5 StatusNet 0.8.2 ("Life and How to Live It")
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 character) messages over the Web. Users can choose which
20 people to "follow" and receive only their friends' or colleagues'
21 status messages. It provides a similar service to sites like Twitter,
22 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 minor feature and bugfix release since version 0.8.1,
81 released Aug 26 2009. Notable changes this version:
83 - New script for deleting user accounts. Not particularly safe or
84 community-friendly. Better for deleting abusive accounts than for
85 users who are 'retiring'.
86 - Improved detection of URLs in notices, specifically for punctuation
87 chars like ~, :, $, _, -, +, !, @, and %.
88 - Removed some extra <dl> semantic HTML code.
89 - Correct error in status-network database ini file (having multiple
90 statusnet sites with a single codebase)
91 - Fixed error output for Twitter posting failures.
92 - Fixed bug in Twitter queue handler that requeued inapplicable
94 - Improve FOAF output for remote users.
95 - new commands to join and leave groups.
96 - Fixed bug in which you cannot turn off importing friends timelines
98 - Better error handling in Twitter posting.
99 - Show oEmbed data for XHTML files as well as plain HTML.
100 - Updated bug database link in README.
101 - require HTML tidy extension.
102 - add support for HTTP Basic Auth in PHP CGI or FastCGI (e.g. GoDaddy).
103 - autofocus input to selected entry elements depending on page.
104 - updated layout for filter-by-tag form.
105 - better layout for inbox and outbox pages.
106 - fix highlighting search terms in attributes of notice list elements.
107 - Correctly handle errors in linkback plugin.
109 - Updated cloudy theme.
110 - Don't match '::' as an IPv6 address.
111 - Use the same decision logic for deciding whether to mark an
112 attachment as an enclosure in RSS or as a paperclip item in Web
114 - Fixed a bug in the Piwik plugin that hard-coded the site ID.
115 - Add a param, inreplyto, to notice/new to allow an explicit response
117 - Show username in subject of emails.
118 - Check if avatar exists before trying to delete it.
119 - Correctly add omb_version to response for request token in OMB.
120 - Add a few more SMS carriers.
121 - Add a few more notice sources.
123 - Improvements to the AutoCompletePlugin.
124 - Check for 'dl' before using it.
125 - Make it impossible to delete self-subscriptions via the API.
126 - Fix pagination of tagged user pages.
127 - Make PiwikAnalyticsPlugin work with addPlugin().
128 - Removed trailing single space in user nicknames in notice lists.
129 - Show context link if a notice starts a conversation.
130 - blacklist all files and directories in install dir.
131 - handle GoDaddy-style PATH_INFO, including script name.
132 - add home_timeline synonym for friends_timeline.
133 - Add a popup window for the realtime plugin.
134 - Add some more streams for the realtime plugin.
135 - Fix a bug that overwrote group creation timestamp on every edit.
136 - Moved HTTP error code strings to a class variable.
137 - The Twitter API now returns server errors in the correct format.
138 - Reset the doctype for HTML output.
139 - Fixed a number of notices.
140 - Don't show search suggestions for private sites.
141 - Some corrections to FBConnect nav overrides.
142 - Slightly less database-intensive session management.
143 - Updated name of software in installer script.
144 - Include long-form attachment URLs if url-shortener is disabled.
145 - Include updated localisations for Polish, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic,
146 Norwegian, and Chinese.
147 - Include upstream fixes to gettext.php.
148 - Correct for regression in Facebook API for updates.
149 - Ignore "Sent from my iPhone" (and similar) in mail updates.
150 - Use the NICKNAME_FMT constant for detecting nicknames.
151 - Check for site servername config'd.
152 - Compatibility fix for empty status updates with Twitter API.
153 - Option to show files privately (EXPERIMENTAL! Use with caution.)
154 - a script to register a new user.
155 - a script to make a user admin of a group.
160 The following software packages are *required* for this software to
163 - PHP 5.2.3+. It may be possible to run this software on earlier
164 versions of PHP, but many of the functions used are only available
166 - MySQL 5.x. The StatusNet database is stored, by default, in a MySQL
167 server. It has been primarily tested on 5.x servers, although it may
168 be possible to install on earlier (or later!) versions. The server
169 *must* support the MyISAM storage engine -- the default for most
170 MySQL servers -- *and* the InnoDB storage engine.
171 - A Web server. Preferably, you should have Apache 2.2.x with the
172 mod_rewrite extension installed and enabled.
174 Your PHP installation must include the following PHP extensions:
176 - Curl. This is for fetching files by HTTP.
177 - XMLWriter. This is for formatting XML and HTML output.
178 - MySQL. For accessing the database.
179 - GD. For scaling down avatar images.
180 - mbstring. For handling Unicode (UTF-8) encoded strings.
181 - gettext. For multiple languages. Default on many PHP installs.
182 - tidy. Used to clean up HTML/URLs for the URL shortener to consume.
184 For some functionality, you will also need the following extensions:
186 - Memcache. A client for the memcached server, which caches database
187 information in volatile memory. This is important for adequate
188 performance on high-traffic sites. You will also need a memcached
189 server to store the data in.
190 - Mailparse. Efficient parsing of email requires this extension.
191 Submission by email or SMS-over-email uses this extension.
192 - Sphinx Search. A client for the sphinx server, an alternative
193 to MySQL or Postgresql fulltext search. You will also need a
194 Sphinx server to serve the search queries.
196 You will almost definitely get 2-3 times better performance from your
197 site if you install a PHP bytecode cache/accelerator. Some well-known
198 examples are: eaccelerator, Turck mmcache, xcache, apc. Zend Optimizer
199 is a proprietary accelerator installed on some hosting sites.
204 A number of external PHP libraries are used to provide basic
205 functionality and optional functionality for your system. For your
206 convenience, they are available in the "extlib" directory of this
207 package, and you do not have to download and install them. However,
208 you may want to keep them up-to-date with the latest upstream version,
209 and the URLs are listed here for your convenience.
211 - DB_DataObject http://pear.php.net/package/DB_DataObject
212 - Validate http://pear.php.net/package/Validate
213 - OpenID from OpenIDEnabled (not the PEAR version!). We decided
214 to use the openidenabled.com version since it's more widely
215 implemented, and seems to be better supported.
216 http://openidenabled.com/php-openid/
217 - PEAR DB. Although this is an older data access system (new
218 packages should probably use PHP DBO), the OpenID libraries
219 depend on PEAR DB so we use it here, too. DB_DataObject can
220 also use PEAR MDB2, which may give you better performance
221 but won't work with OpenID.
