5 StatusNet 0.9.7 "World Leader Pretend"
8 This is the README file for StatusNet, the Open Source microblogging
9 platform. It includes installation instructions, descriptions of
10 options you can set, warnings, tips, and general info for
11 administrators. Information on using StatusNet can be found in the
12 "doc" subdirectory or in the "help" section on-line.
17 StatusNet is a Free and Open Source microblogging platform. It helps
18 people in a community, company or group to exchange short (140
19 characters, by default) 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 Google Buzz, or Yammer.
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 OStatus
29 <http://ostatus.org/> that lets users in different networks follow
30 each other. It enables a distributed social network spread all across
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. See
42 <http://status.net/signup> for details. The software run
43 on status.net is identical to the software available for download, so
44 you can move back and forth between a hosted version or a version
45 installed on your own servers.
47 A commercial software subscription is available from StatusNet Inc. It
48 includes 24-hour technical support and developer support. More
49 information at http://status.net/contact or email sales@status.net.
54 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
55 it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as
56 published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
57 License, or (at your option) any later version.
59 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
60 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
61 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
62 Affero General Public License for more details.
64 You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public
65 License along with this program, in the file "COPYING". If not, see
66 <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
68 IMPORTANT NOTE: The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) has
69 *different requirements* from the "regular" GPL. In particular, if
70 you make modifications to the StatusNet source code on your server,
71 you *MUST MAKE AVAILABLE* the modified version of the source code
72 to your users under the same license. This is a legal requirement
73 of using the software, and if you do not wish to share your
74 modifications, *YOU MAY NOT INSTALL STATUSNET*.
76 Documentation in the /doc-src/ directory is available under the
77 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, with attribution to
78 "StatusNet". See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ for details.
80 CSS and images in the /theme/ directory are available under the
81 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, with attribution to
82 "StatusNet". See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ for details.
84 Our understanding and intention is that if you add your own theme that
85 uses only CSS and images, those files are not subject to the copyleft
86 requirements of the Affero General Public License 3.0. See
87 http://wordpress.org/news/2009/07/themes-are-gpl-too/ . This is not
88 legal advice; consult your lawyer.
90 Additional library software has been made available in the 'extlib'
91 directory. All of it is Free Software and can be distributed under
92 liberal terms, but those terms may differ in detail from the AGPL's
93 particulars. See each package's license file in the extlib directory
99 This is a security, bug and feature release since version 0.9.6 released on
102 For best compatibility with client software and site federation, and a
103 lot of bug fixes, it is highly recommended that all public sites
104 upgrade to the new version. Upgrades require new database indexes for
105 best performance; see Upgrade below.
107 Notable changes this version:
109 - GroupPrivateMessage plugin lets users send private messages
110 to a group. (Similar to "private groups" on Yammer.)
111 - Support for Twitter streaming API in Twitter bridge plugin
112 - Support for a new Activity Streams-based API using AtomPub, allowing
113 richer API data. See http://status.net/wiki/AtomPub for details.
114 - Unified Facebook plugin, replacing previous Facebook application
115 and Facebook Connect plugin.
116 - A plugin to send out a daily summary email to network users.
117 - In-line thumbnails of some attachments (video, images) and oEmbed objects.
118 - Local copies of remote profiles to let moderators manage OStatus users.
119 - Upgrade upstream JS, minify everything.
120 - Allow pushing plugin JS, CSS, and static files to a CDN.
121 - Configurable nickname rules.
122 - Better support for bit.ly URL shortener.
123 - InProcessCache plugin for additional caching on top of memcached.
124 - Support for Activity Streams JSON feeds on many streams.
125 - User-initiated backup and restore of account data in Activity Streams
127 - Bookmark plugin for making del.icio.us-like social bookmarking sites,
128 including del.icio.us backup file import. Supports OStatus.
129 - SQLProfile plugin to tune SQL queries.
130 - Better sorting on timelines to support restored or imported data.
131 - Hundreds of translations from http://translatewiki.net/
132 - Hundreds of performance tunings, bug fixes, and UI improvements.
133 - Remove deprecated data from Activity Streams Atom output, to the
135 - NewMenu plugin for new layout of menu items.
136 - Experimental support for moving an account from one server to
137 another, using new AtomPub API.
139 A full changelog is available at http://status.net/wiki/StatusNet_0.9.7.
144 The following software packages are *required* for this software to
147 - PHP 5.2.3+. It may be possible to run this software on earlier
148 versions of PHP, but many of the functions used are only available
149 in PHP 5.2 or above. 5.2.6 or later is needed for XMPP background
150 daemons on 64-bit platforms. PHP 5.3.x should work correctly in this
151 release, but problems with some plugins are possible.
152 - MySQL 5.x. The StatusNet database is stored, by default, in a MySQL
153 server. It has been primarily tested on 5.x servers, although it may
154 be possible to install on earlier (or later!) versions. The server
155 *must* support the MyISAM storage engine -- the default for most
156 MySQL servers -- *and* the InnoDB storage engine.
157 - A Web server. Preferably, you should have Apache 2.2.x with the
158 mod_rewrite extension installed and enabled.
160 Your PHP installation must include the following PHP extensions:
162 - Curl. This is for fetching files by HTTP.
163 - XMLWriter. This is for formatting XML and HTML output.
164 - MySQL. For accessing the database.
165 - GD. For scaling down avatar images.
166 - mbstring. For handling Unicode (UTF-8) encoded strings.
168 For some functionality, you will also need the following extensions:
170 - Memcache. A client for the memcached server, which caches database
171 information in volatile memory. This is important for adequate
172 performance on high-traffic sites. You will also need a memcached
173 server to store the data in.
174 - Mailparse. Efficient parsing of email requires this extension.
175 Submission by email or SMS-over-email uses this extension.
176 - Sphinx Search. A client for the sphinx server, an alternative
177 to MySQL or Postgresql fulltext search. You will also need a
178 Sphinx server to serve the search queries.
179 - bcmath or gmp. For Salmon signatures (part of OStatus). Needed
180 if you have OStatus configured.
181 - gettext. For multiple languages. Default on many PHP installs;
182 will be emulated if not present.
184 You will almost definitely get 2-3 times better performance from your
185 site if you install a PHP bytecode cache/accelerator. Some well-known
186 examples are: eaccelerator, Turck mmcache, xcache, apc. Zend Optimizer
187 is a proprietary accelerator installed on some hosting sites.
192 A number of external PHP libraries are used to provide basic
193 functionality and optional functionality for your system. For your
194 convenience, they are available in the "extlib" directory of this
195 package, and you do not have to download and install them. However,
196 you may want to keep them up-to-date with the latest upstream version,
197 and the URLs are listed here for your convenience.
199 - DB_DataObject http://pear.php.net/package/DB_DataObject
200 - Validate http://pear.php.net/package/Validate
201 - OpenID from OpenIDEnabled (not the PEAR version!). We decided
202 to use the openidenabled.com version since it's more widely
203 implemented, and seems to be better supported.
204 http://openidenabled.com/php-openid/
205 - PEAR DB. Although this is an older data access system (new
206 packages should probably use PHP DBO), the OpenID libraries
207 depend on PEAR DB so we use it here, too. DB_DataObject can
208 also use PEAR MDB2, which may give you better performance
209 but won't work with OpenID.
210 http://pear.php.net/package/DB
211 - OAuth.php from http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/php/
212 - markdown.php from http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/
213 - PEAR Mail, for sending out mail notifications
214 http://pear.php.net/package/Mail
215 - PEAR Net_SMTP, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications
216 http://pear.php.net/package/Net_SMTP
217 - PEAR Net_Socket, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications
218 http://pear.php.net/package/Net_Socket
219 - XMPPHP, the follow-up to Class.Jabber.php. Probably the best XMPP
220 library available for PHP. http://xmpphp.googlecode.com/. Note that
221 as of this writing the version of this library that is available in
222 the extlib directory is *significantly different* from the upstream
223 version (patches have been submitted). Upgrading to the upstream
224 version may render your StatusNet site unable to send or receive XMPP
226 - Facebook library. Used for the Facebook application.
