPP service, like jabber.org or GTalk.
607 StatusNet will not register the JID with your chosen XMPP server;
608 you need to do this manually, with an XMPP client like Gajim,
609 Telepathy, or Pidgin.im.
611 3. Configure your site's XMPP variables, as described below in the
612 configuration section.
614 On a default installation, your site can broadcast messages using
615 XMPP. Users won't be able to post messages using XMPP unless you've
616 got the XMPP daemon running. See 'Queues and daemons' below for how
617 to set that up. Also, once you have a sizable number of users, sending
618 a lot of SMS, OMB, and XMPP messages whenever someone posts a message
619 can really slow down your site; it may cause posting to timeout.
621 NOTE: stream_select(), a crucial function for network programming, is
622 broken on PHP 5.2.x less than 5.2.6 on amd64-based servers. We don't
623 work around this bug in StatusNet; current recommendation is to move
624 off of amd64 to another server.
629 You can send *all* messages from your microblogging site to a
630 third-party service using XMPP. This can be useful for providing
631 search, indexing, bridging, or other cool services.
633 To configure a downstream site to receive your public stream, add
634 their "JID" (Jabber ID) to your config.php as follows:
636 $config['xmpp']['public'][] = 'downstream@example.net';
638 (Don't miss those square brackets at the end.) Note that your XMPP
639 broadcasting must be configured as mentioned above. Although you can
640 send out messages at "Web time", high-volume sites should strongly
641 consider setting up queues and daemons.
646 Some activities that StatusNet needs to do, like broadcast OMB, SMS,
647 and XMPP messages, can be 'queued' and done by off-line bots instead.
648 For this to work, you must be able to run long-running offline
649 processes, either on your main Web server or on another server you
650 control. (Your other server will still need all the above
651 prerequisites, with the exception of Apache.) Installing on a separate
652 server is probably a good idea for high-volume sites.
654 1. You'll need the "CLI" (command-line interface) version of PHP
655 installed on whatever server you use.
657 2. If you're using a separate server for queues, install StatusNet
658 somewhere on the server. You don't need to worry about the
659 .htaccess file, but make sure that your config.php file is close
660 to, or identical to, your Web server's version.
662 3. In your config.php files (both the Web server and the queues
663 server!), set the following variable:
665 $config['queue']['enabled'] = true;
667 You may also want to look at the 'daemon' section of this file for
668 more daemon options. Note that if you set the 'user' and/or 'group'
669 options, you'll need to create that user and/or group by hand.
670 They're not created automatically.
672 4. On the queues server, run the command scripts/startdaemons.sh. It
673 needs as a parameter the install path; if you run it from the
674 StatusNet dir, "." should suffice.
676 This will run the queue handlers:
678 * queuedaemon.php - polls for queued items for inbox processing and
679 pushing out to OMB, SMS, XMPP, etc.
680 * xmppdaemon.php - listens for new XMPP messages from users and stores
681 them as notices in the database; also pulls queued XMPP output from
682 queuedaemon.php to push out to clients.
684 These two daemons will automatically restart in most cases of failure
685 including memory leaks (if a memory_limit is set), but may still die
686 or behave oddly if they lose connections to the XMPP or queue servers.
688 It may be a good idea to use a daemon-monitoring service, like 'monit',
689 to check their status and keep them running.
691 All the daemons write their process IDs (pids) to /var/run/ by
692 default. This can be useful for starting, stopping, and monitoring the
695 Since version 0.8.0, it's now possible to use a STOMP server instead of
696 our kind of hacky home-grown DB-based queue solution. See the "queues"
697 config section below for how to configure to use STOMP. As of this
698 writing, the software has been tested with ActiveMQ.
703 Sitemap files <http://sitemaps.org/> are a very nice way of telling
704 search engines and other interested bots what's available on your site
705 and what's changed recently. You can generate sitemap files for your
708 1. Choose your sitemap URL layout. StatusNet creates a number of
709 sitemap XML files for different parts of your site. You may want to
710 put these in a sub-directory of your StatusNet directory to avoid
711 clutter. The sitemap index file tells the search engines and other
712 bots where to find all the sitemap files; it *must* be in the main
713 installation directory or higher. Both types of file must be
714 available through HTTP.
716 2. To generate your sitemaps, run the following command on your server:
718 php scripts/sitemap.php -f index-file-path -d sitemap-directory -u URL-prefix-for-sitemaps
720 Here, index-file-path is the full path to the sitemap index file,
721 like './sitemapindex.xml'. sitemap-directory is the directory where
722 you want the sitemaps stored, like './sitemaps/' (make sure the dir
723 exists). URL-prefix-for-sitemaps is the full URL for the sitemap dir,
724 typically something like <http://example.net/mublog/sitemaps/>.
726 You can use several methods for submitting your sitemap index to
727 search engines to get your site indexed. One is to add a line like the
728 following to your robots.txt file:
730 Sitemap: /mublog/sitemapindex.xml
732 This is a good idea for letting *all* Web spiders know about your
733 sitemap. You can also submit sitemap files to major search engines
734 using their respective "Webmaster centres"; see sitemaps.org for links
740 There are two themes shipped with this version of StatusNet: "identica",
741 which is what the Identi.ca site uses, and "default", which is a good
742 basis for other sites.
