-Friendika Installation
+Friendica Installation
-We've tried very hard to ensure that Friendika will run on commodity hosting
+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.
-But be aware that Friendika is more than a simple web application. It is a
+But be aware that Friendica is more than a simple web application. It is a
complex communications system which more closely resembles an email server
than a web server. For reliability and performance, messages are delivered in
the background and are queued for later delivery when sites are down. This
kind of functionality requires a bit more of the host system than the typical
-blog. Not every PHP/MySQL hosting provider will be able to support Friendika.
+blog. Not every PHP/MySQL hosting provider will be able to support Friendica.
Many will. But please review the requirements and confirm these with your
hosting provider prior to installation.
Before you begin: Choose a domain name or subdomain name for your server.
Put some thought into this - because changing it is currently not-supported.
Things will break, and some of your friends may have difficulty communicating
-with you. We plan to address this limitation in a future release.
+with you. We plan to address this limitation in a future release. Also decide
+if you wish to connect with members of the Diaspora network, as this will
+impact the installation requirements.
+
+Decide if you will use SSL and obtain an SSL cert. Communications with the
+Diaspora network MAY require both SSL AND an SSL cert signed by a CA which is
+recognised by the major browsers. Friendica will work with self-signed certs
+but Diaspora communication may not. For best results, install your cert PRIOR
+to installing Friendica and when visiting your site for the initial
+installation in step 5, please use the https: link. (Use the http: or non-SSL
+link if your cert is self-signed).
1. Requirements
- Apache with mod-rewrite enabled and "Options All" so you can use a
local .htaccess file
- - PHP 5.2+. The later the better. You'll need 5.3 for encryption of key
-exchange conversations
+ - PHP 5.2+. The later the better. PHP 5.3 is required for communications
+with the Diaspora network and improved security.
+
- PHP *command line* access with register_argc_argv set to true in the
-php.ini file
- - curl, gd, mysql, mbstring, and openssl extensions
+php.ini file [or see 'poormancron' in section 8]
+
+ - curl, gd (with at least jpeg support), mysql, mbstring, mcrypt, and openssl extensions
+
- some form of email server or email gateway such that PHP mail() works
- - mcrypt (optional; used for end-to-end message encryption)
- Mysql 5.x
(Windows) [Note: other options are presented in Section 8 of this document]
- 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.
+directory/path component in the URL) is preferred. This is REQUIRED if
+you wish to communicate with the Diaspora network.
+
- [Dreamhost.com offers all of the necessary hosting features at a
-reasonable price. If your hosting provider doesn't allow Unix shell access,
-you might have trouble getting everything to work.]
+ - For alternative server configurations (such as Nginx server and MariaDB
+ database engine), refer to the wiki at https://github.com/friendica/friendica/wiki
-2. Unpack the Friendika files into the root of your web server document area.
+2. Unpack the Friendica files into the root of your web server document area.
- If you copy the directory tree to your webserver, make sure
that you also copy .htaccess - as "dot" files are often hidden
3. Create an empty database and note the access details (hostname, username,
password, database name).
+ - Friendica needs the permission to create and delete fields and tables in its own database.
+
4. If you know in advance that it will be impossible for the web server to
write or create files in your web directory, create an empty file called
.htconfig.php and make it writable by the web server.
5. Visit your website with a web browser and follow the instructions. Please
-note any error messages and correct these before continuing.
+note any error messages and correct these before continuing. If you are using
+SSL with a known signature authority (recommended), use the https: link to your
+website. If you are using a self-signed cert or no cert, use the http: link.
6. *If* the automated installation fails for any reason, check the following:
You can generally find the location of PHP by executing "which php". If you
have troubles with this section please contact your hosting provider for
-assistance. Friendika will not work correctly if you cannot perform this step.
+assistance. Friendica will not work correctly if you cannot perform this step.
+
+You should also be sure that $a->config['php_path'] is set correctly, it should
+look like (changing it to the correct PHP location)
+
+$a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/local/php53/bin/php'
Alternative: You may be able to use the 'poormancron' plugin to perform this
-step if you are using a recent Friendika release. To do this, edit the file
+step if you are using a recent Friendica release. 'poormancron' may result in
+perfomance and memory issues and is only suitable for small sites with one or
+two users and a handful of contacts. To do this, edit the file
".htconfig.php" and look for a line describing your plugins. On a fresh
installation, it will look like
and save your changes.
+
+
+#####################################################################
+
+ If things don't work...