227 - PEAR Validate is used for URL and email validation.
228 - Console_GetOpt for parsing command-line options.
229 - libomb. a library for implementing OpenMicroBlogging 0.1, the
230 predecessor to OStatus.
231 - HTTP_Request2, a library for making HTTP requests.
232 - PEAR Net_URL2 is an HTTP_Request2 dependency.
234 A design goal of StatusNet is that the basic Web functionality should
235 work on even the most restrictive commercial hosting services.
236 However, additional functionality, such as receiving messages by
237 Jabber/GTalk, require that you be able to run long-running processes
238 on your account. In addition, posting by email or from SMS require
239 that you be able to install a mail filter in your mail server.
244 Installing the basic StatusNet Web component is relatively easy,
245 especially if you've previously installed PHP/MySQL packages.
247 1. Unpack the tarball you downloaded on your Web server. Usually a
248 command like this will work:
250 tar zxf statusnet-0.9.7.tar.gz
252 ...which will make a statusnet-0.9.7 subdirectory in your current
253 directory. (If you don't have shell access on your Web server, you
254 may have to unpack the tarball on your local computer and FTP the
255 files to the server.)
257 2. Move the tarball to a directory of your choosing in your Web root
258 directory. Usually something like this will work:
260 mv statusnet-0.9.7 /var/www/statusnet
262 This will make your StatusNet instance available in the statusnet path of
263 your server, like "http://example.net/statusnet". "microblog" or
264 "statusnet" might also be good path names. If you know how to
265 configure virtual hosts on your web server, you can try setting up
266 "http://micro.example.net/" or the like.
268 3. Make your target directory writeable by the Web server.
270 chmod a+w /var/www/statusnet/
272 On some systems, this will probably work:
274 chgrp www-data /var/www/statusnet/
275 chmod g+w /var/www/statusnet/
277 If your Web server runs as another user besides "www-data", try
278 that user's default group instead. As a last resort, you can create
279 a new group like "statusnet" and add the Web server's user to the group.
281 4. You should also take this moment to make your avatar, background, and
282 file subdirectories writeable by the Web server. An insecure way to do
285 chmod a+w /var/www/statusnet/avatar
286 chmod a+w /var/www/statusnet/background
287 chmod a+w /var/www/statusnet/file
289 You can also make the avatar, background, and file directories
290 writeable by the Web server group, as noted above.
292 5. Create a database to hold your microblog data. Something like this
295 mysqladmin -u "username" --password="password" create statusnet
297 Note that StatusNet must have its own database; you can't share the
298 database with another program. You can name it whatever you want,
301 (If you don't have shell access to your server, you may need to use
302 a tool like PHPAdmin to create a database. Check your hosting
303 service's documentation for how to create a new MySQL database.)
305 6. Create a new database account that StatusNet will use to access the
306 database. If you have shell access, this will probably work from the
309 GRANT ALL on statusnet.*
310 TO 'statusnetuser'@'localhost'
311 IDENTIFIED BY 'statusnetpassword';
313 You should change 'statusnetuser' and 'statusnetpassword' to your preferred new
314 username and password. You may want to test logging in to MySQL as
317 7. In a browser, navigate to the StatusNet install script; something like:
319 http://yourserver.example.com/statusnet/install.php
321 Enter the database connection information and your site name. The
322 install program will configure your site and install the initial,
323 almost-empty database.
325 8. You should now be able to navigate to your microblog's main directory
326 and see the "Public Timeline", which will be empty. If not, magic
327 has happened! You can now register a new user, post some notices,
328 edit your profile, etc. However, you may want to wait to do that stuff
329 if you think you can set up "fancy URLs" (see below), since some
330 URLs are stored in the database.
335 By default, StatusNet will use URLs that include the main PHP program's
336 name in them. For example, a user's home profile might be
339 http://example.org/statusnet/index.php/statusnet/fred
341 On certain systems that don't support this kind of syntax, they'll
344 http://example.org/statusnet/index.php?p=statusnet/fred
346 It's possible to configure the software so it looks like this instead:
348 http://example.org/statusnet/fred
350 These "fancy URLs" are more readable and memorable for users. To use
351 fancy URLs, you must either have Apache 2.x with .htaccess enabled and
352 mod_rewrite enabled, -OR- know how to configure "url redirection" in
355 1. Copy the htaccess.sample file to .htaccess in your StatusNet
356 directory. Note: if you have control of your server's httpd.conf or
357 similar configuration files, it can greatly improve performance to
358 import the .htaccess file into your conf file instead. If you're
359 not sure how to do it, you may save yourself a lot of headache by
360 just leaving the .htaccess file.
362 2. Change the "RewriteBase" in the new .htaccess file to be the URL path
363 to your StatusNet installation on your server. Typically this will
364 be the path to your StatusNet directory relative to your Web root.
366 3. Add or uncomment or change a line in your config.php file so it says:
368 $config['site']['fancy'] = true;
370 You should now be able to navigate to a "fancy" URL on your server,
373 http://example.net/statusnet/main/register
375 If you changed your HTTP server configuration, you may need to restart
378 If it doesn't work, double-check that AllowOverride for the StatusNet
379 directory is 'All' in your Apache configuration file. This is usually
380 /etc/httpd.conf, /etc/apache/httpd.conf, or (on Debian and Ubuntu)
381 /etc/apache2/sites-available/default. See the Apache documentation for
382 .htaccess files for more details:
384 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/htaccess.html
386 Also, check that mod_rewrite is installed and enabled:
388 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_rewrite.html
393 To use a Sphinx server to search users and notices, you'll need to
394 enable the SphinxSearch plugin. Add to your config.php:
396 addPlugin('SphinxSearch');
397 $config['sphinx']['server'] = 'searchhost.local';
399 You also need to install, compile and enable the sphinx pecl extension for
400 php on the client side, which itself depends on the sphinx development files.
402 See plugins/SphinxSearch/README for more details and server setup.
407 StatusNet supports a cheap-and-dirty system for sending update messages
408 to mobile phones and for receiving updates from the mobile. Instead of
409 sending through the SMS network itself, which is costly and requires
410 buy-in from the wireless carriers, it simply piggybacks on the email
411 gateways that many carriers provide to their customers. So, SMS
412 configuration is essentially email configuration.
414 Each user sends to a made-up email address, which they keep a secret.
415 Incoming email that is "From" the user's SMS email address, and "To"
416 the users' secret email address on the site's domain, will be
417 converted to a notice and stored in the DB.
419 For this to work, there *must* be a domain or sub-domain for which all
420 (or most) incoming email can pass through the incoming mail filter.
422 1. Run the SQL script carrier.sql in your StatusNet database. This will
425 mysql -u "statusnetuser" --password="statusnetpassword" statusnet < db/carrier.sql
427 This will populate your database with a list of wireless carriers
428 that support email SMS gateways.
430 2. Make sure the maildaemon.php file is executable:
432 chmod +x scripts/maildaemon.php
434 Note that "daemon" is kind of a misnomer here; the script is more
435 of a filter than a daemon.
437 2. Edit /etc/aliases on your mail server and add the following line:
439 *: /path/to/statusnet/scripts/maildaemon.php
441 3. Run whatever code you need to to update your aliases database. For
442 many mail servers (Postfix, Exim, Sendmail), this should work:
446 You may need to restart your mail server for the new database to
449 4. Set the following in your config.php file:
451 $config['mail']['domain'] = 'yourdomain.example.net';
453 At this point, post-by-email and post-by-SMS-gateway should work. Note
454 that if your mail server is on a different computer from your email
455 server, you'll need to have a full installation of StatusNet, a working
456 config.php, and access to the StatusNet database from the mail server.