222 http://pear.php.net/package/DB
223 - OAuth.php from http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/php/
224 - markdown.php from http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/
225 - PEAR Mail, for sending out mail notifications
226 http://pear.php.net/package/Mail
227 - PEAR Net_SMTP, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications
228 http://pear.php.net/package/Net_SMTP
229 - PEAR Net_Socket, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications
230 http://pear.php.net/package/Net_Socket
231 - XMPPHP, the follow-up to Class.Jabber.php. Probably the best XMPP
232 library available for PHP. http://xmpphp.googlecode.com/. Note that
233 as of this writing the version of this library that is available in
234 the extlib directory is *significantly different* from the upstream
235 version (patches have been submitted). Upgrading to the upstream
236 version may render your StatusNet site unable to send or receive XMPP
238 - Facebook library. Used for the Facebook application.
239 - PEAR Services_oEmbed. Used for some multimedia integration.
240 - PEAR HTTP_Request is an oEmbed dependency.
241 - PEAR Validate is an oEmbed dependency.
242 - PEAR Net_URL2 is an oEmbed dependency.
243 - Console_GetOpt for parsing command-line options.
245 A design goal of StatusNet is that the basic Web functionality should
246 work on even the most restrictive commercial hosting services.
247 However, additional functionality, such as receiving messages by
248 Jabber/GTalk, require that you be able to run long-running processes
249 on your account. In addition, posting by email or from SMS require
250 that you be able to install a mail filter in your mail server.
255 Installing the basic StatusNet Web component is relatively easy,
256 especially if you've previously installed PHP/MySQL packages.
258 1. Unpack the tarball you downloaded on your Web server. Usually a
259 command like this will work:
261 tar zxf statusnet-0.8.2.tar.gz
263 ...which will make a statusnet-0.8.2 subdirectory in your current
264 directory. (If you don't have shell access on your Web server, you
265 may have to unpack the tarball on your local computer and FTP the
266 files to the server.)
268 2. Move the tarball to a directory of your choosing in your Web root
269 directory. Usually something like this will work:
271 mv statusnet-0.8.2 /var/www/mublog
273 This will make your StatusNet instance available in the mublog path of
274 your server, like "http://example.net/mublog". "microblog" or
275 "statusnet" might also be good path names. If you know how to
276 configure virtual hosts on your web server, you can try setting up
277 "http://micro.example.net/" or the like.
279 3. Make your target directory writeable by the Web server.
281 chmod a+w /var/www/mublog/
283 On some systems, this will probably work:
285 chgrp www-data /var/www/mublog/
286 chmod g+w /var/www/mublog/
288 If your Web server runs as another user besides "www-data", try
289 that user's default group instead. As a last resort, you can create
290 a new group like "mublog" and add the Web server's user to the group.
292 4. You should also take this moment to make your avatar, background, and
293 file subdirectories writeable by the Web server. An insecure way to do
296 chmod a+w /var/www/mublog/avatar
297 chmod a+w /var/www/mublog/background
298 chmod a+w /var/www/mublog/file
300 You can also make the avatar, background, and file directories
301 writeable by the Web server group, as noted above.
303 5. Create a database to hold your microblog data. Something like this
306 mysqladmin -u "username" --password="password" create statusnet
308 Note that StatusNet must have its own database; you can't share the
309 database with another program. You can name it whatever you want,
312 (If you don't have shell access to your server, you may need to use
313 a tool like PHPAdmin to create a database. Check your hosting
314 service's documentation for how to create a new MySQL database.)
316 6. Create a new database account that StatusNet will use to access the
317 database. If you have shell access, this will probably work from the
320 GRANT ALL on statusnet.*
321 TO 'lacuser'@'localhost'
322 IDENTIFIED BY 'lacpassword';
324 You should change 'lacuser' and 'lacpassword' to your preferred new
325 username and password. You may want to test logging in to MySQL as
328 7. In a browser, navigate to the StatusNet install script; something like:
330 http://yourserver.example.com/mublog/install.php
332 Enter the database connection information and your site name. The
333 install program will configure your site and install the initial,
334 almost-empty database.
336 8. You should now be able to navigate to your microblog's main directory
337 and see the "Public Timeline", which will be empty. If not, magic
338 has happened! You can now register a new user, post some notices,
339 edit your profile, etc. However, you may want to wait to do that stuff
340 if you think you can set up "fancy URLs" (see below), since some
341 URLs are stored in the database.
346 By default, StatusNet will use URLs that include the main PHP program's
347 name in them. For example, a user's home profile might be
350 http://example.org/mublog/index.php/mublog/fred
352 On certain systems that don't support this kind of syntax, they'll
355 http://example.org/mublog/index.php?p=mublog/fred
357 It's possible to configure the software so it looks like this instead:
359 http://example.org/mublog/fred
361 These "fancy URLs" are more readable and memorable for users. To use
362 fancy URLs, you must either have Apache 2.x with .htaccess enabled and
363 mod_redirect enabled, -OR- know how to configure "url redirection" in
366 1. Copy the htaccess.sample file to .htaccess in your StatusNet
367 directory. Note: if you have control of your server's httpd.conf or
368 similar configuration files, it can greatly improve performance to
369 import the .htaccess file into your conf file instead. If you're
370 not sure how to do it, you may save yourself a lot of headache by
371 just leaving the .htaccess file.
373 2. Change the "RewriteBase" in the new .htaccess file to be the URL path
374 to your StatusNet installation on your server. Typically this will
375 be the path to your StatusNet directory relative to your Web root.
377 3. Add or uncomment or change a line in your config.php file so it says:
379 $config['site']['fancy'] = true;
381 You should now be able to navigate to a "fancy" URL on your server,
384 http://example.net/mublog/main/register
386 If you changed your HTTP server configuration, you may need to restart
392 To use a Sphinx server to search users and notices, you'll need to
393 enable the SphinxSearch plugin. Add to your config.php:
395 addPlugin('SphinxSearch');
396 $config['sphinx']['server'] = 'searchhost.local';
398 You also need to install, compile and enable the sphinx pecl extension for
399 php on the client side, which itself depends on the sphinx development files.
401 See plugins/SphinxSearch/README for more details and server setup.
406 StatusNet supports a cheap-and-dirty system for sending update messages
407 to mobile phones and for receiving updates from the mobile. Instead of
408 sending through the SMS network itself, which is costly and requires
409 buy-in from the wireless carriers, it simply piggybacks on the email
410 gateways that many carriers provide to their customers. So, SMS
411 configuration is essentially email configuration.
413 Each user sends to a made-up email address, which they keep a secret.
414 Incoming email that is "From" the user's SMS email address, and "To"
415 the users' secret email address on the site's domain, will be
416 converted to a notice and stored in the DB.
418 For this to work, there *must* be a domain or sub-domain for which all
419 (or most) incoming email can pass through the incoming mail filter.
421 1. Run the SQL script carrier.sql in your StatusNet database. This will
424 mysql -u "lacuser" --password="lacpassword" statusnet < db/carrier.sql
426 This will populate your database with a list of wireless carriers
427 that support email SMS gateways.