744 As of right now, your ability to change the theme is site-wide; users
745 can't choose their own theme. Additionally, the only thing you can
746 change in the theme is CSS stylesheets and some image files; you can't
747 change the HTML output, like adding or removing menu items.
749 You can choose a theme using the $config['site']['theme'] element in
750 the config.php file. See below for details.
752 You can add your own theme by making a sub-directory of the 'theme'
753 subdirectory with the name of your theme. Each theme can have the
756 display.css: a CSS2 file for "default" styling for all browsers.
757 ie6.css: a CSS2 file for override styling for fixing up Internet
759 ie7.css: a CSS2 file for override styling for fixing up Internet
761 logo.png: a logo image for the site.
762 default-avatar-profile.png: a 96x96 pixel image to use as the avatar for
763 users who don't upload their own.
764 default-avatar-stream.png: Ditto, but 48x48. For streams of notices.
765 default-avatar-mini.png: Ditto ditto, but 24x24. For subscriptions
766 listing on profile pages.
768 You may want to start by copying the files from the default theme to
771 NOTE: the HTML generated by StatusNet changed *radically* between
772 version 0.6.x and 0.7.x. Older themes will need signification
773 modification to use the new output format.
778 Translations in StatusNet use the gettext system <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/>.
779 Theoretically, you can add your own sub-directory to the locale/
780 subdirectory to add a new language to your system. You'll need to
781 compile the ".po" files into ".mo" files, however.
783 Contributions of translation information to StatusNet are very easy:
784 you can use the Web interface at TranslateWiki.net to add one
785 or a few or lots of new translations -- or even new languages. You can
786 also download more up-to-date .po files there, if you so desire.
788 For info on helping with translations, see http://status.net/wiki/Translations
793 There is no built-in system for doing backups in StatusNet. You can make
794 backups of a working StatusNet system by backing up the database and
795 the Web directory. To backup the database use mysqldump <http://ur1.ca/7xo>
796 and to backup the Web directory, try tar.
801 The administrator can set the "private" flag for a site so that it's
802 not visible to non-logged-in users. This might be useful for
803 workgroups who want to share a microblogging site for project
804 management, but host it on a public server.
806 Note that this is an experimental feature; total privacy is not
807 guaranteed or ensured. Also, privacy is all-or-nothing for a site; you
808 can't have some accounts or notices private, and others public.
809 Finally, the interaction of private sites with OpenMicroBlogging is
810 undefined. Remote users won't be able to subscribe to users on a
811 private site, but users of the private site may be able to subscribe
812 to users on a remote site. (Or not... it's not well tested.) The
813 "proper behaviour" hasn't been defined here, so handle with care.
815 Access to file attachments can also be restricted to logged-in users only.
816 1. Add a directory outside the web root where your file uploads will be
817 stored. Usually a command like this will work:
819 mkdir /var/www/mublog-files
821 2. Make the file uploads directory writeable by the web server. An
822 insecure way to do this is:
824 chmod a+x /var/www/mublog-files
826 3. Tell StatusNet to use this directory for file uploads. Add a line
827 like this to your config.php:
829 $config['attachments']['dir'] = '/var/www/mublog-files';
834 IMPORTANT NOTE: StatusNet 0.7.4 introduced a fix for some
835 incorrectly-stored international characters ("UTF-8"). For new
836 installations, it will now store non-ASCII characters correctly.
837 However, older installations will have the incorrect storage, and will
838 consequently show up "wrong" in browsers. See below for how to deal
841 If you've been using StatusNet 0.7, 0.6, 0.5 or lower, or if you've
842 been tracking the "git" version of the software, you will probably
843 want to upgrade and keep your existing data. There is no automated
844 upgrade procedure in StatusNet 0.8.2. Try these step-by-step
845 instructions; read to the end first before trying them.
847 0. Download StatusNet and set up all the prerequisites as if you were
849 1. Make backups of both your database and your Web directory. UNDER NO
850 CIRCUMSTANCES should you try to do an upgrade without a known-good
851 backup. You have been warned.
852 2. Shut down Web access to your site, either by turning off your Web
853 server or by redirecting all pages to a "sorry, under maintenance"
855 3. Shut down XMPP access to your site, typically by shutting down the
856 xmppdaemon.php process and all other daemons that you're running.
857 If you've got "monit" or "cron" automatically restarting your
858 daemons, make sure to turn that off, too.
859 4. Shut down SMS and email access to your site. The easy way to do
860 this is to comment out the line piping incoming email to your
861 maildaemon.php file, and running something like "newaliases".
862 5. Once all writing processes to your site are turned off, make a
863 final backup of the Web directory and database.
864 6. Move your StatusNet directory to a backup spot, like "mublog.bak".
865 7. Unpack your StatusNet 0.8.2 tarball and move it to "mublog" or
866 wherever your code used to be.
867 8. Copy the config.php file and avatar directory from your old
868 directory to your new directory.
869 9. Copy htaccess.sample to .htaccess in the new directory. Change the
870 RewriteBase to use the correct path.
871 10. Rebuild the database. (You can safely skip this step and go to #12
872 if you're upgrading from another 0.8.x version).