461 XMPP (eXtended Message and Presence Protocol, <http://xmpp.org/>) is the
462 instant-messenger protocol that drives Jabber and GTalk IM. You can
463 distribute messages via XMPP using the system below; however, you
464 need to run the XMPP incoming daemon to allow incoming messages as
467 1. You may want to strongly consider setting up your own XMPP server.
468 Ejabberd, OpenFire, and JabberD are all Open Source servers.
469 Jabber, Inc. provides a high-performance commercial server.
471 2. You must register a Jabber ID (JID) with your new server. It helps
472 to choose a name like "update@example.com" or "notice" or something
473 similar. Alternately, your "update JID" can be registered on a
474 publicly-available XMPP service, like jabber.org or GTalk.
476 StatusNet will not register the JID with your chosen XMPP server;
477 you need to do this manually, with an XMPP client like Gajim,
478 Telepathy, or Pidgin.im.
480 3. Configure your site's XMPP variables, as described below in the
481 configuration section.
483 On a default installation, your site can broadcast messages using
484 XMPP. Users won't be able to post messages using XMPP unless you've
485 got the XMPP daemon running. See 'Queues and daemons' below for how
486 to set that up. Also, once you have a sizable number of users, sending
487 a lot of SMS, OMB, and XMPP messages whenever someone posts a message
488 can really slow down your site; it may cause posting to timeout.
490 NOTE: stream_select(), a crucial function for network programming, is
491 broken on PHP 5.2.x less than 5.2.6 on amd64-based servers. We don't
492 work around this bug in StatusNet; current recommendation is to move
493 off of amd64 to another server.
498 You can send *all* messages from your microblogging site to a
499 third-party service using XMPP. This can be useful for providing
500 search, indexing, bridging, or other cool services.
502 To configure a downstream site to receive your public stream, add
503 their "JID" (Jabber ID) to your config.php as follows:
505 $config['xmpp']['public'][] = 'downstream@example.net';
507 (Don't miss those square brackets at the end.) Note that your XMPP
508 broadcasting must be configured as mentioned above. Although you can
509 send out messages at "Web time", high-volume sites should strongly
510 consider setting up queues and daemons.
515 Some activities that StatusNet needs to do, like broadcast OStatus, SMS,
516 and XMPP messages, can be 'queued' and done by off-line bots instead.
517 For this to work, you must be able to run long-running offline
518 processes, either on your main Web server or on another server you
519 control. (Your other server will still need all the above
520 prerequisites, with the exception of Apache.) Installing on a separate
521 server is probably a good idea for high-volume sites.
523 1. You'll need the "CLI" (command-line interface) version of PHP
524 installed on whatever server you use.
526 2. If you're using a separate server for queues, install StatusNet
527 somewhere on the server. You don't need to worry about the
528 .htaccess file, but make sure that your config.php file is close
529 to, or identical to, your Web server's version.
531 3. In your config.php files (both the Web server and the queues
532 server!), set the following variable:
534 $config['queue']['enabled'] = true;
536 You may also want to look at the 'daemon' section of this file for
537 more daemon options. Note that if you set the 'user' and/or 'group'
538 options, you'll need to create that user and/or group by hand.
539 They're not created automatically.
541 4. On the queues server, run the command scripts/startdaemons.sh.
543 This will run the queue handlers:
545 * queuedaemon.php - polls for queued items for inbox processing and
546 pushing out to OStatus, SMS, XMPP, etc.
547 * xmppdaemon.php - listens for new XMPP messages from users and stores
548 them as notices in the database; also pulls queued XMPP output from
549 queuedaemon.php to push out to clients.
551 These two daemons will automatically restart in most cases of failure
552 including memory leaks (if a memory_limit is set), but may still die
553 or behave oddly if they lose connections to the XMPP or queue servers.
555 Additional daemons may be also started by this script for certain
556 plugins, such as the Twitter bridge.
558 It may be a good idea to use a daemon-monitoring service, like 'monit',
559 to check their status and keep them running.
561 All the daemons write their process IDs (pids) to /var/run/ by
562 default. This can be useful for starting, stopping, and monitoring the
565 Since version 0.8.0, it's now possible to use a STOMP server instead of
566 our kind of hacky home-grown DB-based queue solution. This is strongly
567 recommended for best response time, especially when using XMPP.
569 See the "queues" config section below for how to configure to use STOMP.
570 As of this writing, the software has been tested with ActiveMQ 5.3.
575 There are two themes shipped with this version of StatusNet: "identica",
576 which is what the Identi.ca site uses, and "default", which is a good
577 basis for other sites.
579 As of right now, your ability to change the theme is site-wide; users
580 can't choose their own theme. Additionally, the only thing you can
581 change in the theme is CSS stylesheets and some image files; you can't
582 change the HTML output, like adding or removing menu items.
584 You can choose a theme using the $config['site']['theme'] element in
585 the config.php file. See below for details.
587 You can add your own theme by making a sub-directory of the 'theme'
588 subdirectory with the name of your theme. Each theme can have the
591 display.css: a CSS2 file for "default" styling for all browsers.
592 ie6.css: a CSS2 file for override styling for fixing up Internet
594 ie7.css: a CSS2 file for override styling for fixing up Internet
596 logo.png: a logo image for the site.
597 default-avatar-profile.png: a 96x96 pixel image to use as the avatar for
598 users who don't upload their own.
599 default-avatar-stream.png: Ditto, but 48x48. For streams of notices.
600 default-avatar-mini.png: Ditto ditto, but 24x24. For subscriptions
601 listing on profile pages.
603 You may want to start by copying the files from the default theme to
606 NOTE: the HTML generated by StatusNet changed *radically* between
607 version 0.6.x and 0.7.x. Older themes will need signification
608 modification to use the new output format.
613 Translations in StatusNet use the gettext system <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/>.
614 Theoretically, you can add your own sub-directory to the locale/
615 subdirectory to add a new language to your system. You'll need to
616 compile the ".po" files into ".mo" files, however.
618 Contributions of translation information to StatusNet are very easy:
619 you can use the Web interface at translatewiki.net to add one
620 or a few or lots of new translations -- or even new languages. You can
621 also download more up-to-date .po files there, if you so desire.
623 For info on helping with translations, see http://status.net/wiki/Translations
628 There is no built-in system for doing backups in StatusNet. You can make
629 backups of a working StatusNet system by backing up the database and
630 the Web directory. To backup the database use mysqldump <http://ur1.ca/7xo>
631 and to backup the Web directory, try tar.
636 The administrator can set the "private" flag for a site so that it's
637 not visible to non-logged-in users. This might be useful for
638 workgroups who want to share a microblogging site for project
639 management, but host it on a public server.
641 Total privacy is not guaranteed or ensured. Also, privacy is
642 all-or-nothing for a site; you can't have some accounts or notices
643 private, and others public. The interaction of private sites
644 with OStatus is undefined.
646 Access to file attachments can also be restricted to logged-in users only.
647 1. Add a directory outside the web root where your file uploads will be
648 stored. Usually a command like this will work:
650 mkdir /var/www/statusnet-files
652 2. Make the file uploads directory writeable by the web server. An
653 insecure way to do this is:
655 chmod a+x /var/www/statusnet-files
657 3. Tell StatusNet to use this directory for file uploads. Add a line
658 like this to your config.php:
660 $config['attachments']['dir'] = '/var/www/statusnet-files';
665 IMPORTANT NOTE: StatusNet 0.7.4 introduced a fix for some
666 incorrectly-stored international characters ("UTF-8"). For new
667 installations, it will now store non-ASCII characters correctly.
668 However, older installations will have the incorrect storage, and will
669 consequently show up "wrong" in browsers. See below for how to deal
672 If you've been using StatusNet 0.7, 0.6, 0.5 or lower, or if you've
673 been tracking the "git" version of the software, you will probably
674 want to upgrade and keep your existing data. There is no automated
675 upgrade procedure in StatusNet 0.9.7. Try these step-by-step
676 instructions; read to the end first before trying them.
