Prerequisites

=============

The following software packages are *required* for this software to

run correctly.

- PHP 5.2.3+. It may be possible to run this software on earlier

  versions of PHP, but many of the functions used are only available

  in PHP 5.2 or above. 5.2.6 or later is needed for XMPP background

  daemons on 64-bit platforms. PHP 5.3.x should work correctly in this

  release, but problems with some plugins are possible.

- MySQL 5.x. The StatusNet database is stored, by default, in a MySQL

  server. It has been primarily tested on 5.x servers, although it may

  be possible to install on earlier (or later!) versions. The server

  *must* support the MyISAM storage engine -- the default for most

  MySQL servers -- *and* the InnoDB storage engine.

- A Web server. Preferably, you should have Apache 2.2.x with the

  mod_rewrite extension installed and enabled.

Your PHP installation must include the following PHP extensions:

- Curl. This is for fetching files by HTTP.

- XMLWriter. This is for formatting XML and HTML output.

- MySQL. For accessing the database.

- GD. For scaling down avatar images.

- mbstring. For handling Unicode (UTF-8) encoded strings.

For some functionality, you will also need the following extensions:

- Memcache. A client for the memcached server, which caches database

  information in volatile memory. This is important for adequate

  performance on high-traffic sites. You will also need a memcached

  server to store the data in.

- Mailparse. Efficient parsing of email requires this extension.

  Submission by email or SMS-over-email uses this extension.

- Sphinx Search. A client for the sphinx server, an alternative

  to MySQL or Postgresql fulltext search. You will also need a

  Sphinx server to serve the search queries.

- bcmath or gmp. For Salmon signatures (part of OStatus). Needed

  if you have OStatus configured.

- gettext. For multiple languages. Default on many PHP installs;

  will be emulated if not present.

You will almost definitely get 2-3 times better performance from your

site if you install a PHP bytecode cache/accelerator. Some well-known

examples are: eaccelerator, Turck mmcache, xcache, apc. Zend Optimizer

is a proprietary accelerator installed on some hosting sites.

External libraries

------------------

A number of external PHP libraries are used to provide basic

functionality and optional functionality for your system. For your

convenience, they are available in the "extlib" directory of this

package, and you do not have to download and install them. However,

you may want to keep them up-to-date with the latest upstream version,

and the URLs are listed here for your convenience.

- DB_DataObject http://pear.php.net/package/DB_DataObject

- Validate http://pear.php.net/package/Validate

- OpenID from OpenIDEnabled (not the PEAR version!). We decided

  to use the openidenabled.com version since it's more widely

  implemented, and seems to be better supported.

  http://openidenabled.com/php-openid/

- PEAR DB. Although this is an older data access system (new

  packages should probably use PHP DBO), the OpenID libraries

  depend on PEAR DB so we use it here, too. DB_DataObject can

  also use PEAR MDB2, which may give you better performance

  but won't work with OpenID.

  http://pear.php.net/package/DB

- OAuth.php from http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/php/

- markdown.php from http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/

- PEAR Mail, for sending out mail notifications

  http://pear.php.net/package/Mail

- PEAR Net_SMTP, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications

  http://pear.php.net/package/Net_SMTP

- PEAR Net_Socket, if you use the SMTP factory for notifications

  http://pear.php.net/package/Net_Socket

- XMPPHP, the follow-up to Class.Jabber.php. Probably the best XMPP

  library available for PHP. http://xmpphp.googlecode.com/. Note that

  as of this writing the version of this library that is available in

  the extlib directory is *significantly different* from the upstream

  version (patches have been submitted). Upgrading to the upstream

  version may render your StatusNet site unable to send or receive XMPP

  messages.

- Facebook library. Used for the Facebook application.

- PEAR Validate is used for URL and email validation.

- Console_GetOpt for parsing command-line options.

  predecessor to OStatus.

- HTTP_Request2, a library for making HTTP requests.

- PEAR Net_URL2 is an HTTP_Request2 dependency.

A design goal of StatusNet is that the basic Web functionality should

work on even the most restrictive commercial hosting services.

However, additional functionality, such as receiving messages by

Jabber/GTalk, require that you be able to run long-running processes

on your account. In addition, posting by email or from SMS require

that you be able to install a mail filter in your mail server.

Installation

============

Installing the basic StatusNet Web component is relatively easy,

especially if you've previously installed PHP/MySQL packages.