+
+#####################################################################
+
+
+#####################################################################
+- If you get the message
+ "System is currently unavailable. Please try again later"
+#####################################################################
+
+ Check your database settings. It usually means your database could not
+be opened or accessed. If the database resides on the same machine, check that
+the database server name is "localhost".
+
+#####################################################################
+- 500 Internal Error
+#####################################################################
+
+ This could be the result of one of our Apache directives not being
+supported by your version of Apache. Examine your apache server logs.
+ You might remove the line "Options -Indexes" from the .htaccess file if
+you are using a Windows server as this has been known to cause problems.
+Also check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must generally
+be world-readable.
+
+ It is likely that your web server reported the source of the problem in
+its error log files. Please review these system error logs to determine what
+caused the problem. Often this will need to be resolved with your hosting
+provider or (if self-hosted) your web server configuration.
+
+#####################################################################
+- 400 and 4xx "File not found" errors
+#####################################################################
+
+ First check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must
+generally be world-readable.
+
+ Ensure that mod-rewite is installed and working, and that your
+.htaccess file is being used. To verify the latter, create a file test.out
+containing the word "test" in the top directory of Friendica, make it world
+readable and point your web browser to
+
+http://yoursitenamehere.com/test.out
+
+ This file should be blocked. You should get a permission denied message.
+
+ If you see the word "test" your Apache configuration is not allowing
+your .htaccess file to be used (there are rules in this file to block access
+to any file with .out at the end, as these are typically used for system logs).
+
+ Make certain the .htaccess file exists and is readable by everybody, then
+look for the existence of "AllowOverride None" in the Apache server
+configuration for your site. This will need to be changed to
+"AllowOverride All".
+
+ If you do not see the word "test", your .htaccess is working, but it is
+likely that mod-rewrite is not installed in your web server or is not working.
+
+ On most flavour of Linux,
+
+% a2enmod rewrite
+% /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
+
+ Consult your hosting provider, experts on your particular Linux
+distribution or (if Windows) the provider of your Apache server software if
+you need to change either of these and can not figure out how. There is
+a lot of help available on the web. Google "mod-rewrite" along with the
+name of your operating system distribution or Apache package (if using
+Windows).
+
+
+#####################################################################
+- If you are unable to write the file .htconfig.php during installation
+due to permissions issues:
+#####################################################################
+
+ create an empty file with that name and give it world-write permission.
+For Linux:
+
+% touch .htconfig.php
+% chmod 777 .htconfig.php
+
+Retry the installation. As soon as the database has been created,
+
+******* this is important *********
+
+% chmod 755 .htconfig.php
+
+#####################################################################
+- Some configurations with "suhosin" security are configured without
+an ability to run external processes. Friendica requires this ability.
+Following are some notes provided by one of our members.
+#####################################################################
+
+On my server I use the php protection system Suhosin
+[http://www.hardened-php.net/suhosin/]. One of the things it does is to block
+certain functions like proc_open, as configured in /etc/php5/conf.d/suhosin.ini:
+
+ suhosin.executor.func.blacklist = proc_open, ...
+
+For those sites like Friendica that really need these functions they can be
+enabled, e.g. in /etc/apache2/sites-available/friendica:
+
+ <Directory /var/www/friendica/>
+ php_admin_value suhosin.executor.func.blacklist none
+ php_admin_value suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist none
+ </Directory>
+
+This enables every function for Friendica if accessed via browser, but not for
+the cronjob that is called via php command line. I attempted to enable it for
+cron by using something like
+
+ */10 * * * * cd /var/www/friendica/friendica/ && sudo -u www-data /usr/bin/php
+-d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none -d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none
+-f include/poller.php
+
+This worked well for simple test cases, but the friendica-cron still failed with
+a fatal error:
+suhosin[22962]: ALERT - function within blacklist called: proc_open() (attacker
+'REMOTE_ADDR not set', file '/var/www/friendica/friendica/boot.php', line 1341)
+
+After a while I noticed, that include/poller.php calls further php script via
+proc_open. These scripts themselves also use proc_open and fail, because they
+are NOT called with -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none.
+
+So the simple solution is to put the correct parameters into .htconfig.php:
+ // Location of PHP command line processor
+ $a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/bin/php -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none
+-d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none';
+
+
+This is obvious as soon as you notice that the friendica-cron uses proc_open to
+execute php-scripts that also use proc_open, but it took me quite some time to
+find that out. I hope this saves some time for other people using suhosin with
+function blacklists.
projects / friendica.git / blobdiff