429 2. Make sure the maildaemon.php file is executable:
431 chmod +x scripts/maildaemon.php
433 Note that "daemon" is kind of a misnomer here; the script is more
434 of a filter than a daemon.
436 2. Edit /etc/aliases on your mail server and add the following line:
438 *: /path/to/statusnet/scripts/maildaemon.php
440 3. Run whatever code you need to to update your aliases database. For
441 many mail servers (Postfix, Exim, Sendmail), this should work:
445 You may need to restart your mail server for the new database to
448 4. Set the following in your config.php file:
450 $config['mail']['domain'] = 'yourdomain.example.net';
452 At this point, post-by-email and post-by-SMS-gateway should work. Note
453 that if your mail server is on a different computer from your email
454 server, you'll need to have a full installation of StatusNet, a working
455 config.php, and access to the StatusNet database from the mail server.
460 XMPP (eXtended Message and Presence Protocol, <http://xmpp.org/>) is the
461 instant-messenger protocol that drives Jabber and GTalk IM. You can
462 distribute messages via XMPP using the system below; however, you
463 need to run the XMPP incoming daemon to allow incoming messages as
466 1. You may want to strongly consider setting up your own XMPP server.
467 Ejabberd, OpenFire, and JabberD are all Open Source servers.
468 Jabber, Inc. provides a high-performance commercial server.
470 2. You must register a Jabber ID (JID) with your new server. It helps
471 to choose a name like "update@example.com" or "notice" or something
472 similar. Alternately, your "update JID" can be registered on a
473 publicly-available XMPP service, like jabber.org or GTalk.
475 StatusNet will not register the JID with your chosen XMPP server;
476 you need to do this manually, with an XMPP client like Gajim,
477 Telepathy, or Pidgin.im.
479 3. Configure your site's XMPP variables, as described below in the
480 configuration section.
482 On a default installation, your site can broadcast messages using
483 XMPP. Users won't be able to post messages using XMPP unless you've
484 got the XMPP daemon running. See 'Queues and daemons' below for how
485 to set that up. Also, once you have a sizable number of users, sending
486 a lot of SMS, OMB, and XMPP messages whenever someone posts a message
487 can really slow down your site; it may cause posting to timeout.
489 NOTE: stream_select(), a crucial function for network programming, is
490 broken on PHP 5.2.x less than 5.2.6 on amd64-based servers. We don't
491 work around this bug in StatusNet; current recommendation is to move
492 off of amd64 to another server.
497 You can send *all* messages from your microblogging site to a
498 third-party service using XMPP. This can be useful for providing
499 search, indexing, bridging, or other cool services.
501 To configure a downstream site to receive your public stream, add
502 their "JID" (Jabber ID) to your config.php as follows:
504 $config['xmpp']['public'][] = 'downstream@example.net';
506 (Don't miss those square brackets at the end.) Note that your XMPP
507 broadcasting must be configured as mentioned above. Although you can
508 send out messages at "Web time", high-volume sites should strongly
509 consider setting up queues and daemons.
514 Some activities that StatusNet needs to do, like broadcast OMB, SMS,
515 and XMPP messages, can be 'queued' and done by off-line bots instead.
516 For this to work, you must be able to run long-running offline
517 processes, either on your main Web server or on another server you
518 control. (Your other server will still need all the above
519 prerequisites, with the exception of Apache.) Installing on a separate
520 server is probably a good idea for high-volume sites.
522 1. You'll need the "CLI" (command-line interface) version of PHP
523 installed on whatever server you use.
525 2. If you're using a separate server for queues, install StatusNet
526 somewhere on the server. You don't need to worry about the
527 .htaccess file, but make sure that your config.php file is close
528 to, or identical to, your Web server's version.
530 3. In your config.php files (both the Web server and the queues
531 server!), set the following variable:
533 $config['queue']['enabled'] = true;
535 You may also want to look at the 'daemon' section of this file for
536 more daemon options. Note that if you set the 'user' and/or 'group'
537 options, you'll need to create that user and/or group by hand.
538 They're not created automatically.
540 4. On the queues server, run the command scripts/startdaemons.sh. It
541 needs as a parameter the install path; if you run it from the
542 StatusNet dir, "." should suffice.
544 This will run eight (for now) queue handlers:
546 * xmppdaemon.php - listens for new XMPP messages from users and stores
547 them as notices in the database.
548 * jabberqueuehandler.php - sends queued notices in the database to
549 registered users who should receive them.
550 * publicqueuehandler.php - sends queued notices in the database to
551 public feed listeners.
552 * ombqueuehandler.php - sends queued notices to OpenMicroBlogging
553 recipients on foreign servers.
554 * smsqueuehandler.php - sends queued notices to SMS-over-email addresses
556 * xmppconfirmhandler.php - sends confirmation messages to registered
559 Note that these queue daemons are pretty raw, and need your care. In
560 particular, they leak memory, and you may want to restart them on a
561 regular (daily or so) basis with a cron job. Also, if they lose
562 the connection to the XMPP server for too long, they'll simply die. It
563 may be a good idea to use a daemon-monitoring service, like 'monit',
564 to check their status and keep them running.
566 All the daemons write their process IDs (pids) to /var/run/ by
567 default. This can be useful for starting, stopping, and monitoring the
570 Since version 0.8.0, it's now possible to use a STOMP server instead of
571 our kind of hacky home-grown DB-based queue solution. See the "queues"
572 config section below for how to configure to use STOMP. As of this
573 writing, the software has been tested with ActiveMQ (
578 Sitemap files <http://sitemaps.org/> are a very nice way of telling
579 search engines and other interested bots what's available on your site
580 and what's changed recently. You can generate sitemap files for your
583 1. Choose your sitemap URL layout. StatusNet creates a number of
584 sitemap XML files for different parts of your site. You may want to
585 put these in a sub-directory of your StatusNet directory to avoid
586 clutter. The sitemap index file tells the search engines and other
587 bots where to find all the sitemap files; it *must* be in the main
588 installation directory or higher. Both types of file must be
589 available through HTTP.
591 2. To generate your sitemaps, run the following command on your server:
593 php scripts/sitemap.php -f index-file-path -d sitemap-directory -u URL-prefix-for-sitemaps
595 Here, index-file-path is the full path to the sitemap index file,
596 like './sitemapindex.xml'. sitemap-directory is the directory where
597 you want the sitemaps stored, like './sitemaps/' (make sure the dir
598 exists). URL-prefix-for-sitemaps is the full URL for the sitemap dir,
599 typically something like <http://example.net/mublog/sitemaps/>.
601 You can use several methods for submitting your sitemap index to
602 search engines to get your site indexed. One is to add a line like the
603 following to your robots.txt file:
605 Sitemap: /mublog/sitemapindex.xml
607 This is a good idea for letting *all* Web spiders know about your
608 sitemap. You can also submit sitemap files to major search engines
609 using their respective "Webmaster centres"; see sitemaps.org for links
615 There are two themes shipped with this version of StatusNet: "identica",
616 which is what the Identi.ca site uses, and "default", which is a good
617 basis for other sites.