874 NOTE: this step is destructive and cannot be
875 reversed. YOU CAN EASILY DESTROY YOUR SITE WITH THIS STEP. Don't
876 do it without a known-good backup!
878 If your database is at version 0.7.4, you can run a special upgrade
881 mysql -u<rootuser> -p<rootpassword> <database> db/074to080.sql
883 Otherwise, go to your StatusNet directory and AFTER YOU MAKE A
884 BACKUP run the rebuilddb.sh script like this:
886 ./scripts/rebuilddb.sh rootuser rootpassword database db/statusnet.sql
888 Here, rootuser and rootpassword are the username and password for a
889 user who can drop and create databases as well as tables; typically
890 that's _not_ the user StatusNet runs as. Note that rebuilddb.sh drops
891 your database and rebuilds it; if there is an error you have no
892 database. Make sure you have a backup.
893 For PostgreSQL databases there is an equivalent, rebuilddb_psql.sh,
894 which operates slightly differently. Read the documentation in that
895 script before running it.
896 11. Use mysql or psql client to log into your database and make sure that
897 the notice, user, profile, subscription etc. tables are non-empty.
898 12. Turn back on the Web server, and check that things still work.
899 13. Turn back on XMPP bots and email maildaemon. Note that the XMPP
900 bots have changed since version 0.5; see above for details.
902 If you're upgrading from very old versions, you may want to look at
903 the fixup_* scripts in the scripts directories. These will store some
904 precooked data in the DB. All upgraders should check out the inboxes
907 NOTE: the database definition file, laconica.ini, has been renamed to
908 statusnet.ini (since this is the recommended database name). If you
909 have a line in your config.php pointing to the old name, you'll need
915 Notice inboxes are now required. If you don't have inboxes enabled,
916 StatusNet will no longer run.
921 StatusNet 0.7.4 introduced a fix for some incorrectly-stored
922 international characters ("UTF-8"). This fix is not
923 backwards-compatible; installations from before 0.7.4 will show
924 non-ASCII characters of old notices incorrectly. This section explains
927 0. You can disable the new behaviour by setting the 'db''utf8' config
928 option to "false". You should only do this until you're ready to
929 convert your DB to the new format.
930 1. When you're ready to convert, you can run the fixup_utf8.php script
931 in the scripts/ subdirectory. If you've had the "new behaviour"
932 enabled (probably a good idea), you can give the ID of the first
933 "new" notice as a parameter, and only notices before that one will
934 be converted. Notices are converted in reverse chronological order,
935 so the most recent (and visible) ones will be converted first. The
936 script should work whether or not you have the 'db''utf8' config
938 2. When you're ready, set $config['db']['utf8'] to true, so that
939 new notices will be stored correctly.
941 Configuration options
942 =====================
944 The main configuration file for StatusNet (excepting configurations for
945 dependency software) is config.php in your StatusNet directory. If you
946 edit any other file in the directory, like lib/common.php (where most
947 of the defaults are defined), you will lose your configuration options
948 in any upgrade, and you will wish that you had been more careful.
950 Starting with version 0.7.1, you can put config files in the
951 /etc/statusnet/ directory on your server, if it exists. Config files
952 will be included in this order:
954 * /etc/statusnet/statusnet.php - server-wide config
955 * /etc/statusnet/<servername>.php - for a virtual host
956 * /etc/statusnet/<servername>_<pathname>.php - for a path
957 * INSTALLDIR/config.php - for a particular implementation
959 Almost all configuration options are made through a two-dimensional
960 associative array, cleverly named $config. A typical configuration
963 $config['section']['option'] = value;
965 For brevity, the following documentation describes each section and
971 This section is a catch-all for site-wide variables.
973 name: the name of your site, like 'YourCompany Microblog'.
974 server: the server part of your site's URLs, like 'example.net'.
975 path: The path part of your site's URLs, like 'mublog' or ''
977 fancy: whether or not your site uses fancy URLs (see Fancy URLs
978 section above). Default is false.
979 logfile: full path to a file for StatusNet to save logging
980 information to. You may want to use this if you don't have
982 logdebug: whether to log additional debug info like backtraces on
983 hard errors. Default false.
984 locale_path: full path to the directory for locale data. Unless you
985 store all your locale data in one place, you probably
986 don't need to use this.
987 language: default language for your site. Defaults to US English.
988 Note that this is overridden if a user is logged in and has
989 selected a different language. It is also overridden if the
990 user is NOT logged in, but their browser requests a different
991 langauge. Since pretty much everybody's browser requests a
992 language, that means that changing this setting has little or
993 no effect in practice.
994 languages: A list of languages supported on your site. Typically you'd
995 only change this if you wanted to disable support for one
997 "unset($config['site']['languages']['de'])" will disable
999 theme: Theme for your site (see Theme section). Two themes are
1000 provided by default: 'default' and 'stoica' (the one used by
1001 Identi.ca). It's appreciated if you don't use the 'stoica' theme
1002 except as the basis for your own.
1003 email: contact email address for your site. By default, it's extracted
1004 from your Web server environment; you may want to customize it.