678 0. Download StatusNet and set up all the prerequisites as if you were
680 1. Make backups of both your database and your Web directory. UNDER NO
681 CIRCUMSTANCES should you try to do an upgrade without a known-good
682 backup. You have been warned.
683 2. Shut down Web access to your site, either by turning off your Web
684 server or by redirecting all pages to a "sorry, under maintenance"
686 3. Shut down XMPP access to your site, typically by shutting down the
687 xmppdaemon.php process and all other daemons that you're running.
688 If you've got "monit" or "cron" automatically restarting your
689 daemons, make sure to turn that off, too.
690 4. Shut down SMS and email access to your site. The easy way to do
691 this is to comment out the line piping incoming email to your
692 maildaemon.php file, and running something like "newaliases".
693 5. Once all writing processes to your site are turned off, make a
694 final backup of the Web directory and database.
695 6. Move your StatusNet directory to a backup spot, like "statusnet.bak".
696 7. Unpack your StatusNet 0.9.7 tarball and move it to "statusnet" or
697 wherever your code used to be.
698 8. Copy the config.php file and the contents of the avatar/, background/,
699 file/, and local/ subdirectories from your old directory to your new
701 9. Copy htaccess.sample to .htaccess in the new directory. Change the
702 RewriteBase to use the correct path.
703 10. Rebuild the database.
705 NOTE: this step is destructive and cannot be
706 reversed. YOU CAN EASILY DESTROY YOUR SITE WITH THIS STEP. Don't
707 do it without a known-good backup!
709 If your database is at version 0.8.0 or higher in the 0.8.x line, you can run a
710 special upgrade script:
712 mysql -u<rootuser> -p<rootpassword> <database> db/08to09.sql
714 If you are upgrading from any 0.9.x version like 0.9.6, run this script:
716 mysql -u<rootuser> -p<rootpassword> <database> db/096to097.sql
718 Despite the name, it should work for any 0.9.x branch.
720 Otherwise, go to your StatusNet directory and AFTER YOU MAKE A
721 BACKUP run the rebuilddb.sh script like this:
723 ./scripts/rebuilddb.sh rootuser rootpassword database db/statusnet.sql
725 Here, rootuser and rootpassword are the username and password for a
726 user who can drop and create databases as well as tables; typically
727 that's _not_ the user StatusNet runs as. Note that rebuilddb.sh drops
728 your database and rebuilds it; if there is an error you have no
729 database. Make sure you have a backup.
730 For PostgreSQL databases there is an equivalent, rebuilddb_psql.sh,
731 which operates slightly differently. Read the documentation in that
732 script before running it.
733 11. Use mysql or psql client to log into your database and make sure that
734 the notice, user, profile, subscription etc. tables are non-empty.
735 12. Turn back on the Web server, and check that things still work.
736 13. Turn back on XMPP bots and email maildaemon. Note that the XMPP
737 bots have changed since version 0.5; see above for details.
739 If you're upgrading from very old versions, you may want to look at
740 the fixup_* scripts in the scripts directories. These will store some
741 precooked data in the DB. All upgraders should check out the inboxes
744 NOTE: the database definition file, laconica.ini, has been renamed to
745 statusnet.ini (since this is the recommended database name). If you
746 have a line in your config.php pointing to the old name, you'll need
752 Notice inboxes are now required. If you don't have inboxes enabled,
753 StatusNet will no longer run.
758 StatusNet 0.7.4 introduced a fix for some incorrectly-stored
759 international characters ("UTF-8"). This fix is not
760 backwards-compatible; installations from before 0.7.4 will show
761 non-ASCII characters of old notices incorrectly. This section explains
764 0. You can disable the new behaviour by setting the 'db''utf8' config
765 option to "false". You should only do this until you're ready to
766 convert your DB to the new format.
767 1. When you're ready to convert, you can run the fixup_utf8.php script
768 in the scripts/ subdirectory. If you've had the "new behaviour"
769 enabled (probably a good idea), you can give the ID of the first
770 "new" notice as a parameter, and only notices before that one will
771 be converted. Notices are converted in reverse chronological order,
772 so the most recent (and visible) ones will be converted first. The
773 script should work whether or not you have the 'db''utf8' config
775 2. When you're ready, set $config['db']['utf8'] to true, so that
776 new notices will be stored correctly.
778 Configuration options
779 =====================
781 The main configuration file for StatusNet (excepting configurations for
782 dependency software) is config.php in your StatusNet directory. If you
783 edit any other file in the directory, like lib/default.php (where most
784 of the defaults are defined), you will lose your configuration options
785 in any upgrade, and you will wish that you had been more careful.
787 Starting with version 0.9.0, a Web based configuration panel has been
788 added to StatusNet. The preferred method for changing config options is
791 A command-line script, setconfig.php, can be used to set individual
792 configuration options. It's in the scripts/ directory.
794 Starting with version 0.7.1, you can put config files in the
795 /etc/statusnet/ directory on your server, if it exists. Config files
796 will be included in this order:
798 * /etc/statusnet/statusnet.php - server-wide config
799 * /etc/statusnet/<servername>.php - for a virtual host
800 * /etc/statusnet/<servername>_<pathname>.php - for a path
801 * INSTALLDIR/config.php - for a particular implementation
803 Almost all configuration options are made through a two-dimensional
804 associative array, cleverly named $config. A typical configuration
807 $config['section']['option'] = value;
809 For brevity, the following documentation describes each section and
815 This section is a catch-all for site-wide variables.
817 name: the name of your site, like 'YourCompany Microblog'.
818 server: the server part of your site's URLs, like 'example.net'.
819 path: The path part of your site's URLs, like 'statusnet' or ''
821 fancy: whether or not your site uses fancy URLs (see Fancy URLs
822 section above). Default is false.
823 logfile: full path to a file for StatusNet to save logging
824 information to. You may want to use this if you don't have
826 logdebug: whether to log additional debug info like backtraces on
827 hard errors. Default false.
828 locale_path: full path to the directory for locale data. Unless you
829 store all your locale data in one place, you probably
830 don't need to use this.
831 language: default language for your site. Defaults to US English.
832 Note that this is overridden if a user is logged in and has
833 selected a different language. It is also overridden if the
834 user is NOT logged in, but their browser requests a different
835 langauge. Since pretty much everybody's browser requests a
836 language, that means that changing this setting has little or
837 no effect in practice.
838 languages: A list of languages supported on your site. Typically you'd
839 only change this if you wanted to disable support for one
841 "unset($config['site']['languages']['de'])" will disable
843 theme: Theme for your site (see Theme section). Two themes are
844 provided by default: 'default' and 'stoica' (the one used by
845 Identi.ca). It's appreciated if you don't use the 'stoica' theme
846 except as the basis for your own.
847 email: contact email address for your site. By default, it's extracted
848 from your Web server environment; you may want to customize it.
849 broughtbyurl: name of an organization or individual who provides the
850 service. Each page will include a link to this name in the
851 footer. A good way to link to the blog, forum, wiki,
852 corporate portal, or whoever is making the service available.
853 broughtby: text used for the "brought by" link.
854 timezone: default timezone for message display. Users can set their
855 own time zone. Defaults to 'UTC', which is a pretty good default.
856 closed: If set to 'true', will disallow registration on your site.
857 This is a cheap way to restrict accounts to only one
858 individual or group; just register the accounts you want on
859 the service, *then* set this variable to 'true'.
860 inviteonly: If set to 'true', will only allow registration if the user
861 was invited by an existing user.
862 private: If set to 'true', anonymous users will be redirected to the
863 'login' page. Also, API methods that normally require no
864 authentication will require it. Note that this does not turn
865 off registration; use 'closed' or 'inviteonly' for the
867 notice: A plain string that will appear on every page. A good place
868 to put introductory information about your service, or info about
869 upgrades and outages, or other community info. Any HTML will
871 logo: URL of an image file to use as the logo for the site. Overrides
872 the logo in the theme, if any.