619 As of right now, your ability to change the theme is site-wide; users
620 can't choose their own theme. Additionally, the only thing you can
621 change in the theme is CSS stylesheets and some image files; you can't
622 change the HTML output, like adding or removing menu items.
624 You can choose a theme using the $config['site']['theme'] element in
625 the config.php file. See below for details.
627 You can add your own theme by making a sub-directory of the 'theme'
628 subdirectory with the name of your theme. Each theme can have the
631 display.css: a CSS2 file for "default" styling for all browsers.
632 ie6.css: a CSS2 file for override styling for fixing up Internet
634 ie7.css: a CSS2 file for override styling for fixing up Internet
636 logo.png: a logo image for the site.
637 default-avatar-profile.png: a 96x96 pixel image to use as the avatar for
638 users who don't upload their own.
639 default-avatar-stream.png: Ditto, but 48x48. For streams of notices.
640 default-avatar-mini.png: Ditto ditto, but 24x24. For subscriptions
641 listing on profile pages.
643 You may want to start by copying the files from the default theme to
646 NOTE: the HTML generated by StatusNet changed *radically* between
647 version 0.6.x and 0.7.x. Older themes will need signification
648 modification to use the new output format.
653 Translations in StatusNet use the gettext system <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/>.
654 Theoretically, you can add your own sub-directory to the locale/
655 subdirectory to add a new language to your system. You'll need to
656 compile the ".po" files into ".mo" files, however.
658 Contributions of translation information to StatusNet are very easy:
659 you can use the Web interface at http://status.net/pootle/ to add one
660 or a few or lots of new translations -- or even new languages. You can
661 also download more up-to-date .po files there, if you so desire.
666 There is no built-in system for doing backups in StatusNet. You can make
667 backups of a working StatusNet system by backing up the database and
668 the Web directory. To backup the database use mysqldump <http://ur1.ca/7xo>
669 and to backup the Web directory, try tar.
674 The administrator can set the "private" flag for a site so that it's
675 not visible to non-logged-in users. This might be useful for
676 workgroups who want to share a microblogging site for project
677 management, but host it on a public server.
679 Note that this is an experimental feature; total privacy is not
680 guaranteed or ensured. Also, privacy is all-or-nothing for a site; you
681 can't have some accounts or notices private, and others public.
682 Finally, the interaction of private sites with OpenMicroBlogging is
683 undefined. Remote users won't be able to subscribe to users on a
684 private site, but users of the private site may be able to subscribe
685 to users on a remote site. (Or not... it's not well tested.) The
686 "proper behaviour" hasn't been defined here, so handle with care.
688 If fancy URLs is enabled, access to file attachments can also be
689 restricted to logged-in users only. Uncomment the appropriate rewrite
691 rule in .htaccess or your server's httpd.conf. (This most likely will
692 not work if you are using a virtual server for attachments, so consider
693 the performance/security tradeoff.)
695 rule in .htaccess or your server's httpd.conf.
696 >>>>>>> 446de62... Revert "Added some explanatory text to README":README
701 IMPORTANT NOTE: StatusNet 0.7.4 introduced a fix for some
702 incorrectly-stored international characters ("UTF-8"). For new
703 installations, it will now store non-ASCII characters correctly.
704 However, older installations will have the incorrect storage, and will
705 consequently show up "wrong" in browsers. See below for how to deal
708 If you've been using StatusNet 0.7, 0.6, 0.5 or lower, or if you've
709 been tracking the "git" version of the software, you will probably
710 want to upgrade and keep your existing data. There is no automated
711 upgrade procedure in StatusNet 0.8.2. Try these step-by-step
712 instructions; read to the end first before trying them.
714 0. Download StatusNet and set up all the prerequisites as if you were
716 1. Make backups of both your database and your Web directory. UNDER NO
717 CIRCUMSTANCES should you try to do an upgrade without a known-good
718 backup. You have been warned.
719 2. Shut down Web access to your site, either by turning off your Web
720 server or by redirecting all pages to a "sorry, under maintenance"
722 3. Shut down XMPP access to your site, typically by shutting down the
723 xmppdaemon.php process and all other daemons that you're running.
724 If you've got "monit" or "cron" automatically restarting your
725 daemons, make sure to turn that off, too.
726 4. Shut down SMS and email access to your site. The easy way to do
727 this is to comment out the line piping incoming email to your
728 maildaemon.php file, and running something like "newaliases".
729 5. Once all writing processes to your site are turned off, make a
730 final backup of the Web directory and database.
731 6. Move your StatusNet directory to a backup spot, like "mublog.bak".
732 7. Unpack your StatusNet 0.8.2 tarball and move it to "mublog" or
733 wherever your code used to be.
734 8. Copy the config.php file and avatar directory from your old
735 directory to your new directory.
736 9. Copy htaccess.sample to .htaccess in the new directory. Change the
737 RewriteBase to use the correct path.
738 10. Rebuild the database. (You can safely skip this step and go to #12
739 if you're upgrading from another 0.8.x version).
741 NOTE: this step is destructive and cannot be
742 reversed. YOU CAN EASILY DESTROY YOUR SITE WITH THIS STEP. Don't
743 do it without a known-good backup!
745 If your database is at version 0.7.4, you can run a special upgrade
748 mysql -u<rootuser> -p<rootpassword> <database> db/074to080.sql
750 Otherwise, go to your StatusNet directory and AFTER YOU MAKE A
751 BACKUP run the rebuilddb.sh script like this:
753 ./scripts/rebuilddb.sh rootuser rootpassword database db/statusnet.sql
755 Here, rootuser and rootpassword are the username and password for a
756 user who can drop and create databases as well as tables; typically
757 that's _not_ the user StatusNet runs as. Note that rebuilddb.sh drops
758 your database and rebuilds it; if there is an error you have no
759 database. Make sure you have a backup.
760 For PostgreSQL databases there is an equivalent, rebuilddb_psql.sh,
761 which operates slightly differently. Read the documentation in that
762 script before running it.
763 11. Use mysql or psql client to log into your database and make sure that
764 the notice, user, profile, subscription etc. tables are non-empty.
765 12. Turn back on the Web server, and check that things still work.
766 13. Turn back on XMPP bots and email maildaemon. Note that the XMPP
767 bots have changed since version 0.5; see above for details.