1005 broughtbyurl: name of an organization or individual who provides the
1006 service. Each page will include a link to this name in the
1007 footer. A good way to link to the blog, forum, wiki,
1008 corporate portal, or whoever is making the service available.
1009 broughtby: text used for the "brought by" link.
1010 timezone: default timezone for message display. Users can set their
1011 own time zone. Defaults to 'UTC', which is a pretty good default.
1012 closed: If set to 'true', will disallow registration on your site.
1013 This is a cheap way to restrict accounts to only one
1014 individual or group; just register the accounts you want on
1015 the service, *then* set this variable to 'true'.
1016 inviteonly: If set to 'true', will only allow registration if the user
1017 was invited by an existing user.
1018 private: If set to 'true', anonymous users will be redirected to the
1019 'login' page. Also, API methods that normally require no
1020 authentication will require it. Note that this does not turn
1021 off registration; use 'closed' or 'inviteonly' for the
1023 notice: A plain string that will appear on every page. A good place
1024 to put introductory information about your service, or info about
1025 upgrades and outages, or other community info. Any HTML will
1027 logo: URL of an image file to use as the logo for the site. Overrides
1028 the logo in the theme, if any.
1029 ssl: Whether to use SSL and https:// URLs for some or all pages.
1030 Possible values are 'always' (use it for all pages), 'never'
1031 (don't use it for any pages), or 'sometimes' (use it for
1032 sensitive pages that include passwords like login and registration,
1033 but not for regular pages). Default to 'never'.
1034 sslserver: use an alternate server name for SSL URLs, like
1035 'secure.example.org'. You should be careful to set cookie
1036 parameters correctly so that both the SSL server and the
1037 "normal" server can access the session cookie and
1038 preferably other cookies as well.
1039 shorturllength: Length of URL at which URLs in a message exceeding 140
1040 characters will be sent to the user's chosen
1042 dupelimit: minimum time allowed for one person to say the same thing
1043 twice. Default 60s. Anything lower is considered a user
1045 textlimit: default max size for texts in the site. Defaults to 140.
1046 0 means no limit. Can be fine-tuned for notices, messages,
1047 profile bios and group descriptions.
1052 This section is a reference to the configuration options for
1053 DB_DataObject (see <http://ur1.ca/7xp>). The ones that you may want to
1054 set are listed below for clarity.
1056 database: a DSN (Data Source Name) for your StatusNet database. This is
1057 in the format 'protocol://username:password@hostname/databasename',
1058 where 'protocol' is 'mysql' or 'mysqli' (or possibly 'postgresql', if you
1059 really know what you're doing), 'username' is the username,
1060 'password' is the password, and etc.
1061 ini_yourdbname: if your database is not named 'statusnet', you'll need
1062 to set this to point to the location of the
1063 statusnet.ini file. Note that the real name of your database
1064 should go in there, not literally 'yourdbname'.
1065 db_driver: You can try changing this to 'MDB2' to use the other driver
1066 type for DB_DataObject, but note that it breaks the OpenID
1067 libraries, which only support PEAR::DB.
1068 debug: On a database error, you may get a message saying to set this
1069 value to 5 to see debug messages in the browser. This breaks
1070 just about all pages, and will also expose the username and
1072 quote_identifiers: Set this to true if you're using postgresql.
1073 type: either 'mysql' or 'postgresql' (used for some bits of
1074 database-type-specific SQL in the code). Defaults to mysql.
1075 mirror: you can set this to an array of DSNs, like the above
1076 'database' value. If it's set, certain read-only actions will
1077 use a random value out of this array for the database, rather
1078 than the one in 'database' (actually, 'database' is overwritten).
1079 You can offload a busy DB server by setting up MySQL replication
1080 and adding the slaves to this array. Note that if you want some
1081 requests to go to the 'database' (master) server, you'll need
1082 to include it in this array, too.
1083 utf8: whether to talk to the database in UTF-8 mode. This is the default
1084 with new installations, but older sites may want to turn it off
1085 until they get their databases fixed up. See "UTF-8 database"
1087 schemacheck: when to let plugins check the database schema to add
1088 tables or update them. Values can be 'runtime' (default)
1089 or 'script'. 'runtime' can be costly (plugins check the
1090 schema on every hit, adding potentially several db
1091 queries, some quite long), but not everyone knows how to
1092 run a script. If you can, set this to 'script' and run
1093 scripts/checkschema.php whenever you install or upgrade a
1099 By default, StatusNet sites log error messages to the syslog facility.
1100 (You can override this using the 'logfile' parameter described above).
1102 appname: The name that StatusNet uses to log messages. By default it's
1103 "statusnet", but if you have more than one installation on the
1104 server, you may want to change the name for each instance so
1105 you can track log messages more easily.
1106 priority: level to log at. Currently ignored.
1107 facility: what syslog facility to used. Defaults to LOG_USER, only
1108 reset if you know what syslog is and have a good reason
1114 You can configure the software to queue time-consuming tasks, like
1115 sending out SMS email or XMPP messages, for off-line processing. See
1116 'Queues and daemons' above for how to set this up.
1118 enabled: Whether to uses queues. Defaults to false.
1119 subsystem: Which kind of queueserver to use. Values include "db" for
1120 our hacked-together database queuing (no other server
1121 required) and "stomp" for a stomp server.
