4 We've tried very hard to ensure that Friendica will run on commodity hosting platforms - such as those used to host Wordpress blogs and Drupal websites.
5 We offer a manual and an automatic installation.
6 But be aware that Friendica is more than a simple web application.
7 It is a complex communications system which more closely resembles an email server than a web server.
8 For reliability and performance, messages are delivered in the background and are queued for later delivery when sites are down.
9 This kind of functionality requires a bit more of the host system than the typical blog.
10 Not every PHP/MySQL hosting provider will be able to support Friendica.
12 But **please** review the requirements and confirm these with your hosting provider prior to installation.
14 Also if you encounter installation issues, please let us know via the [helper](http://forum.friendi.ca/profile/helpers) or the [developer](https://forum.friendi.ca/profile/developers) forum or [file an issue](https://github.com/friendica/friendica/issues).
15 Please be as clear as you can about your operating environment and provide as much detail as possible about any error messages you may see, so that we can prevent it from happening in the future.
16 Due to the large variety of operating systems and PHP platforms in existence we may have only limited ability to debug your PHP installation or acquire any missing modules - but we will do our best to solve any general code issues.
17 If you do not have a Friendica account yet, you can register a temporary one at [tryfriendica.de](https://tryfriendica.de) and join the forums mentioned above from there.
18 The account will expire after 7 days, but you can ask the server admin to keep your account longer, should the problem not be resolved after that.
20 Before you begin: Choose a domain name or subdomain name for your server.
21 Put some thought into this. Changing it after installation is currently not supported.
22 Things will break, and some of your friends may have difficulty communicating with you.
23 We plan to address this limitation in a future release.
29 * Apache with mod-rewrite enabled and "Options All" so you can use a local .htaccess file
30 * PHP 5.6.1+ (PHP 7 is recommended for performance)
31 * PHP *command line* access with register_argc_argv set to true in the php.ini file
32 * Curl, GD, PDO, MySQLi, hash, xml, zip and OpenSSL extensions
33 * The POSIX module of PHP needs to be activated (e.g. [RHEL, CentOS](http://www.bigsoft.co.uk/blog/index.php/2014/12/08/posix-php-commands-not-working-under-centos-7) have disabled it)
34 * some form of email server or email gateway such that PHP mail() works
35 * Mysql 5.5.3+ or an equivalant alternative for MySQL (MariaDB, Percona Server etc.)
36 * the ability to schedule jobs with cron (Linux/Mac) or Scheduled Tasks (Windows) (Note: other options are presented in Section 7 of this document.)
37 * Installation into a top-level domain or sub-domain (without a directory/path component in the URL) is preferred. Directory paths will not be as convenient to use and have not been thoroughly tested.
38 * If your hosting provider doesn't allow Unix shell access, you might have trouble getting everything to work.
40 Installation procedure
45 Unpack the Friendica files into the root of your web server document area.
46 If you are able to do so, we recommend using git to clone the source repository rather than to use a packaged tar or zip file.
47 This makes the software much easier to update.
48 The Linux commands to clone the repository into a directory "mywebsite" would be
50 git clone https://github.com/friendica/friendica.git -b master mywebsite
52 bin/composer.phar install
54 Make sure the folder *view/smarty3* exists and is writable by the webserver user, in this case `www-data`
57 chown www-data:www-data view/smarty3
58 chmod 775 view/smarty3
60 Get the addons by going into your website folder.
64 Clone the addon repository (separately):
66 git clone https://github.com/friendica/friendica-addons.git -b master addon
68 If you copy the directory tree to your webserver, make sure that you also copy .htaccess - as "dot" files are often hidden and aren't normally copied.
70 If you want to use the development version of Friendica you can switch to the devel branch in the repository by running
73 bin/composer.phar install
77 please be aware that the develop branch may break your Friendica node at any time.
78 If you encounter a bug, please let us know.
82 Create an empty database and note the access details (hostname, username, password, database name).
84 Friendica needs the permission to create and delete fields and tables in its own database.
86 With newer releases of MySQL (5.7.17 or newer), you might need to set the sql_mode to '' (blank).
87 Use this setting when the installer is unable to create all the needed tables due to a timestamp format problem.
88 In this case find the [mysqld] section in your my.cnf file and add the line :
92 Restart mysql and you should be fine.
94 ### Option A: Run the manual installer
96 Point your web browser to the new site and follow the instructions.
97 Please note any error messages and correct these before continuing.
99 If you need to specify a port for the connection to the database, you can do so in the host name setting for the database.
101 *If* the manual installation fails for any reason, check the following:
103 * Does "config/local.ini.php" exist? If not, edit config/local-sample.ini.php and change the system settings.
104 * Rename to `config/local.ini.php`.
105 * Is the database is populated? If not, import the contents of `database.sql` with phpmyadmin or the mysql command line.
107 At this point visit your website again, and register your personal account.
108 Registration errors should all be recoverable automatically.
109 If you get any *critical* failure at this point, it generally indicates the database was not installed correctly.
110 You might wish to move/rename `config/local.ini.php` to another name and empty (called 'dropping') the database tables, so that you can start fresh.
112 ### Option B: Run the automatic install script
114 You have the following options to automatically install Friendica:
115 - creating a prepared config file (f.e. `prepared.ini.php`)
116 - using environment variables (f.e. `MYSQL_HOST`)
117 - using options (f.e. `--dbhost <host>`)
119 You can combine environment variables and options, but be aware that options are prioritized over environment variables.
121 For more information during the installation, you can use this command line option
123 bin/console autoinstall -v
125 If you wish to include all optional checks, use `-a` like this statement:
127 bin/console autoinstall -a
129 *If* the automatic installation fails for any reason, check the following:
131 * Does `config/local.ini.php` already exist? If yes, the automatic installation won't start
132 * Are the options in the `config/local.ini.php` correct? If not, edit them directly.