873 ssllogo: URL of an image file to use as the logo on SSL pages. If unset,
874 theme logo is used instead.
875 ssl: Whether to use SSL and https:// URLs for some or all pages.
876 Possible values are 'always' (use it for all pages), 'never'
877 (don't use it for any pages), or 'sometimes' (use it for
878 sensitive pages that include passwords like login and registration,
879 but not for regular pages). Default to 'never'.
880 sslserver: use an alternate server name for SSL URLs, like
881 'secure.example.org'. You should be careful to set cookie
882 parameters correctly so that both the SSL server and the
883 "normal" server can access the session cookie and
884 preferably other cookies as well.
885 shorturllength: Length of URL at which URLs in a message exceeding 140
886 characters will be sent to the user's chosen
888 dupelimit: minimum time allowed for one person to say the same thing
889 twice. Default 60s. Anything lower is considered a user
891 textlimit: default max size for texts in the site. Defaults to 140.
892 0 means no limit. Can be fine-tuned for notices, messages,
893 profile bios and group descriptions.
898 This section is a reference to the configuration options for
899 DB_DataObject (see <http://ur1.ca/7xp>). The ones that you may want to
900 set are listed below for clarity.
902 database: a DSN (Data Source Name) for your StatusNet database. This is
903 in the format 'protocol://username:password@hostname/databasename',
904 where 'protocol' is 'mysql' or 'mysqli' (or possibly 'postgresql', if you
905 really know what you're doing), 'username' is the username,
906 'password' is the password, and etc.
907 ini_yourdbname: if your database is not named 'statusnet', you'll need
908 to set this to point to the location of the
909 statusnet.ini file. Note that the real name of your database
910 should go in there, not literally 'yourdbname'.
911 db_driver: You can try changing this to 'MDB2' to use the other driver
912 type for DB_DataObject, but note that it breaks the OpenID
913 libraries, which only support PEAR::DB.
914 debug: On a database error, you may get a message saying to set this
915 value to 5 to see debug messages in the browser. This breaks
916 just about all pages, and will also expose the username and
918 quote_identifiers: Set this to true if you're using postgresql.
919 type: either 'mysql' or 'postgresql' (used for some bits of
920 database-type-specific SQL in the code). Defaults to mysql.
921 mirror: you can set this to an array of DSNs, like the above
922 'database' value. If it's set, certain read-only actions will
923 use a random value out of this array for the database, rather
924 than the one in 'database' (actually, 'database' is overwritten).
925 You can offload a busy DB server by setting up MySQL replication
926 and adding the slaves to this array. Note that if you want some
927 requests to go to the 'database' (master) server, you'll need
928 to include it in this array, too.
929 utf8: whether to talk to the database in UTF-8 mode. This is the default
930 with new installations, but older sites may want to turn it off
931 until they get their databases fixed up. See "UTF-8 database"
933 schemacheck: when to let plugins check the database schema to add
934 tables or update them. Values can be 'runtime' (default)
935 or 'script'. 'runtime' can be costly (plugins check the
936 schema on every hit, adding potentially several db
937 queries, some quite long), but not everyone knows how to
938 run a script. If you can, set this to 'script' and run
939 scripts/checkschema.php whenever you install or upgrade a
945 By default, StatusNet sites log error messages to the syslog facility.
946 (You can override this using the 'logfile' parameter described above).
948 appname: The name that StatusNet uses to log messages. By default it's
949 "statusnet", but if you have more than one installation on the
950 server, you may want to change the name for each instance so
951 you can track log messages more easily.
952 priority: level to log at. Currently ignored.
953 facility: what syslog facility to used. Defaults to LOG_USER, only
954 reset if you know what syslog is and have a good reason
960 You can configure the software to queue time-consuming tasks, like
961 sending out SMS email or XMPP messages, for off-line processing. See
962 'Queues and daemons' above for how to set this up.
964 enabled: Whether to uses queues. Defaults to false.
965 subsystem: Which kind of queueserver to use. Values include "db" for
966 our hacked-together database queuing (no other server
967 required) and "stomp" for a stomp server.
968 stomp_server: "broker URI" for stomp server. Something like
969 "tcp://hostname:61613". More complicated ones are
970 possible; see your stomp server's documentation for
972 queue_basename: a root name to use for queues (stomp only). Typically
973 something like '/queue/sitename/' makes sense. If running
974 multiple instances on the same server, make sure that
975 either this setting or $config['site']['nickname'] are
976 unique for each site to keep them separate.
978 stomp_username: username for connecting to the stomp server; defaults
980 stomp_password: password for connecting to the stomp server; defaults
983 stomp_persistent: keep items across queue server restart, if enabled.
984 Under ActiveMQ, the server configuration determines if and how
985 persistent storage is actually saved.
987 If using a message queue server other than ActiveMQ, you may
988 need to disable this if it does not support persistence.
990 stomp_transactions: use transactions to aid in error detection.
991 A broken transaction will be seen quickly, allowing a message
992 to be redelivered immediately if a daemon crashes.
994 If using a message queue server other than ActiveMQ, you may
995 need to disable this if it does not support transactions.
997 stomp_acks: send acknowledgements to aid in flow control.
998 An acknowledgement of successful processing tells the server
999 we're ready for more and can help keep things moving smoothly.
1001 This should *not* be turned off when running with ActiveMQ, but
1002 if using another message queue server that does not support
1003 acknowledgements you might need to disable this.
1005 softlimit: an absolute or relative "soft memory limit"; daemons will
1006 restart themselves gracefully when they find they've hit
1007 this amount of memory usage. Defaults to 90% of PHP's global
1008 memory_limit setting.
1010 inboxes: delivery of messages to receiver's inboxes can be delayed to
1011 queue time for best interactive performance on the sender.
1012 This may however be annoyingly slow when using the DB queues,
1013 so you can set this to false if it's causing trouble.
1015 breakout: for stomp, individual queues are by default grouped up for
1016 best scalability. If some need to be run by separate daemons,
1017 etc they can be manually adjusted here.
1019 Default will share all queues for all sites within each group.
1020 Specify as <group>/<queue> or <group>/<queue>/<site>,
1021 using nickname identifier as site.
1023 'main/distrib' separate "distrib" queue covering all sites
1024 'xmpp/xmppout/mysite' separate "xmppout" queue covering just 'mysite'
1026 max_retries: for stomp, drop messages after N failed attempts to process.
1029 dead_letter_dir: for stomp, optional directory to dump data on failed
1030 queue processing events after discarding them.
1032 stomp_no_transactions: for stomp, the server does not support transactions,
1033 so do not try to user them. This is needed for http://www.morbidq.com/.
1035 stomp_no_acks: for stomp, the server does not support acknowledgements.
1036 so do not try to user them. This is needed for http://www.morbidq.com/.
1041 The default license to use for your users notices. The default is the
1042 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which is probably the right
1043 choice for any public site. Note that some other servers will not
1044 accept notices if you apply a stricter license than this.
1046 type: one of 'cc' (for Creative Commons licenses), 'allrightsreserved'
1047 (default copyright), or 'private' (for private and confidential
1049 owner: for 'allrightsreserved' or 'private', an assigned copyright
1050 holder (for example, an employer for a private site). If
1051 not specified, will be attributed to 'contributors'.
1052 url: URL of the license, used for links.
1053 title: Title for the license, like 'Creative Commons Attribution 3.0'.
1054 image: A button shown on each page for the license.
1059 This is for configuring out-going email. We use PEAR's Mail module,
1060 see: http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.mail.mail.factory.php
1062 backend: the backend to use for mail, one of 'mail', 'sendmail', and
1063 'smtp'. Defaults to PEAR's default, 'mail'.
1064 params: if the mail backend requires any parameters, you can provide
1065 them in an associative array.