1. Unpack the tarball you downloaded on your Web server. Usually a

   command like this will work:

       tar zxf statusnet-1.1.0-alpha1.tar.gz

   ...which will make a statusnet-1.1.0-alpha1 subdirectory in your current

   directory. (If you don't have shell access on your Web server, you

   may have to unpack the tarball on your local computer and FTP the

   files to the server.)

2. Move the tarball to a directory of your choosing in your Web root

   directory. Usually something like this will work:

       mv statusnet-1.1.0-alpha1 /var/www/statusnet

   This will make your StatusNet instance available in the statusnet path of

   your server, like "http://example.net/statusnet". "microblog" or

   "statusnet" might also be good path names. If you know how to

   configure virtual hosts on your web server, you can try setting up

   "http://micro.example.net/" or the like.

3. Make your target directory writeable by the Web server.

       chmod a+w /var/www/statusnet/

   On some systems, this will probably work:

       chgrp www-data /var/www/statusnet/

       chmod g+w /var/www/statusnet/

   If your Web server runs as another user besides "www-data", try

   that user's default group instead. As a last resort, you can create

   a new group like "statusnet" and add the Web server's user to the group.

4. You should also take this moment to make your avatar, background, and

   file subdirectories writeable by the Web server. An insecure way to do

   this is:

       chmod a+w /var/www/statusnet/avatar

       chmod a+w /var/www/statusnet/background

       chmod a+w /var/www/statusnet/file

   You can also make the avatar, background, and file directories

   writeable by the Web server group, as noted above.

5. Create a database to hold your microblog data. Something like this

   should work:

       mysqladmin -u "username" --password="password" create statusnet

   Note that StatusNet must have its own database; you can't share the

   database with another program. You can name it whatever you want,

   though.

   (If you don't have shell access to your server, you may need to use

   a tool like PHPAdmin to create a database. Check your hosting

   service's documentation for how to create a new MySQL database.)

6. Create a new database account that StatusNet will use to access the

   database. If you have shell access, this will probably work from the

   MySQL shell:

       GRANT ALL on statusnet.*

       TO 'statusnetuser'@'localhost'

       IDENTIFIED BY 'statusnetpassword';

   You should change 'statusnetuser' and 'statusnetpassword' to your preferred new

   username and password. You may want to test logging in to MySQL as

   this new user.

7. In a browser, navigate to the StatusNet install script; something like:

       http://yourserver.example.com/statusnet/install.php

   Enter the database connection information and your site name. The

   install program will configure your site and install the initial,

   almost-empty database.

8. You should now be able to navigate to your microblog's main directory

   and see the "Public Timeline", which will be empty. If not, magic

   has happened! You can now register a new user, post some notices,

   edit your profile, etc. However, you may want to wait to do that stuff

   if you think you can set up "fancy URLs" (see below), since some

   URLs are stored in the database.

Fancy URLs

----------

By default, StatusNet will use URLs that include the main PHP program's

name in them. For example, a user's home profile might be

found at:

    http://example.org/statusnet/index.php/statusnet/fred

On certain systems that don't support this kind of syntax, they'll

look like this:

    http://example.org/statusnet/index.php?p=statusnet/fred

It's possible to configure the software so it looks like this instead:

    http://example.org/statusnet/fred

These "fancy URLs" are more readable and memorable for users. To use

fancy URLs, you must either have Apache 2.x with .htaccess enabled and

mod_rewrite enabled, -OR- know how to configure "url redirection" in

your server.

1. Copy the htaccess.sample file to .htaccess in your StatusNet

   directory. Note: if you have control of your server's httpd.conf or

   similar configuration files, it can greatly improve performance to

   import the .htaccess file into your conf file instead. If you're

   not sure how to do it, you may save yourself a lot of headache by

   just leaving the .htaccess file.

2. Change the "RewriteBase" in the new .htaccess file to be the URL path

   to your StatusNet installation on your server. Typically this will

   be the path to your StatusNet directory relative to your Web root.

3. Add or uncomment or change a line in your config.php file so it says:

       $config['site']['fancy'] = true;

You should now be able to navigate to a "fancy" URL on your server,

like:

    http://example.net/statusnet/main/register

If you changed your HTTP server configuration, you may need to restart

the server first.