769 If you're upgrading from very old versions, you may want to look at
770 the fixup_* scripts in the scripts directories. These will store some
771 precooked data in the DB. All upgraders should check out the inboxes
774 NOTE: the database definition file, laconica.ini, has been renamed to
775 statusnet.ini (since this is the recommended database name). If you
776 have a line in your config.php pointing to the old name, you'll need
782 Notice inboxes are now required. If you don't have inboxes enabled,
783 StatusNet will no longer run.
788 StatusNet 0.7.4 introduced a fix for some incorrectly-stored
789 international characters ("UTF-8"). This fix is not
790 backwards-compatible; installations from before 0.7.4 will show
791 non-ASCII characters of old notices incorrectly. This section explains
794 0. You can disable the new behaviour by setting the 'db''utf8' config
795 option to "false". You should only do this until you're ready to
796 convert your DB to the new format.
797 1. When you're ready to convert, you can run the fixup_utf8.php script
798 in the scripts/ subdirectory. If you've had the "new behaviour"
799 enabled (probably a good idea), you can give the ID of the first
800 "new" notice as a parameter, and only notices before that one will
801 be converted. Notices are converted in reverse chronological order,
802 so the most recent (and visible) ones will be converted first. The
803 script should work whether or not you have the 'db''utf8' config
805 2. When you're ready, set $config['db']['utf8'] to true, so that
806 new notices will be stored correctly.
808 Configuration options
809 =====================
811 The main configuration file for StatusNet (excepting configurations for
812 dependency software) is config.php in your StatusNet directory. If you
813 edit any other file in the directory, like lib/common.php (where most
814 of the defaults are defined), you will lose your configuration options
815 in any upgrade, and you will wish that you had been more careful.
817 Starting with version 0.7.1, you can put config files in the
818 /etc/statusnet/ directory on your server, if it exists. Config files
819 will be included in this order:
821 * /etc/statusnet/statusnet.php - server-wide config
822 * /etc/statusnet/<servername>.php - for a virtual host
823 * /etc/statusnet/<servername>_<pathname>.php - for a path
824 * INSTALLDIR/config.php - for a particular implementation
826 Almost all configuration options are made through a two-dimensional
827 associative array, cleverly named $config. A typical configuration
830 $config['section']['option'] = value;
832 For brevity, the following documentation describes each section and
838 This section is a catch-all for site-wide variables.
840 name: the name of your site, like 'YourCompany Microblog'.
841 server: the server part of your site's URLs, like 'example.net'.
842 path: The path part of your site's URLs, like 'mublog' or ''
844 fancy: whether or not your site uses fancy URLs (see Fancy URLs
845 section above). Default is false.
846 logfile: full path to a file for StatusNet to save logging
847 information to. You may want to use this if you don't have
849 logdebug: whether to log additional debug info like backtraces on
850 hard errors. Default false.
851 locale_path: full path to the directory for locale data. Unless you
852 store all your locale data in one place, you probably
853 don't need to use this.
854 language: default language for your site. Defaults to US English.
855 Note that this is overridden if a user is logged in and has
856 selected a different language. It is also overridden if the
857 user is NOT logged in, but their browser requests a different
858 langauge. Since pretty much everybody's browser requests a
859 language, that means that changing this setting has little or
860 no effect in practice.
861 languages: A list of languages supported on your site. Typically you'd
862 only change this if you wanted to disable support for one
864 "unset($config['site']['languages']['de'])" will disable
866 theme: Theme for your site (see Theme section). Two themes are
867 provided by default: 'default' and 'stoica' (the one used by
868 Identi.ca). It's appreciated if you don't use the 'stoica' theme
869 except as the basis for your own.
870 email: contact email address for your site. By default, it's extracted
871 from your Web server environment; you may want to customize it.
872 broughtbyurl: name of an organization or individual who provides the
873 service. Each page will include a link to this name in the
874 footer. A good way to link to the blog, forum, wiki,
875 corporate portal, or whoever is making the service available.
876 broughtby: text used for the "brought by" link.
877 timezone: default timezone for message display. Users can set their
878 own time zone. Defaults to 'UTC', which is a pretty good default.
879 closed: If set to 'true', will disallow registration on your site.
880 This is a cheap way to restrict accounts to only one
881 individual or group; just register the accounts you want on
882 the service, *then* set this variable to 'true'.
883 inviteonly: If set to 'true', will only allow registration if the user
884 was invited by an existing user.
885 private: If set to 'true', anonymous users will be redirected to the
886 'login' page. Also, API methods that normally require no
887 authentication will require it. Note that this does not turn
888 off registration; use 'closed' or 'inviteonly' for the
890 notice: A plain string that will appear on every page. A good place
891 to put introductory information about your service, or info about
892 upgrades and outages, or other community info. Any HTML will
894 logo: URL of an image file to use as the logo for the site. Overrides
895 the logo in the theme, if any.
896 ssl: Whether to use SSL and https:// URLs for some or all pages.
897 Possible values are 'always' (use it for all pages), 'never'
898 (don't use it for any pages), or 'sometimes' (use it for
899 sensitive pages that include passwords like login and registration,
900 but not for regular pages). Default to 'never'.
901 sslserver: use an alternate server name for SSL URLs, like
902 'secure.example.org'. You should be careful to set cookie
903 parameters correctly so that both the SSL server and the
904 "normal" server can access the session cookie and
905 preferably other cookies as well.
906 shorturllength: Length of URL at which URLs in a message exceeding 140
907 characters will be sent to the user's chosen
909 dupelimit: minimum time allowed for one person to say the same thing
910 twice. Default 60s. Anything lower is considered a user
912 textlimit: default max size for texts in the site. Defaults to 140.
913 0 means no limit. Can be fine-tuned for notices, messages,
914 profile bios and group descriptions.
919 This section is a reference to the configuration options for
920 DB_DataObject (see <http://ur1.ca/7xp>). The ones that you may want to
921 set are listed below for clarity.
923 database: a DSN (Data Source Name) for your StatusNet database. This is
924 in the format 'protocol://username:password@hostname/databasename',
925 where 'protocol' is 'mysql' or 'mysqli' (or possibly 'postgresql', if you
926 really know what you're doing), 'username' is the username,
927 'password' is the password, and etc.
928 ini_yourdbname: if your database is not named 'statusnet', you'll need
929 to set this to point to the location of the
930 statusnet.ini file. Note that the real name of your database
931 should go in there, not literally 'yourdbname'.
932 db_driver: You can try changing this to 'MDB2' to use the other driver
933 type for DB_DataObject, but note that it breaks the OpenID
934 libraries, which only support PEAR::DB.
935 debug: On a database error, you may get a message saying to set this
936 value to 5 to see debug messages in the browser. This breaks
937 just about all pages, and will also expose the username and
939 quote_identifiers: Set this to true if you're using postgresql.
940 type: either 'mysql' or 'postgresql' (used for some bits of
941 database-type-specific SQL in the code). Defaults to mysql.
942 mirror: you can set this to an array of DSNs, like the above
943 'database' value. If it's set, certain read-only actions will
944 use a random value out of this array for the database, rather
945 than the one in 'database' (actually, 'database' is overwritten).