1122 stomp_server: "broker URI" for stomp server. Something like
1123 "tcp://hostname:61613". More complicated ones are
1124 possible; see your stomp server's documentation for
1126 queue_basename: a root name to use for queues (stomp only). Typically
1127 something like '/queue/sitename/' makes sense.
1128 stomp_username: username for connecting to the stomp server; defaults
1130 stomp_password: password for connecting to the stomp server; defaults
1135 The default license to use for your users notices. The default is the
1136 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which is probably the right
1137 choice for any public site. Note that some other servers will not
1138 accept notices if you apply a stricter license than this.
1140 type: one of 'cc' (for Creative Commons licenses), 'allrightsreserved'
1141 (default copyright), or 'private' (for private and confidential
1143 owner: for 'allrightsreserved' or 'private', an assigned copyright
1144 holder (for example, an employer for a private site). If
1145 not specified, will be attributed to 'contributors'.
1146 url: URL of the license, used for links.
1147 title: Title for the license, like 'Creative Commons Attribution 3.0'.
1148 image: A button shown on each page for the license.
1153 This is for configuring out-going email. We use PEAR's Mail module,
1154 see: http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.mail.mail.factory.php
1156 backend: the backend to use for mail, one of 'mail', 'sendmail', and
1157 'smtp'. Defaults to PEAR's default, 'mail'.
1158 params: if the mail backend requires any parameters, you can provide
1159 them in an associative array.
1164 This is for configuring nicknames in the service.
1166 blacklist: an array of strings for usernames that may not be
1167 registered. A default array exists for strings that are
1168 used by StatusNet (e.g. 'doc', 'main', 'avatar', 'theme')
1169 but you may want to add others if you have other software
1170 installed in a subdirectory of StatusNet or if you just
1171 don't want certain words used as usernames.
1172 featured: an array of nicknames of 'featured' users of the site.
1173 Can be useful to draw attention to well-known users, or
1174 interesting people, or whatever.
1179 For configuring avatar access.
1181 dir: Directory to look for avatar files and to put them into.
1182 Defaults to avatar subdirectory of install directory; if
1183 you change it, make sure to change path, too.
1184 path: Path to avatars. Defaults to path for avatar subdirectory,
1185 but you can change it if you wish. Note that this will
1186 be included with the avatar server, too.
1187 server: If set, defines another server where avatars are stored in the
1188 root directory. Note that the 'avatar' subdir still has to be
1189 writeable. You'd typically use this to split HTTP requests on
1190 the client to speed up page loading, either with another
1191 virtual server or with an NFS or SAMBA share. Clients
1192 typically only make 2 connections to a single server at a
1193 time <http://ur1.ca/6ih>, so this can parallelize the job.
1199 For configuring the public stream.
1201 localonly: If set to true, only messages posted by users of this
1202 service (rather than other services, filtered through OMB)
1203 are shown in the public stream. Default true.
1204 blacklist: An array of IDs of users to hide from the public stream.
1205 Useful if you have someone making excessive Twitterfeed posts
1206 to the site, other kinds of automated posts, testing bots, etc.
1207 autosource: Sources of notices that are from automatic posters, and thus
1208 should be kept off the public timeline. Default empty.
1213 server: Like avatars, you can speed up page loading by pointing the
1214 theme file lookup to another server (virtual or real).
1215 Defaults to NULL, meaning to use the site server.
1216 dir: Directory where theme files are stored. Used to determine
1217 whether to show parts of a theme file. Defaults to the theme
1218 subdirectory of the install directory.
1219 path: Path part of theme URLs, before the theme name. Relative to the
1220 theme server. It may make sense to change this path when upgrading,
1221 (using version numbers as the path) to make sure that all files are
1222 reloaded by caching clients or proxies. Defaults to null,
1223 which means to use the site path + '/theme'.
1228 For configuring the XMPP sub-system.
1230 enabled: Whether to accept and send messages by XMPP. Default false.
1231 server: server part of XMPP ID for update user.
1232 port: connection port for clients. Default 5222, which you probably
1233 shouldn't need to change.
1234 user: username for the client connection. Users will receive messages
1235 from 'user'@'server'.
1236 resource: a unique identifier for the connection to the server. This
1237 is actually used as a prefix for each XMPP component in the system.
1238 password: password for the user account.
1239 host: some XMPP domains are served by machines with a different
1240 hostname. (For example, @gmail.com GTalk users connect to
1241 talk.google.com). Set this to the correct hostname if that's the
1242 case with your server.
1243 encryption: Whether to encrypt the connection between StatusNet and the
1244 XMPP server. Defaults to true, but you can get
1245 considerably better performance turning it off if you're
1246 connecting to a server on the same machine or on a
1248 debug: if turned on, this will make the XMPP library blurt out all of
1249 the incoming and outgoing messages as XML stanzas. Use as a
1250 last resort, and never turn it on if you don't have queues
1251 enabled, since it will spit out sensitive data to the browser.
1252 public: an array of JIDs to send _all_ notices to. This is useful for
1253 participating in third-party search and archiving services.
1258 For configuring invites.
1260 enabled: Whether to allow users to send invites. Default true.