If it doesn't work, double-check that AllowOverride for the StatusNet

directory is 'All' in your Apache configuration file. This is usually

/etc/httpd.conf, /etc/apache/httpd.conf, or (on Debian and Ubuntu)

/etc/apache2/sites-available/default. See the Apache documentation for

.htaccess files for more details:

    http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/htaccess.html

Also, check that mod_rewrite is installed and enabled:

    http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_rewrite.html

Sphinx

------

To use a Sphinx server to search users and notices, you'll need to

enable the SphinxSearch plugin. Add to your config.php:

    addPlugin('SphinxSearch');

    $config['sphinx']['server'] = 'searchhost.local';

You also need to install, compile and enable the sphinx pecl extension for

php on the client side, which itself depends on the sphinx development files.

See plugins/SphinxSearch/README for more details and server setup.

SMS

---

StatusNet supports a cheap-and-dirty system for sending update messages

to mobile phones and for receiving updates from the mobile. Instead of

sending through the SMS network itself, which is costly and requires

buy-in from the wireless carriers, it simply piggybacks on the email

gateways that many carriers provide to their customers. So, SMS

configuration is essentially email configuration.

Each user sends to a made-up email address, which they keep a secret.

Incoming email that is "From" the user's SMS email address, and "To"

the users' secret email address on the site's domain, will be

converted to a notice and stored in the DB.

For this to work, there *must* be a domain or sub-domain for which all

(or most) incoming email can pass through the incoming mail filter.

1. Run the SQL script carrier.sql in your StatusNet database. This will

   usually work:

       mysql -u "statusnetuser" --password="statusnetpassword" statusnet < db/carrier.sql

   This will populate your database with a list of wireless carriers

   that support email SMS gateways.

2. Make sure the maildaemon.php file is executable:

       chmod +x scripts/maildaemon.php

   Note that "daemon" is kind of a misnomer here; the script is more

   of a filter than a daemon.

2. Edit /etc/aliases on your mail server and add the following line:

       *: /path/to/statusnet/scripts/maildaemon.php

3. Run whatever code you need to to update your aliases database. For

   many mail servers (Postfix, Exim, Sendmail), this should work:

       newaliases

   You may need to restart your mail server for the new database to

   take effect.

4. Set the following in your config.php file:

       $config['mail']['domain'] = 'yourdomain.example.net';

At this point, post-by-email and post-by-SMS-gateway should work. Note

that if your mail server is on a different computer from your email

server, you'll need to have a full installation of StatusNet, a working

config.php, and access to the StatusNet database from the mail server.

XMPP

----

XMPP (eXtended Message and Presence Protocol, <http://xmpp.org/>) is the

instant-messenger protocol that drives Jabber and GTalk IM. You can

distribute messages via XMPP using the system below; however, you

need to run the XMPP incoming daemon to allow incoming messages as

well.

1. You may want to strongly consider setting up your own XMPP server.

   Ejabberd, OpenFire, and JabberD are all Open Source servers.

   Jabber, Inc. provides a high-performance commercial server.

2. You must register a Jabber ID (JID) with your new server. It helps

   to choose a name like "update@example.com" or "notice" or something

   similar.  Alternately, your "update JID" can be registered on a

   publicly-available XMPP service, like jabber.org or GTalk.

   StatusNet will not register the JID with your chosen XMPP server;

   you need to do this manually, with an XMPP client like Gajim,

   Telepathy, or Pidgin.im.

3. Configure your site's XMPP variables, as described below in the

   configuration section.

On a default installation, your site can broadcast messages using

XMPP. Users won't be able to post messages using XMPP unless you've

got the XMPP daemon running.  See 'Queues and daemons' below for how

to set that up. Also, once you have a sizable number of users, sending

a lot of SMS, OStatus, and XMPP messages whenever someone posts a message

can really slow down your site; it may cause posting to timeout.

NOTE: stream_select(), a crucial function for network programming, is

broken on PHP 5.2.x less than 5.2.6 on amd64-based servers. We don't

work around this bug in StatusNet; current recommendation is to move

off of amd64 to another server.

Public feed

-----------

You can send *all* messages from your social networking site to a

third-party service using XMPP. This can be useful for providing

search, indexing, bridging, or other cool services.

To configure a downstream site to receive your public stream, add

their "JID" (Jabber ID) to your config.php as follows:

    $config['xmpp']['public'][] = 'downstream@example.net';

(Don't miss those square brackets at the end.) Note that your XMPP

broadcasting must be configured as mentioned above. Although you can

send out messages at "Web time", high-volume sites should strongly

consider setting up queues and daemons.

Queues and daemons

------------------

Some activities that StatusNet needs to do, like broadcast OStatus, SMS,

and XMPP messages, can be 'queued' and done by off-line bots instead.