946 You can offload a busy DB server by setting up MySQL replication
947 and adding the slaves to this array. Note that if you want some
948 requests to go to the 'database' (master) server, you'll need
949 to include it in this array, too.
950 utf8: whether to talk to the database in UTF-8 mode. This is the default
951 with new installations, but older sites may want to turn it off
952 until they get their databases fixed up. See "UTF-8 database"
954 schemacheck: when to let plugins check the database schema to add
955 tables or update them. Values can be 'runtime' (default)
956 or 'script'. 'runtime' can be costly (plugins check the
957 schema on every hit, adding potentially several db
958 queries, some quite long), but not everyone knows how to
959 run a script. If you can, set this to 'script' and run
960 scripts/checkschema.php whenever you install or upgrade a
966 By default, StatusNet sites log error messages to the syslog facility.
967 (You can override this using the 'logfile' parameter described above).
969 appname: The name that StatusNet uses to log messages. By default it's
970 "statusnet", but if you have more than one installation on the
971 server, you may want to change the name for each instance so
972 you can track log messages more easily.
973 priority: level to log at. Currently ignored.
974 facility: what syslog facility to used. Defaults to LOG_USER, only
975 reset if you know what syslog is and have a good reason
981 You can configure the software to queue time-consuming tasks, like
982 sending out SMS email or XMPP messages, for off-line processing. See
983 'Queues and daemons' above for how to set this up.
985 enabled: Whether to uses queues. Defaults to false.
986 subsystem: Which kind of queueserver to use. Values include "db" for
987 our hacked-together database queuing (no other server
988 required) and "stomp" for a stomp server.
989 stomp_server: "broker URI" for stomp server. Something like
990 "tcp://hostname:61613". More complicated ones are
991 possible; see your stomp server's documentation for
993 queue_basename: a root name to use for queues (stomp only). Typically
994 something like '/queue/sitename/' makes sense.
995 stomp_username: username for connecting to the stomp server; defaults
997 stomp_password: password for connecting to the stomp server; defaults
1002 The default license to use for your users notices. The default is the
1003 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which is probably the right
1004 choice for any public site. Note that some other servers will not
1005 accept notices if you apply a stricter license than this.
1007 url: URL of the license, used for links.
1008 title: Title for the license, like 'Creative Commons Attribution 3.0'.
1009 image: A button shown on each page for the license.
1014 This is for configuring out-going email. We use PEAR's Mail module,
1015 see: http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.mail.mail.factory.php
1017 backend: the backend to use for mail, one of 'mail', 'sendmail', and
1018 'smtp'. Defaults to PEAR's default, 'mail'.
1019 params: if the mail backend requires any parameters, you can provide
1020 them in an associative array.
1025 This is for configuring nicknames in the service.
1027 blacklist: an array of strings for usernames that may not be
1028 registered. A default array exists for strings that are
1029 used by StatusNet (e.g. 'doc', 'main', 'avatar', 'theme')
1030 but you may want to add others if you have other software
1031 installed in a subdirectory of StatusNet or if you just
1032 don't want certain words used as usernames.
1033 featured: an array of nicknames of 'featured' users of the site.
1034 Can be useful to draw attention to well-known users, or
1035 interesting people, or whatever.
1040 For configuring avatar access.
1042 dir: Directory to look for avatar files and to put them into.
1043 Defaults to avatar subdirectory of install directory; if
1044 you change it, make sure to change path, too.
1045 path: Path to avatars. Defaults to path for avatar subdirectory,
1046 but you can change it if you wish. Note that this will
1047 be included with the avatar server, too.
1048 server: If set, defines another server where avatars are stored in the
1049 root directory. Note that the 'avatar' subdir still has to be
1050 writeable. You'd typically use this to split HTTP requests on
1051 the client to speed up page loading, either with another
1052 virtual server or with an NFS or SAMBA share. Clients
1053 typically only make 2 connections to a single server at a
1054 time <http://ur1.ca/6ih>, so this can parallelize the job.
1060 For configuring the public stream.
1062 localonly: If set to true, only messages posted by users of this
1063 service (rather than other services, filtered through OMB)
1064 are shown in the public stream. Default true.
1065 blacklist: An array of IDs of users to hide from the public stream.
1066 Useful if you have someone making excessive Twitterfeed posts
1067 to the site, other kinds of automated posts, testing bots, etc.
1068 autosource: Sources of notices that are from automatic posters, and thus
1069 should be kept off the public timeline. Default empty.
1074 server: Like avatars, you can speed up page loading by pointing the
1075 theme file lookup to another server (virtual or real).
1076 Defaults to NULL, meaning to use the site server.
1077 dir: Directory where theme files are stored. Used to determine
1078 whether to show parts of a theme file. Defaults to the theme
1079 subdirectory of the install directory.
1080 path: Path part of theme URLs, before the theme name. Relative to the
1081 theme server. It may make sense to change this path when upgrading,
1082 (using version numbers as the path) to make sure that all files are
1083 reloaded by caching clients or proxies. Defaults to null,
1084 which means to use the site path + '/theme'.
1089 For configuring the XMPP sub-system.
1091 enabled: Whether to accept and send messages by XMPP. Default false.
1092 server: server part of XMPP ID for update user.
1093 port: connection port for clients. Default 5222, which you probably
1094 shouldn't need to change.
1095 user: username for the client connection. Users will receive messages
1096 from 'user'@'server'.
1097 resource: a unique identifier for the connection to the server. This
1098 is actually used as a prefix for each XMPP component in the system.
1099 password: password for the user account.
1100 host: some XMPP domains are served by machines with a different
1101 hostname. (For example, @gmail.com GTalk users connect to
1102 talk.google.com). Set this to the correct hostname if that's the
1103 case with your server.
1104 encryption: Whether to encrypt the connection between StatusNet and the
1105 XMPP server. Defaults to true, but you can get
1106 considerably better performance turning it off if you're
1107 connecting to a server on the same machine or on a
1109 debug: if turned on, this will make the XMPP library blurt out all of
1110 the incoming and outgoing messages as XML stanzas. Use as a
1111 last resort, and never turn it on if you don't have queues
1112 enabled, since it will spit out sensitive data to the browser.
1113 public: an array of JIDs to send _all_ notices to. This is useful for
1114 participating in third-party search and archiving services.
1119 For configuring invites.
1121 enabled: Whether to allow users to send invites. Default true.
1126 Miscellaneous tagging stuff.
1128 dropoff: Decay factor for tag listing, in seconds.
1129 Defaults to exponential decay over ten days; you can twiddle
1130 with it to try and get better results for your site.
1135 Settings for the "popular" section of the site.
1137 dropoff: Decay factor for popularity listing, in seconds.
1138 Defaults to exponential decay over ten days; you can twiddle
1139 with it to try and get better results for your site.
1144 For daemon processes.
1146 piddir: directory that daemon processes should write their PID file
1147 (process ID) to. Defaults to /var/run/, which is where this
1148 stuff should usually go on Unix-ish systems.