1265 Miscellaneous tagging stuff.
1267 dropoff: Decay factor for tag listing, in seconds.
1268 Defaults to exponential decay over ten days; you can twiddle
1269 with it to try and get better results for your site.
1274 Settings for the "popular" section of the site.
1276 dropoff: Decay factor for popularity listing, in seconds.
1277 Defaults to exponential decay over ten days; you can twiddle
1278 with it to try and get better results for your site.
1283 For daemon processes.
1285 piddir: directory that daemon processes should write their PID file
1286 (process ID) to. Defaults to /var/run/, which is where this
1287 stuff should usually go on Unix-ish systems.
1288 user: If set, the daemons will try to change their effective user ID
1289 to this user before running. Probably a good idea, especially if
1290 you start the daemons as root. Note: user name, like 'daemon',
1292 group: If set, the daemons will try to change their effective group ID
1293 to this named group. Again, a name, not a numerical ID.
1298 You can get a significant boost in performance by caching some
1299 database data in memcached <http://www.danga.com/memcached/>.
1301 enabled: Set to true to enable. Default false.
1302 server: a string with the hostname of the memcached server. Can also
1303 be an array of hostnames, if you've got more than one server.
1304 base: memcached uses key-value pairs to store data. We build long,
1305 funny-looking keys to make sure we don't have any conflicts. The
1306 base of the key is usually a simplified version of the site name
1307 (like "Identi.ca" => "identica"), but you can overwrite this if
1308 you need to. You can safely ignore it if you only have one
1309 StatusNet site using your memcached server.
1310 port: Port to connect to; defaults to 11211.
1317 enabled: Whether to enable post-by-email. Defaults to true. You will
1318 also need to set up maildaemon.php.
1323 For SMS integration.
1325 enabled: Whether to enable SMS integration. Defaults to true. Queues
1326 should also be enabled.
1331 A catch-all for integration with other systems.
1333 taguri: base for tag:// URIs. Defaults to site-server + ',2009'.
1340 enabled: No longer used. If you set this to something other than true,
1341 StatusNet will no longer run.
1346 For notice-posting throttles.
1348 enabled: Whether to throttle posting. Defaults to false.
1349 count: Each user can make this many posts in 'timespan' seconds. So, if count
1350 is 100 and timespan is 3600, then there can be only 100 posts
1351 from a user every hour.
1352 timespan: see 'count'.
1359 banned: an array of usernames and/or profile IDs of 'banned' profiles.
1360 The site will reject any notices by these users -- they will
1361 not be accepted at all. (Compare with blacklisted users above,
1362 whose posts just won't show up in the public stream.)
1363 biolimit: max character length of bio; 0 means no limit; null means to use
1364 the site text limit default.
1369 Options with new users.
1371 default: nickname of a user account to automatically subscribe new
1372 users to. Typically this would be system account for e.g.
1373 service updates or announcements. Users are able to unsub
1374 if they want. Default is null; no auto subscribe.
1375 welcome: nickname of a user account that sends welcome messages to new
1376 users. Can be the same as 'default' account, although on
1377 busy servers it may be a good idea to keep that one just for
1378 'urgent' messages. Default is null; no message.
1380 If either of these special user accounts are specified, the users should
1381 be created before the configuration is updated.
1386 The software will, by default, send statistical snapshots about the
1387 local installation to a stats server on the status.net Web site. This
1388 data is used by the developers to prioritize development decisions. No
1389 identifying data about users or organizations is collected. The data
1390 is available to the public for review. Participating in this survey
1391 helps StatusNet developers take your needs into account when updating
1394 run: string indicating when to run the statistics. Values can be 'web'
1395 (run occasionally at Web time), 'cron' (run from a cron script),
1396 or 'never' (don't ever run). If you set it to 'cron', remember to
1397 schedule the script to run on a regular basis.
1398 frequency: if run value is 'web', how often to report statistics.
1399 Measured in Web hits; depends on how active your site is.
1400 Default is 10000 -- that is, one report every 10000 Web hits,
1402 reporturl: URL to post statistics to. Defaults to StatusNet developers'
1403 report system, but if they go evil or disappear you may
1404 need to update this to another value. Note: if you
1405 don't want to report stats, it's much better to
1406 set 'run' to 'never' than to set this value to something
1412 The software lets users upload files with their notices. You can configure
1413 the types of accepted files by mime types and a trio of quota options:
1414 per file, per user (total), per user per month.
1416 We suggest the use of the pecl file_info extension to handle mime type
1419 supported: an array of mime types you accept to store and distribute,
1420 like 'image/gif', 'video/mpeg', 'audio/mpeg', etc. Make sure you
1421 setup your server to properly recognize the types you want to
1423 uploads: false to disable uploading files with notices (true by default).
1424 filecommand: The required MIME_Type library may need to use the 'file'
1425 command. It tries the one in the Web server's path, but if
1426 you're having problems with uploads, try setting this to the
1427 correct value. Note: 'file' must accept '-b' and '-i' options.
1429 For quotas, be sure you've set the upload_max_filesize and post_max_size
1430 in php.ini to be large enough to handle your upload. In httpd.conf
1431 (if you're using apache), check that the LimitRequestBody directive isn't
1432 set too low (it's optional, so it may not be there at all).