1070 This is for configuring nicknames in the service.
1072 blacklist: an array of strings for usernames that may not be
1073 registered. A default array exists for strings that are
1074 used by StatusNet (e.g. 'doc', 'main', 'avatar', 'theme')
1075 but you may want to add others if you have other software
1076 installed in a subdirectory of StatusNet or if you just
1077 don't want certain words used as usernames.
1078 featured: an array of nicknames of 'featured' users of the site.
1079 Can be useful to draw attention to well-known users, or
1080 interesting people, or whatever.
1085 For configuring avatar access.
1087 dir: Directory to look for avatar files and to put them into.
1088 Defaults to avatar subdirectory of install directory; if
1089 you change it, make sure to change path, too.
1090 path: Path to avatars. Defaults to path for avatar subdirectory,
1091 but you can change it if you wish. Note that this will
1092 be included with the avatar server, too.
1093 server: If set, defines another server where avatars are stored in the
1094 root directory. Note that the 'avatar' subdir still has to be
1095 writeable. You'd typically use this to split HTTP requests on
1096 the client to speed up page loading, either with another
1097 virtual server or with an NFS or SAMBA share. Clients
1098 typically only make 2 connections to a single server at a
1099 time <http://ur1.ca/6ih>, so this can parallelize the job.
1101 ssl: Whether to access avatars using HTTPS. Defaults to null, meaning
1102 to guess based on site-wide SSL settings.
1107 For configuring the public stream.
1109 localonly: If set to true, only messages posted by users of this
1110 service (rather than other services, filtered through OMB)
1111 are shown in the public stream. Default true.
1112 blacklist: An array of IDs of users to hide from the public stream.
1113 Useful if you have someone making excessive Twitterfeed posts
1114 to the site, other kinds of automated posts, testing bots, etc.
1115 autosource: Sources of notices that are from automatic posters, and thus
1116 should be kept off the public timeline. Default empty.
1121 server: Like avatars, you can speed up page loading by pointing the
1122 theme file lookup to another server (virtual or real).
1123 Defaults to NULL, meaning to use the site server.
1124 dir: Directory where theme files are stored. Used to determine
1125 whether to show parts of a theme file. Defaults to the theme
1126 subdirectory of the install directory.
1127 path: Path part of theme URLs, before the theme name. Relative to the
1128 theme server. It may make sense to change this path when upgrading,
1129 (using version numbers as the path) to make sure that all files are
1130 reloaded by caching clients or proxies. Defaults to null,
1131 which means to use the site path + '/theme'.
1132 ssl: Whether to use SSL for theme elements. Default is null, which means
1133 guess based on site SSL settings.
1134 sslserver: SSL server to use when page is HTTPS-encrypted. If
1135 unspecified, site ssl server and so on will be used.
1136 sslpath: If sslserver if defined, path to use when page is HTTPS-encrypted.
1141 server: You can speed up page loading by pointing the
1142 theme file lookup to another server (virtual or real).
1143 Defaults to NULL, meaning to use the site server.
1144 path: Path part of Javascript URLs. Defaults to null,
1145 which means to use the site path + '/js/'.
1146 ssl: Whether to use SSL for JavaScript files. Default is null, which means
1147 guess based on site SSL settings.
1148 sslserver: SSL server to use when page is HTTPS-encrypted. If
1149 unspecified, site ssl server and so on will be used.
1150 sslpath: If sslserver if defined, path to use when page is HTTPS-encrypted.
1155 For configuring the XMPP sub-system.
1157 enabled: Whether to accept and send messages by XMPP. Default false.
1158 server: server part of XMPP ID for update user.
1159 port: connection port for clients. Default 5222, which you probably
1160 shouldn't need to change.
1161 user: username for the client connection. Users will receive messages
1162 from 'user'@'server'.
1163 resource: a unique identifier for the connection to the server. This
1164 is actually used as a prefix for each XMPP component in the system.
1165 password: password for the user account.
1166 host: some XMPP domains are served by machines with a different
1167 hostname. (For example, @gmail.com GTalk users connect to
1168 talk.google.com). Set this to the correct hostname if that's the
1169 case with your server.
1170 encryption: Whether to encrypt the connection between StatusNet and the
1171 XMPP server. Defaults to true, but you can get
1172 considerably better performance turning it off if you're
1173 connecting to a server on the same machine or on a
1175 debug: if turned on, this will make the XMPP library blurt out all of
1176 the incoming and outgoing messages as XML stanzas. Use as a
1177 last resort, and never turn it on if you don't have queues
1178 enabled, since it will spit out sensitive data to the browser.
1179 public: an array of JIDs to send _all_ notices to. This is useful for
1180 participating in third-party search and archiving services.
1185 For configuring invites.
1187 enabled: Whether to allow users to send invites. Default true.
1192 Miscellaneous tagging stuff.
1194 dropoff: Decay factor for tag listing, in seconds.
1195 Defaults to exponential decay over ten days; you can twiddle
1196 with it to try and get better results for your site.
1201 Settings for the "popular" section of the site.
1203 dropoff: Decay factor for popularity listing, in seconds.
1204 Defaults to exponential decay over ten days; you can twiddle
1205 with it to try and get better results for your site.
1210 For daemon processes.
1212 piddir: directory that daemon processes should write their PID file
1213 (process ID) to. Defaults to /var/run/, which is where this
1214 stuff should usually go on Unix-ish systems.
1215 user: If set, the daemons will try to change their effective user ID
1216 to this user before running. Probably a good idea, especially if
1217 you start the daemons as root. Note: user name, like 'daemon',
1219 group: If set, the daemons will try to change their effective group ID
1220 to this named group. Again, a name, not a numerical ID.
1225 You can get a significant boost in performance by caching some
1226 database data in memcached <http://www.danga.com/memcached/>.
1228 enabled: Set to true to enable. Default false.
1229 server: a string with the hostname of the memcached server. Can also
1230 be an array of hostnames, if you've got more than one server.
1231 base: memcached uses key-value pairs to store data. We build long,
1232 funny-looking keys to make sure we don't have any conflicts. The
1233 base of the key is usually a simplified version of the site name
1234 (like "Identi.ca" => "identica"), but you can overwrite this if
1235 you need to. You can safely ignore it if you only have one
1236 StatusNet site using your memcached server.
1237 port: Port to connect to; defaults to 11211.
1244 enabled: Whether to enable post-by-email. Defaults to true. You will
1245 also need to set up maildaemon.php.
1250 For SMS integration.
1252 enabled: Whether to enable SMS integration. Defaults to true. Queues
1253 should also be enabled.
1258 A catch-all for integration with other systems.
1260 taguri: base for tag:// URIs. Defaults to site-server + ',2009'.
1267 enabled: No longer used. If you set this to something other than true,
1268 StatusNet will no longer run.
1273 For notice-posting throttles.
1275 enabled: Whether to throttle posting. Defaults to false.
1276 count: Each user can make this many posts in 'timespan' seconds. So, if count
1277 is 100 and timespan is 3600, then there can be only 100 posts
1278 from a user every hour.
1279 timespan: see 'count'.
1286 biolimit: max character length of bio; 0 means no limit; null means to use
1287 the site text limit default.
1288 backup: whether users can backup their own profiles. Defaults to true.
1289 restore: whether users can restore their profiles from backup files. Defaults
1291 delete: whether users can delete their own accounts. Defaults to false.
1292 move: whether users can move their accounts to another server. Defaults
1298 Options with new users.
1300 default: nickname of a user account to automatically subscribe new
1301 users to. Typically this would be system account for e.g.
1302 service updates or announcements. Users are able to unsub
1303 if they want. Default is null; no auto subscribe.
1304 welcome: nickname of a user account that sends welcome messages to new
1305 users. Can be the same as 'default' account, although on
1306 busy servers it may be a good idea to keep that one just for
1307 'urgent' messages. Default is null; no message.
1309 If either of these special user accounts are specified, the users should
1310 be created before the configuration is updated.