133 * Is the empty MySQL-database created? If not, create it.
135 #### B.1: Config file
137 You can use a prepared config file like [local-sample.ini.php](config/local-sample.ini.php).
139 Navigate to the main Friendica directory and execute the following command:
141 bin/console autoinstall -f <prepared.ini.php>
143 #### B.2: Environment variables
145 There are two types of environment variables.
146 - those you can use in normal mode too (Currently just **database credentials**)
147 - those you can only use during installation (because Friendica will normally ignore it)
149 You can use the options during installation too and skip some of the environment variables.
151 **Database credentials**
153 if you don't use the option `--savedb` during installation, the DB credentials will **not** be saved in the `config/local.ini.php`.
155 - `MYSQL_HOST` The host of the mysql/mariadb database
156 - `MYSQL_PORT` The port of the mysql/mariadb database
157 - `MYSQL_USERNAME` The username of the mysql database login (used for mysql)
158 - `MYSQL_USER` The username of the mysql database login (used for mariadb)
159 - `MYSQL_PASSWORD` The password of the mysql/mariadb database login
160 - `MYSQL_DATABASE` The name of the mysql/mariadb database
162 **Friendica settings**
164 This variables wont be used at normal Friendica runtime.
165 Instead, they get saved into `config/local.ini.php`.
167 - `FRIENDICA_PHP_PATH` The path of the PHP binary
168 - `FRIENDICA_ADMIN_MAIL` The admin email address of Friendica (this email will be used for admin access)
169 - `FRIENDICA_TZ` The timezone of Friendica
170 - `FRIENDICA_LANG` The langauge of Friendica
172 Navigate to the main Friendica directory and execute the following command:
174 bin/console autoinstall [--savedb]
176 #### B.3: Execution options
178 All options will be saved in the `config/local.ini.php` and are overruling the associated environment variables.
180 - `-H|--dbhost <host>` The host of the mysql/mariadb database (env `MYSQL_HOST`)
181 - `-p|--dbport <port>` The port of the mysql/mariadb database (env `MYSQL_PORT`)
182 - `-U|--dbuser <username>` The username of the mysql/mariadb database login (env `MYSQL_USER` or `MYSQL_USERNAME`)
183 - `-P|--dbpass <password>` The password of the mysql/mariadb database login (env `MYSQL_PASSWORD`)
184 - `-d|--dbdata <database>` The name of the mysql/mariadb database (env `MYSQL_DATABASE`)
185 - `-b|--phppath <path>` The path of the PHP binary (env `FRIENDICA_PHP_PATH`)
186 - `-A|--admin <mail>` The admin email address of Friendica (env `FRIENDICA_ADMIN_MAIL`)
187 - `-T|--tz <timezone>` The timezone of Friendica (env `FRIENDICA_TZ`)
188 - `-L|--land <language>` The language of Friendica (env `FRIENDICA_LANG`)
190 Navigate to the main Friendica directory and execute the following command:
192 bin/console autoinstall [options]
194 ### Prepare .htaccess file
196 Copy .htaccess-dist to .htaccess (be careful under Windows) to have working mod-rewrite again. If you have installed Friendica into a sub directory, like /friendica/ set this path in RewriteBase accordingly.
200 cp .htacces-dist .htaccess
202 *Note*: Do **not** rename the .htaccess-dist file as it is tracked by GIT and renaming will cause a dirty working directory.
204 ### Verify the "host-meta" page is working
206 Friendica should respond automatically to important addresses under the /.well-known/ rewrite path.
207 One critical URL would look like, for example, https://example.com/.well-known/host-meta
208 It must be visible to the public and must respond with an XML file that is automatically customized to your site.
210 If that URL is not working, it is possible that some other software is using the /.well-known/ path.
211 Other symptoms may include an error message in the Admin settings that says "host-meta is not reachable on your system.
212 This is a severe configuration issue that prevents server to server communication."
213 Another common error related to host-meta is the "Invalid profile URL."
215 Check for a .well-known directory that did not come with Friendica.
216 The preferred configuration is to remove the directory, however this is not always possible.
217 If there is any /.well-known/.htaccess file, it could interfere with this Friendica core requirement.
218 You should remove any RewriteRules from that file, or remove that whole file if appropriate.
219 It may be necessary to chmod the /.well-known/.htaccess file if you were not given write permissions by default.
221 ### Set up the worker
223 Set up a cron job or scheduled task to run the worker once every 5-10 minutes in order to perform background processing.
226 cd /base/directory; /path/to/php bin/worker.php
228 Change "/base/directory", and "/path/to/php" as appropriate for your situation.
230 If you are using a Linux server, run "crontab -e" and add a line like the
231 one shown, substituting for your unique paths and settings:
233 */10 * * * * cd /home/myname/mywebsite; /usr/bin/php bin/worker.php
235 You can generally find the location of PHP by executing "which php".
236 If you run into trouble with this section please contact your hosting provider for assistance.
237 Friendica will not work correctly if you cannot perform this step.
239 If it is not possible to set up a cron job then please activate the "frontend worker" in the administration interface.
241 Once you have installed Friendica and created an admin account as part of the process, you can access the admin panel of your installation and do most of the server wide configuration from there
243 ### Set up a backup plan
245 Bad things will happen.
246 Let there be a hardware failure, a corrupted database or whatever you can think of.
247 So once the installation of your Friendica node is done, you should make yourself a backup plan.
249 The most important file is the `config/local.ini.php` file.
250 As it stores all your data, you should also have a recent dump of your Friendica database at hand, should you have to recover your node.