1434 file_quota: maximum size for a single file upload in bytes. A user can send
1435 any amount of notices with attachments as long as each attachment
1436 is smaller than file_quota.
1437 user_quota: total size in bytes a user can store on this server. Each user
1438 can store any number of files as long as their total size does
1439 not exceed the user_quota.
1440 monthly_quota: total size permitted in the current month. This is the total
1441 size in bytes that a user can upload each month.
1442 dir: directory accessible to the Web process where uploads should go.
1443 Defaults to the 'file' subdirectory of the install directory, which
1444 should be writeable by the Web user.
1445 server: server name to use when creating URLs for uploaded files.
1446 Defaults to null, meaning to use the default Web server. Using
1447 a virtual server here can speed up Web performance.
1448 path: URL path, relative to the server, to find files. Defaults to
1449 main path + '/file/'.
1450 filecommand: command to use for determining the type of a file. May be
1451 skipped if fileinfo extension is installed. Defaults to
1457 Options for group functionality.
1459 maxaliases: maximum number of aliases a group can have. Default 3. Set
1460 to 0 or less to prevent aliases in a group.
1461 desclimit: maximum number of characters to allow in group descriptions.
1462 null (default) means to use the site-wide text limits. 0
1468 oEmbed endpoint for multimedia attachments (links in posts).
1470 endpoint: oohembed endpoint using http://oohembed.com/ software.
1475 Some stuff for search.
1477 type: type of search. Ignored if PostgreSQL or Sphinx are enabled. Can either
1478 be 'fulltext' (default) or 'like'. The former is faster and more efficient
1479 but requires the lame old MyISAM engine for MySQL. The latter
1480 will work with InnoDB but could be miserably slow on large
1481 systems. We'll probably add another type sometime in the future,
1482 with our own indexing system (maybe like MediaWiki's).
1489 handle: boolean. Whether we should register our own PHP session-handling
1490 code (using the database and memcache if enabled). Defaults to false.
1491 Setting this to true makes some sense on large or multi-server
1492 sites, but it probably won't hurt for smaller ones, either.
1493 debug: whether to output debugging info for session storage. Can help
1494 with weird session bugs, sometimes. Default false.
1499 Users can upload backgrounds for their pages; this section defines
1502 server: the server to use for background. Using a separate (even
1503 virtual) server for this can speed up load times. Default is
1504 null; same as site server.
1505 dir: directory to write backgrounds too. Default is '/background/'
1506 subdir of install dir.
1507 path: path to backgrounds. Default is sub-path of install path; note
1508 that you may need to change this if you change site-path too.
1513 Using the "XML-RPC Ping" method initiated by weblogs.com, the site can
1514 notify third-party servers of updates.
1516 notify: an array of URLs for ping endpoints. Default is the empty
1517 array (no notification).
1522 Default design (colors and background) for the site. Actual appearance
1523 depends on the theme. Null values mean to use the theme defaults.
1525 backgroundcolor: Hex color of the site background.
1526 contentcolor: Hex color of the content area background.
1527 sidebarcolor: Hex color of the sidebar background.
1528 textcolor: Hex color of all non-link text.
1529 linkcolor: Hex color of all links.
1530 backgroundimage: Image to use for the background.
1531 disposition: Flags for whether or not to tile the background image.
1536 Configuration options specific to notices.
1538 contentlimit: max length of the plain-text content of a notice.
1539 Default is null, meaning to use the site-wide text limit.
1545 Configuration options specific to messages.
1547 contentlimit: max length of the plain-text content of a message.
1548 Default is null, meaning to use the site-wide text limit.
1554 Configuration options for the login command.
1556 disabled: whether to enable this command. If enabled, users who send
1557 the text 'login' to the site through any channel will
1558 receive a link to login to the site automatically in return.
1559 Possibly useful for users who primarily use an XMPP or SMS
1560 interface and can't be bothered to remember their site
1561 password. Note that the security implications of this are
1562 pretty serious and have not been thoroughly tested. You
1563 should enable it only after you've convinced yourself that
1564 it is safe. Default is 'false'.
1569 If an installation has only one user, this can simplify a lot of the
1570 interface. It also makes the user's profile the root URL.
1572 enabled: Whether to run in "single user mode". Default false.
1573 nickname: nickname of the single user.
1578 We put out a default robots.txt file to guide the processing of
1579 Web crawlers. See http://www.robotstxt.org/ for more information
1580 on the format of this file.
1582 crawldelay: if non-empty, this value is provided as the Crawl-Delay:
1583 for the robots.txt file. see http://ur1.ca/l5a0
1584 for more information. Default is zero, no explicit delay.
1585 disallow: Array of (virtual) directories to disallow. Default is 'main',
1586 'search', 'message', 'settings', 'admin'. Ignored when site
1587 is private, in which case the entire site ('/') is disallowed.
1592 Beginning with the 0.7.x branch, StatusNet has supported a simple but
1593 powerful plugin architecture. Important events in the code are named,
1594 like 'StartNoticeSave', and other software can register interest
1595 in those events. When the events happen, the other software is called
1596 and has a choice of accepting or rejecting the events.