1315 The software will, by default, send statistical snapshots about the
1316 local installation to a stats server on the status.net Web site. This
1317 data is used by the developers to prioritize development decisions. No
1318 identifying data about users or organizations is collected. The data
1319 is available to the public for review. Participating in this survey
1320 helps StatusNet developers take your needs into account when updating
1323 run: string indicating when to run the statistics. Values can be 'web'
1324 (run occasionally at Web time), 'cron' (run from a cron script),
1325 or 'never' (don't ever run). If you set it to 'cron', remember to
1326 schedule the script to run on a regular basis.
1327 frequency: if run value is 'web', how often to report statistics.
1328 Measured in Web hits; depends on how active your site is.
1329 Default is 10000 -- that is, one report every 10000 Web hits,
1331 reporturl: URL to post statistics to. Defaults to StatusNet developers'
1332 report system, but if they go evil or disappear you may
1333 need to update this to another value. Note: if you
1334 don't want to report stats, it's much better to
1335 set 'run' to 'never' than to set this value to something
1341 The software lets users upload files with their notices. You can configure
1342 the types of accepted files by mime types and a trio of quota options:
1343 per file, per user (total), per user per month.
1345 We suggest the use of the pecl file_info extension to handle mime type
1348 supported: an array of mime types you accept to store and distribute,
1349 like 'image/gif', 'video/mpeg', 'audio/mpeg', etc. Make sure you
1350 setup your server to properly recognize the types you want to
1352 uploads: false to disable uploading files with notices (true by default).
1353 filecommand: The required MIME_Type library may need to use the 'file'
1354 command. It tries the one in the Web server's path, but if
1355 you're having problems with uploads, try setting this to the
1356 correct value. Note: 'file' must accept '-b' and '-i' options.
1358 For quotas, be sure you've set the upload_max_filesize and post_max_size
1359 in php.ini to be large enough to handle your upload. In httpd.conf
1360 (if you're using apache), check that the LimitRequestBody directive isn't
1361 set too low (it's optional, so it may not be there at all).
1363 file_quota: maximum size for a single file upload in bytes. A user can send
1364 any amount of notices with attachments as long as each attachment
1365 is smaller than file_quota.
1366 user_quota: total size in bytes a user can store on this server. Each user
1367 can store any number of files as long as their total size does
1368 not exceed the user_quota.
1369 monthly_quota: total size permitted in the current month. This is the total
1370 size in bytes that a user can upload each month.
1371 dir: directory accessible to the Web process where uploads should go.
1372 Defaults to the 'file' subdirectory of the install directory, which
1373 should be writeable by the Web user.
1374 server: server name to use when creating URLs for uploaded files.
1375 Defaults to null, meaning to use the default Web server. Using
1376 a virtual server here can speed up Web performance.
1377 path: URL path, relative to the server, to find files. Defaults to
1378 main path + '/file/'.
1379 ssl: whether to use HTTPS for file URLs. Defaults to null, meaning to
1380 guess based on other SSL settings.
1381 filecommand: command to use for determining the type of a file. May be
1382 skipped if fileinfo extension is installed. Defaults to
1384 sslserver: if specified, this server will be used when creating HTTPS
1385 URLs. Otherwise, the site SSL server will be used, with /file/ path.
1386 sslpath: if this and the sslserver are specified, this path will be used
1387 when creating HTTPS URLs. Otherwise, the attachments|path value
1393 Options for group functionality.
1395 maxaliases: maximum number of aliases a group can have. Default 3. Set
1396 to 0 or less to prevent aliases in a group.
1397 desclimit: maximum number of characters to allow in group descriptions.
1398 null (default) means to use the site-wide text limits. 0
1404 oEmbed endpoint for multimedia attachments (links in posts).
1406 endpoint: oohembed endpoint using http://oohembed.com/ software.
1411 Some stuff for search.
1413 type: type of search. Ignored if PostgreSQL or Sphinx are enabled. Can either
1414 be 'fulltext' (default) or 'like'. The former is faster and more efficient
1415 but requires the lame old MyISAM engine for MySQL. The latter
1416 will work with InnoDB but could be miserably slow on large
1417 systems. We'll probably add another type sometime in the future,
1418 with our own indexing system (maybe like MediaWiki's).
1425 handle: boolean. Whether we should register our own PHP session-handling
1426 code (using the database and memcache if enabled). Defaults to false.
1427 Setting this to true makes some sense on large or multi-server
1428 sites, but it probably won't hurt for smaller ones, either.
1429 debug: whether to output debugging info for session storage. Can help
1430 with weird session bugs, sometimes. Default false.
1435 Users can upload backgrounds for their pages; this section defines
1438 server: the server to use for background. Using a separate (even
1439 virtual) server for this can speed up load times. Default is
1440 null; same as site server.
1441 dir: directory to write backgrounds too. Default is '/background/'
1442 subdir of install dir.
1443 path: path to backgrounds. Default is sub-path of install path; note
1444 that you may need to change this if you change site-path too.
1445 sslserver: SSL server to use when page is HTTPS-encrypted. If
1446 unspecified, site ssl server and so on will be used.
1447 sslpath: If sslserver if defined, path to use when page is HTTPS-encrypted.
1452 Using the "XML-RPC Ping" method initiated by weblogs.com, the site can
1453 notify third-party servers of updates.
1455 notify: an array of URLs for ping endpoints. Default is the empty
1456 array (no notification).
1461 Default design (colors and background) for the site. Actual appearance
1462 depends on the theme. Null values mean to use the theme defaults.
1464 backgroundcolor: Hex color of the site background.
1465 contentcolor: Hex color of the content area background.
1466 sidebarcolor: Hex color of the sidebar background.
1467 textcolor: Hex color of all non-link text.
1468 linkcolor: Hex color of all links.
1469 backgroundimage: Image to use for the background.
1470 disposition: Flags for whether or not to tile the background image.
1475 Configuration options specific to notices.
1477 contentlimit: max length of the plain-text content of a notice.
1478 Default is null, meaning to use the site-wide text limit.
1484 Configuration options specific to messages.
1486 contentlimit: max length of the plain-text content of a message.
1487 Default is null, meaning to use the site-wide text limit.
1493 Configuration options for the login command.
1495 disabled: whether to enable this command. If enabled, users who send
1496 the text 'login' to the site through any channel will
1497 receive a link to login to the site automatically in return.
1498 Possibly useful for users who primarily use an XMPP or SMS
1499 interface and can't be bothered to remember their site
1500 password. Note that the security implications of this are
1501 pretty serious and have not been thoroughly tested. You
1502 should enable it only after you've convinced yourself that
1503 it is safe. Default is 'false'.
1508 If an installation has only one user, this can simplify a lot of the
1509 interface. It also makes the user's profile the root URL.
1511 enabled: Whether to run in "single user mode". Default false.
1512 nickname: nickname of the single user. If no nickname is specified,
1513 the site owner account will be used (if present).
1518 We put out a default robots.txt file to guide the processing of
1519 Web crawlers. See http://www.robotstxt.org/ for more information
1520 on the format of this file.
1522 crawldelay: if non-empty, this value is provided as the Crawl-Delay:
1523 for the robots.txt file. see http://ur1.ca/l5a0
1524 for more information. Default is zero, no explicit delay.
1525 disallow: Array of (virtual) directories to disallow. Default is 'main',
1526 'search', 'message', 'settings', 'admin'. Ignored when site
1527 is private, in which case the entire site ('/') is disallowed.
1532 Options for the Twitter-like API.
1534 realm: HTTP Basic Auth realm (see http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2617
1535 for details). Some third-party tools like ping.fm want this to be
1536 'Identi.ca API', so set it to that if you want to. default = null,
1537 meaning 'something based on the site name'.
1542 We optionally put 'rel="nofollow"' on some links in some pages. The
1543 following configuration settings let you fine-tune how or when things
1544 are nofollowed. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow for more
1545 information on what 'nofollow' means.