1149 user: If set, the daemons will try to change their effective user ID
1150 to this user before running. Probably a good idea, especially if
1151 you start the daemons as root. Note: user name, like 'daemon',
1153 group: If set, the daemons will try to change their effective group ID
1154 to this named group. Again, a name, not a numerical ID.
1159 You can get a significant boost in performance by caching some
1160 database data in memcached <http://www.danga.com/memcached/>.
1162 enabled: Set to true to enable. Default false.
1163 server: a string with the hostname of the memcached server. Can also
1164 be an array of hostnames, if you've got more than one server.
1165 base: memcached uses key-value pairs to store data. We build long,
1166 funny-looking keys to make sure we don't have any conflicts. The
1167 base of the key is usually a simplified version of the site name
1168 (like "Identi.ca" => "identica"), but you can overwrite this if
1169 you need to. You can safely ignore it if you only have one
1170 StatusNet site using your memcached server.
1171 port: Port to connect to; defaults to 11211.
1178 enabled: Whether to enable post-by-email. Defaults to true. You will
1179 also need to set up maildaemon.php.
1184 For SMS integration.
1186 enabled: Whether to enable SMS integration. Defaults to true. Queues
1187 should also be enabled.
1192 A catch-all for integration with other systems.
1194 taguri: base for tag:// URIs. Defaults to site-server + ',2009'.
1201 enabled: No longer used. If you set this to something other than true,
1202 StatusNet will no longer run.
1207 For notice-posting throttles.
1209 enabled: Whether to throttle posting. Defaults to false.
1210 count: Each user can make this many posts in 'timespan' seconds. So, if count
1211 is 100 and timespan is 3600, then there can be only 100 posts
1212 from a user every hour.
1213 timespan: see 'count'.
1220 banned: an array of usernames and/or profile IDs of 'banned' profiles.
1221 The site will reject any notices by these users -- they will
1222 not be accepted at all. (Compare with blacklisted users above,
1223 whose posts just won't show up in the public stream.)
1224 biolimit: max character length of bio; 0 means no limit; null means to use
1225 the site text limit default.
1230 Options with new users.
1232 default: nickname of a user account to automatically subscribe new
1233 users to. Typically this would be system account for e.g.
1234 service updates or announcements. Users are able to unsub
1235 if they want. Default is null; no auto subscribe.
1236 welcome: nickname of a user account that sends welcome messages to new
1237 users. Can be the same as 'default' account, although on
1238 busy servers it may be a good idea to keep that one just for
1239 'urgent' messages. Default is null; no message.
1241 If either of these special user accounts are specified, the users should
1242 be created before the configuration is updated.
1247 The software will, by default, send statistical snapshots about the
1248 local installation to a stats server on the status.net Web site. This
1249 data is used by the developers to prioritize development decisions. No
1250 identifying data about users or organizations is collected. The data
1251 is available to the public for review. Participating in this survey
1252 helps StatusNet developers take your needs into account when updating
1255 run: string indicating when to run the statistics. Values can be 'web'
1256 (run occasionally at Web time), 'cron' (run from a cron script),
1257 or 'never' (don't ever run). If you set it to 'cron', remember to
1258 schedule the script to run on a regular basis.
1259 frequency: if run value is 'web', how often to report statistics.
1260 Measured in Web hits; depends on how active your site is.
1261 Default is 10000 -- that is, one report every 10000 Web hits,
1263 reporturl: URL to post statistics to. Defaults to StatusNet developers'
1264 report system, but if they go evil or disappear you may
1265 need to update this to another value. Note: if you
1266 don't want to report stats, it's much better to
1267 set 'run' to 'never' than to set this value to something
1273 The software lets users upload files with their notices. You can configure
1274 the types of accepted files by mime types and a trio of quota options:
1275 per file, per user (total), per user per month.
1277 We suggest the use of the pecl file_info extension to handle mime type
1280 supported: an array of mime types you accept to store and distribute,
1281 like 'image/gif', 'video/mpeg', 'audio/mpeg', etc. Make sure you
1282 setup your server to properly recognize the types you want to
1284 uploads: false to disable uploading files with notices (true by default).
1285 filecommand: The required MIME_Type library may need to use the 'file'
1286 command. It tries the one in the Web server's path, but if
1287 you're having problems with uploads, try setting this to the
1288 correct value. Note: 'file' must accept '-b' and '-i' options.
1290 For quotas, be sure you've set the upload_max_filesize and post_max_size
1291 in php.ini to be large enough to handle your upload. In httpd.conf
1292 (if you're using apache), check that the LimitRequestBody directive isn't
1293 set too low (it's optional, so it may not be there at all).
1295 file_quota: maximum size for a single file upload in bytes. A user can send
1296 any amount of notices with attachments as long as each attachment
1297 is smaller than file_quota.
1298 user_quota: total size in bytes a user can store on this server. Each user
1299 can store any number of files as long as their total size does
1300 not exceed the user_quota.
1301 monthly_quota: total size permitted in the current month. This is the total
1302 size in bytes that a user can upload each month.
1303 dir: directory accessible to the Web process where uploads should go.
1304 Defaults to the 'file' subdirectory of the install directory, which
1305 should be writeable by the Web user.
1306 server: server name to use when creating URLs for uploaded files.
1307 Defaults to null, meaning to use the default Web server. Using
1308 a virtual server here can speed up Web performance.
1309 path: URL path, relative to the server, to find files. Defaults to
1310 main path + '/file/'.
1311 filecommand: command to use for determining the type of a file. May be
1312 skipped if fileinfo extension is installed. Defaults to
1318 Options for group functionality.
1320 maxaliases: maximum number of aliases a group can have. Default 3. Set
1321 to 0 or less to prevent aliases in a group.
1322 desclimit: maximum number of characters to allow in group descriptions.
1323 null (default) means to use the site-wide text limits. 0
1329 oEmbed endpoint for multimedia attachments (links in posts).
1331 endpoint: oohembed endpoint using http://oohembed.com/ software.
1336 Some stuff for search.
1338 type: type of search. Ignored if PostgreSQL or Sphinx are enabled. Can either
1339 be 'fulltext' (default) or 'like'. The former is faster and more efficient
1340 but requires the lame old MyISAM engine for MySQL. The latter
1341 will work with InnoDB but could be miserably slow on large
1342 systems. We'll probably add another type sometime in the future,
1343 with our own indexing system (maybe like MediaWiki's).
1350 handle: boolean. Whether we should register our own PHP session-handling
1351 code (using the database and memcache if enabled). Defaults to false.
1352 Setting this to true makes some sense on large or multi-server
1353 sites, but it probably won't hurt for smaller ones, either.
1354 debug: whether to output debugging info for session storage. Can help
1355 with weird session bugs, sometimes. Default false.
