-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.
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. Friendika will work with self-signed certs
+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 Friendika and when visiting your site for the initial
+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).
directory/path component in the URL) is preferred. This is REQUIRED if
you wish to communicate with the Diaspora network.
-2. Unpack the Friendika files into the root of your web server document area.
+
+ - 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 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
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. 'poormancron' may result in
+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
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 Friendika, make it world
+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
% 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