1547 subscribers: whether to nofollow links to subscribers on the profile
1548 and personal pages. Default is true.
1549 members: links to members on the group page. Default true.
1550 peopletag: links to people listed in the peopletag page. Default true.
1551 external: external links in notices. One of three values: 'sometimes',
1552 'always', 'never'. If 'sometimes', then external links are not
1553 nofollowed on profile, notice, and favorites page. Default is
1559 We use a router class for mapping URLs to code. This section controls
1560 how that router works.
1562 cache: whether to cache the router in memcache (or another caching
1563 mechanism). Defaults to true, but may be set to false for
1564 developers (who might be actively adding pages, so won't want the
1565 router cached) or others who see strange behavior. You're unlikely
1566 to need this unless you're a developer.
1571 Settings for the HTTP client.
1573 ssl_cafile: location of the CA file for SSL. If not set, won't verify
1574 SSL peers. Default unset.
1575 curl: Use cURL <http://curl.haxx.se/> for doing HTTP calls. You must
1576 have the PHP curl extension installed for this to work.
1577 proxy_host: Host to use for proxying HTTP requests. If unset, doesn't
1578 do any HTTP proxy stuff. Default unset.
1579 proxy_port: Port to use to connect to HTTP proxy host. Default null.
1580 proxy_user: Username to use for authenticating to the HTTP proxy. Default null.
1581 proxy_password: Password to use for authenticating to the HTTP proxy. Default null.
1582 proxy_auth_scheme: Scheme to use for authenticating to the HTTP proxy. Default null.
1587 default: associative array mapping plugin name to array of arguments. To disable
1588 a default plugin, unset its value in this array.
1589 locale_path: path for finding plugin locale files. In the plugin's directory
1591 server: Server to find static files for a plugin when the page is plain old HTTP.
1592 Defaults to site/server (same as pages). Use this to move plugin CSS and
1594 sslserver: Server to find static files for a plugin when the page is HTTPS. Defaults
1595 to site/server (same as pages). Use this to move plugin CSS and JS files
1597 path: Path to the plugin files. defaults to site/path + '/plugins/'. Expects that
1598 each plugin will have a subdirectory at plugins/NameOfPlugin. Change this
1599 if you're using a CDN.
1600 sslpath: Path to use on the SSL server. Same as plugins/path.
1605 Beginning with the 0.7.x branch, StatusNet has supported a simple but
1606 powerful plugin architecture. Important events in the code are named,
1607 like 'StartNoticeSave', and other software can register interest
1608 in those events. When the events happen, the other software is called
1609 and has a choice of accepting or rejecting the events.
1611 In the simplest case, you can add a function to config.php and use the
1612 Event::addHandler() function to hook an event:
1614 function AddGoogleLink($action)
1616 $action->menuItem('http://www.google.com/', _('Google'), _('Search engine'));
1620 Event::addHandler('EndPrimaryNav', 'AddGoogleLink');
1622 This adds a menu item to the end of the main navigation menu. You can
1623 see the list of existing events, and parameters that handlers must
1624 implement, in EVENTS.txt.
1626 The Plugin class in lib/plugin.php makes it easier to write more
1627 complex plugins. Sub-classes can just create methods named
1628 'onEventName', where 'EventName' is the name of the event (case
1629 matters!). These methods will be automatically registered as event
1630 handlers by the Plugin constructor (which you must call from your own
1631 class's constructor).
1633 Several example plugins are included in the plugins/ directory. You
1634 can enable a plugin with the following line in config.php:
1636 addPlugin('Example', array('param1' => 'value1',
1637 'param2' => 'value2'));
1639 This will look for and load files named 'ExamplePlugin.php' or
1640 'Example/ExamplePlugin.php' either in the plugins/ directory (for
1641 plugins that ship with StatusNet) or in the local/ directory (for
1642 plugins you write yourself or that you get from somewhere else) or
1645 Plugins are documented in their own directories.
1650 The primary output for StatusNet is syslog, unless you configured a
1651 separate logfile. This is probably the first place to look if you're
1652 getting weird behaviour from StatusNet.
1654 If you're tracking the unstable version of StatusNet in the git
1655 repository (see below), and you get a compilation error ("unexpected
1656 T_STRING") in the browser, check to see that you don't have any
1657 conflicts in your code.
1659 If you upgraded to StatusNet 0.9.x without reading the "Notice
1660 inboxes" section above, and all your users' 'Personal' tabs are empty,
1661 read the "Notice inboxes" section above.
1666 These are some myths you may see on the Web about StatusNet.
1667 Documentation from the core team about StatusNet has been pretty
1668 sparse, so some backtracking and guesswork resulted in some incorrect
1671 - "Set $config['db']['debug'] = 5 to debug the database." This is an
1672 extremely bad idea. It's a tool built into DB_DataObject that will
1673 emit oodles of print lines directly to the browser of your users.
1674 Among these lines will be your database username and password. Do
1675 not enable this option on a production Web site for any reason.
1677 - "Edit dataobject.ini with the following settings..." dataobject.ini
1678 is a development file for the DB_DataObject framework and is not
1679 used by the running software. It was removed from the StatusNet
1680 distribution because its presence was confusing. Do not bother
1681 configuring dataobject.ini, and do not put your database username
1682 and password into the file on a production Web server; unscrupulous
1683 persons may try to read it to get your passwords.
1688 If you're adventurous or impatient, you may want to install the
1689 development version of StatusNet. To get it, use the git version
1690 control tool <http://git-scm.com/> like so:
1692 git clone git@gitorious.org:statusnet/mainline.git
1694 This is the version of the software that runs on Identi.ca and the
1695 status.net hosted service. Using it is a mixed bag. On the positive
1696 side, it usually includes the latest security and bug fix patches. On
1697 the downside, it may also include changes that require admin
1698 intervention (like running a script or even raw SQL!) that may not be
1699 documented yet. It may be a good idea to test this version before
1700 installing it on your production machines.
1702 To keep it up-to-date, use 'git pull'. Watch for conflicts!
1707 There are several ways to get more information about StatusNet.
1709 * There is a mailing list for StatusNet developers and admins at
1710 http://mail.status.net/mailman/listinfo/statusnet-dev
1711 * The #statusnet IRC channel on freenode.net <http://www.freenode.net/>.
1712 * The StatusNet wiki, http://status.net/wiki/
1713 * The StatusNet blog, http://status.net/blog/
1714 * The StatusNet status update, <http://status.status.net/> (!)
1719 * Microblogging messages to http://support.status.net/ are very welcome.
1720 * The microblogging group http://identi.ca/group/statusnet is a good
1721 place to discuss the software.
1722 * StatusNet has a bug tracker for any defects you may find, or ideas for
1723 making things better. http://status.net/bugs
1728 The following is an incomplete list of developers who've worked on
1729 StatusNet. Apologies for any oversight; please let evan@status.net know
1730 if anyone's been overlooked in error.
1732 * Evan Prodromou, founder and lead developer, StatusNet, Inc.
1733 * Zach Copley, StatusNet, Inc.
1734 * Earle Martin, StatusNet, Inc.
1735 * Marie-Claude Doyon, designer, StatusNet, Inc.
1736 * Sarven Capadisli, StatusNet, Inc.
1737 * Robin Millette, StatusNet, Inc.
1748 * Tryggvi Björgvinsson
1752 * Ken Sheppardson (Trac server, man-about-town)
1753 * Tiago 'gouki' Faria (i18n manager)
1755 * Leslie Michael Orchard
1759 * Tobias Diekershoff
1770 * Siebrand Mazeland and the amazing volunteer translators at translatewiki.net
1771 * Brion Vibber, StatusNet, Inc.
1772 * James Walker, StatusNet, Inc.
1773 * Samantha Doherty, designer, StatusNet, Inc.
1775 Thanks also to the developers of our upstream library code and to the
1776 thousands of people who have tried out Identi.ca, installed StatusNet,
1777 told their friends, and built the Open Microblogging network to what