1360 Users can upload backgrounds for their pages; this section defines
1363 server: the server to use for background. Using a separate (even
1364 virtual) server for this can speed up load times. Default is
1365 null; same as site server.
1366 dir: directory to write backgrounds too. Default is '/background/'
1367 subdir of install dir.
1368 path: path to backgrounds. Default is sub-path of install path; note
1369 that you may need to change this if you change site-path too.
1374 Using the "XML-RPC Ping" method initiated by weblogs.com, the site can
1375 notify third-party servers of updates.
1377 notify: an array of URLs for ping endpoints. Default is the empty
1378 array (no notification).
1383 Default design (colors and background) for the site. Actual appearance
1384 depends on the theme. Null values mean to use the theme defaults.
1386 backgroundcolor: Hex color of the site background.
1387 contentcolor: Hex color of the content area background.
1388 sidebarcolor: Hex color of the sidebar background.
1389 textcolor: Hex color of all non-link text.
1390 linkcolor: Hex color of all links.
1391 backgroundimage: Image to use for the background.
1392 disposition: Flags for whether or not to tile the background image.
1397 Configuration options specific to notices.
1399 contentlimit: max length of the plain-text content of a notice.
1400 Default is null, meaning to use the site-wide text limit.
1406 Configuration options specific to messages.
1408 contentlimit: max length of the plain-text content of a message.
1409 Default is null, meaning to use the site-wide text limit.
1415 Beginning with the 0.7.x branch, StatusNet has supported a simple but
1416 powerful plugin architecture. Important events in the code are named,
1417 like 'StartNoticeSave', and other software can register interest
1418 in those events. When the events happen, the other software is called
1419 and has a choice of accepting or rejecting the events.
1421 In the simplest case, you can add a function to config.php and use the
1422 Event::addHandler() function to hook an event:
1424 function AddGoogleLink($action)
1426 $action->menuItem('http://www.google.com/', _('Google'), _('Search engine'));
1430 Event::addHandler('EndPrimaryNav', 'AddGoogleLink');
1432 This adds a menu item to the end of the main navigation menu. You can
1433 see the list of existing events, and parameters that handlers must
1434 implement, in EVENTS.txt.
1436 The Plugin class in lib/plugin.php makes it easier to write more
1437 complex plugins. Sub-classes can just create methods named
1438 'onEventName', where 'EventName' is the name of the event (case
1439 matters!). These methods will be automatically registered as event
1440 handlers by the Plugin constructor (which you must call from your own
1441 class's constructor).
1443 Several example plugins are included in the plugins/ directory. You
1444 can enable a plugin with the following line in config.php:
1446 addPlugin('Example', array('param1' => 'value1',
1447 'param2' => 'value2'));
1449 This will look for and load files named 'ExamplePlugin.php' or
1450 'Example/ExamplePlugin.php' either in the plugins/ directory (for
1451 plugins that ship with StatusNet) or in the local/ directory (for
1452 plugins you write yourself or that you get from somewhere else) or
1455 Plugins are documented in their own directories.
1460 The primary output for StatusNet is syslog, unless you configured a
1461 separate logfile. This is probably the first place to look if you're
1462 getting weird behaviour from StatusNet.
1464 If you're tracking the unstable version of StatusNet in the git
1465 repository (see below), and you get a compilation error ("unexpected
1466 T_STRING") in the browser, check to see that you don't have any
1467 conflicts in your code.
1469 If you upgraded to StatusNet 0.8.2 without reading the "Notice
1470 inboxes" section above, and all your users' 'Personal' tabs are empty,
1471 read the "Notice inboxes" section above.
1476 These are some myths you may see on the Web about StatusNet.
1477 Documentation from the core team about StatusNet has been pretty
1478 sparse, so some backtracking and guesswork resulted in some incorrect
1481 - "Set $config['db']['debug'] = 5 to debug the database." This is an
1482 extremely bad idea. It's a tool built into DB_DataObject that will
1483 emit oodles of print lines directly to the browser of your users.
1484 Among these lines will be your database username and password. Do
1485 not enable this option on a production Web site for any reason.
1487 - "Edit dataobject.ini with the following settings..." dataobject.ini
1488 is a development file for the DB_DataObject framework and is not
1489 used by the running software. It was removed from the StatusNet
1490 distribution because its presence was confusing. Do not bother
1491 configuring dataobject.ini, and do not put your database username
1492 and password into the file on a production Web server; unscrupulous
1493 persons may try to read it to get your passwords.
1498 If you're adventurous or impatient, you may want to install the
1499 development version of StatusNet. To get it, use the git version
1500 control tool <http://git-scm.com/> like so:
1502 git clone git@gitorious.org:statusnet/mainline.git
1504 This is the version of the software that runs on Identi.ca and the
1505 status.net hosted service. Using it is a mixed bag. On the positive
1506 side, it usually includes the latest security and bug fix patches. On
1507 the downside, it may also include changes that require admin
1508 intervention (like running a script or even raw SQL!) that may not be
1509 documented yet. It may be a good idea to test this version before
1510 installing it on your production machines.
1512 To keep it up-to-date, use 'git pull'. Watch for conflicts!
1517 There are several ways to get more information about StatusNet.
1519 * There is a mailing list for StatusNet developers and admins at
1520 http://mail.status.net/mailman/listinfo/statusnet-dev
1521 * The #statusnet IRC channel on freenode.net <http://www.freenode.net/>.
1522 * The StatusNet wiki, http://status.net/wiki/
1523 * The StatusNet blog, http://status.net/blog/
1524 * The StatusNet status update, <http://status.status.net/status> (!)
1529 * Microblogging messages to http://identi.ca/evan are very welcome.
1530 * StatusNet's Trac server has a bug tracker for any defects you may find,
1531 or ideas for making things better. http://status.net/trac/
1532 * e-mail to evan@status.net will usually be read and responded to very
1533 quickly, unless the question is really hard.
1538 The following is an incomplete list of developers who've worked on
1539 StatusNet. Apologies for any oversight; please let evan@status.net know
1540 if anyone's been overlooked in error.
1542 * Evan Prodromou, founder and lead developer, StatusNet, Inc.
1543 * Zach Copley, StatusNet, Inc.
1544 * Earle Martin, StatusNet, Inc.
1545 * Marie-Claude Doyon, designer, StatusNet, Inc.
1546 * Sarven Capadisli, StatusNet, Inc.
1547 * Robin Millette, StatusNet, Inc.
1558 * Tryggvi Björgvinsson
1562 * Ken Sheppardson (Trac server, man-about-town)
1563 * Tiago 'gouki' Faria (i18n manager)
1565 * Leslie Michael Orchard
1569 * Tobias Diekershoff
1579 Thanks also to the developers of our upstream library code and to the
1580 thousands of people who have tried out Identi.ca, installed StatusNet,
1581 told their friends, and built the Open Microblogging network to what