1598 In the simplest case, you can add a function to config.php and use the
1599 Event::addHandler() function to hook an event:
1601 function AddGoogleLink($action)
1603 $action->menuItem('http://www.google.com/', _('Google'), _('Search engine'));
1607 Event::addHandler('EndPrimaryNav', 'AddGoogleLink');
1609 This adds a menu item to the end of the main navigation menu. You can
1610 see the list of existing events, and parameters that handlers must
1611 implement, in EVENTS.txt.
1613 The Plugin class in lib/plugin.php makes it easier to write more
1614 complex plugins. Sub-classes can just create methods named
1615 'onEventName', where 'EventName' is the name of the event (case
1616 matters!). These methods will be automatically registered as event
1617 handlers by the Plugin constructor (which you must call from your own
1618 class's constructor).
1620 Several example plugins are included in the plugins/ directory. You
1621 can enable a plugin with the following line in config.php:
1623 addPlugin('Example', array('param1' => 'value1',
1624 'param2' => 'value2'));
1626 This will look for and load files named 'ExamplePlugin.php' or
1627 'Example/ExamplePlugin.php' either in the plugins/ directory (for
1628 plugins that ship with StatusNet) or in the local/ directory (for
1629 plugins you write yourself or that you get from somewhere else) or
1632 Plugins are documented in their own directories.
1637 The primary output for StatusNet is syslog, unless you configured a
1638 separate logfile. This is probably the first place to look if you're
1639 getting weird behaviour from StatusNet.
1641 If you're tracking the unstable version of StatusNet in the git
1642 repository (see below), and you get a compilation error ("unexpected
1643 T_STRING") in the browser, check to see that you don't have any
1644 conflicts in your code.
1646 If you upgraded to StatusNet 0.8.2 without reading the "Notice
1647 inboxes" section above, and all your users' 'Personal' tabs are empty,
1648 read the "Notice inboxes" section above.
1653 These are some myths you may see on the Web about StatusNet.
1654 Documentation from the core team about StatusNet has been pretty
1655 sparse, so some backtracking and guesswork resulted in some incorrect
1658 - "Set $config['db']['debug'] = 5 to debug the database." This is an
1659 extremely bad idea. It's a tool built into DB_DataObject that will
1660 emit oodles of print lines directly to the browser of your users.
1661 Among these lines will be your database username and password. Do
1662 not enable this option on a production Web site for any reason.
1664 - "Edit dataobject.ini with the following settings..." dataobject.ini
1665 is a development file for the DB_DataObject framework and is not
1666 used by the running software. It was removed from the StatusNet
1667 distribution because its presence was confusing. Do not bother
1668 configuring dataobject.ini, and do not put your database username
1669 and password into the file on a production Web server; unscrupulous
1670 persons may try to read it to get your passwords.
1675 If you're adventurous or impatient, you may want to install the
1676 development version of StatusNet. To get it, use the git version
1677 control tool <http://git-scm.com/> like so:
1679 git clone git@gitorious.org:statusnet/mainline.git
1681 This is the version of the software that runs on Identi.ca and the
1682 status.net hosted service. Using it is a mixed bag. On the positive
1683 side, it usually includes the latest security and bug fix patches. On
1684 the downside, it may also include changes that require admin
1685 intervention (like running a script or even raw SQL!) that may not be
1686 documented yet. It may be a good idea to test this version before
1687 installing it on your production machines.
1689 To keep it up-to-date, use 'git pull'. Watch for conflicts!
1694 There are several ways to get more information about StatusNet.
1696 * There is a mailing list for StatusNet developers and admins at
1697 http://mail.status.net/mailman/listinfo/statusnet-dev
1698 * The #statusnet IRC channel on freenode.net <http://www.freenode.net/>.
1699 * The StatusNet wiki, http://status.net/wiki/
1700 * The StatusNet blog, http://status.net/blog/
1701 * The StatusNet status update, <http://status.status.net/status> (!)
1706 * Microblogging messages to http://identi.ca/evan are very welcome.
1707 * StatusNet's Trac server has a bug tracker for any defects you may find,
1708 or ideas for making things better. http://status.net/trac/
1709 * e-mail to evan@status.net will usually be read and responded to very
1710 quickly, unless the question is really hard.
1715 The following is an incomplete list of developers who've worked on
1716 StatusNet. Apologies for any oversight; please let evan@status.net know
1717 if anyone's been overlooked in error.
1719 * Evan Prodromou, founder and lead developer, StatusNet, Inc.
1720 * Zach Copley, StatusNet, Inc.
1721 * Earle Martin, StatusNet, Inc.
1722 * Marie-Claude Doyon, designer, StatusNet, Inc.
1723 * Sarven Capadisli, StatusNet, Inc.
1724 * Robin Millette, StatusNet, Inc.
1735 * Tryggvi Björgvinsson
1739 * Ken Sheppardson (Trac server, man-about-town)
1740 * Tiago 'gouki' Faria (i18n manager)
1742 * Leslie Michael Orchard
1746 * Tobias Diekershoff
1758 Thanks also to the developers of our upstream library code and to the
1759 thousands of people who have tried out Identi.ca, installed StatusNet,
1760 told their friends, and built the Open Microblogging network to what