For this to work, you must be able to run long-running offline

processes, either on your main Web server or on another server you

control. (Your other server will still need all the above

prerequisites, with the exception of Apache.) Installing on a separate

server is probably a good idea for high-volume sites.

1. You'll need the "CLI" (command-line interface) version of PHP

   installed on whatever server you use.

2. If you're using a separate server for queues, install StatusNet

   somewhere on the server. You don't need to worry about the

   .htaccess file, but make sure that your config.php file is close

   to, or identical to, your Web server's version.

3. In your config.php files (both the Web server and the queues

   server!), set the following variable:

       $config['queue']['enabled'] = true;

   You may also want to look at the 'daemon' section of this file for

   more daemon options. Note that if you set the 'user' and/or 'group'

   options, you'll need to create that user and/or group by hand.

   They're not created automatically.

4. On the queues server, run the command scripts/startdaemons.sh.

This will run the queue handlers:

* queuedaemon.php - polls for queued items for inbox processing and

  pushing out to OStatus, SMS, XMPP, etc.

* xmppdaemon.php - listens for new XMPP messages from users and stores

  them as notices in the database; also pulls queued XMPP output from

  queuedaemon.php to push out to clients.

These two daemons will automatically restart in most cases of failure

including memory leaks (if a memory_limit is set), but may still die

or behave oddly if they lose connections to the XMPP or queue servers.

Additional daemons may be also started by this script for certain

plugins, such as the Twitter bridge.

It may be a good idea to use a daemon-monitoring service, like 'monit',

to check their status and keep them running.

All the daemons write their process IDs (pids) to /var/run/ by

default. This can be useful for starting, stopping, and monitoring the

daemons.

Since version 0.8.0, it's now possible to use a STOMP server instead of

our kind of hacky home-grown DB-based queue solution. This is strongly

recommended for best response time, especially when using XMPP.

See the "queues" config section below for how to configure to use STOMP.

As of this writing, the software has been tested with ActiveMQ 5.3.

Themes

------

Older themes (version 0.9.x and below) no longer work with StatusNet

1.0.x, due to major changes in the site layout. We ship with three new

themes for this version, 'neo', 'neo-blue' and 'neo-light'.

As of right now, your ability to change the theme is site-wide; users

can't choose their own theme. Additionally, the only thing you can

change in the theme is CSS stylesheets and some image files; you can't

change the HTML output, like adding or removing menu items.

You can choose a theme using the $config['site']['theme'] element in

the config.php file. See below for details.

You can add your own theme by making a sub-directory of the 'theme'

subdirectory with the name of your theme. Each theme can have the

following files:

display.css: a CSS2 file for "default" styling for all browsers.

ie6.css: a CSS2 file for override styling for fixing up Internet

    Explorer 6.

ie7.css: a CSS2 file for override styling for fixing up Internet

    Explorer 7.

logo.png: a logo image for the site.

default-avatar-profile.png: a 96x96 pixel image to use as the avatar for

    users who don't upload their own.

default-avatar-stream.png: Ditto, but 48x48. For streams of notices.

default-avatar-mini.png: Ditto ditto, but 24x24. For subscriptions

    listing on profile pages.

You may want to start by copying the files from the default theme to

your own directory.

Translation

-----------

Translations in StatusNet use the gettext system <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/>.

Theoretically, you can add your own sub-directory to the locale/

subdirectory to add a new language to your system. You'll need to

compile the ".po" files into ".mo" files, however.

Contributions of translation information to StatusNet are very easy:

you can use the Web interface at translatewiki.net to add one

or a few or lots of new translations -- or even new languages. You can

also download more up-to-date .po files there, if you so desire.

For info on helping with translations, see http://status.net/wiki/Translations

Backups

-------

There is no built-in system for doing backups in StatusNet. You can make

backups of a working StatusNet system by backing up the database and

the Web directory. To backup the database use mysqldump <http://ur1.ca/7xo>

and to backup the Web directory, try tar.

Private

-------

The administrator can set the "private" flag for a site so that it's

not visible to non-logged-in users. (This is the default for new installs of version 1.0!)

This might be useful for workgroups who want to share a social

networking site for project management, but host it on a public

server.

Total privacy is attempted but not guaranteed or ensured. Private sites

currently don't work well with OStatus federation.

Access to file attachments can also be restricted to logged-in users only.

1. Add a directory outside the web root where your file uploads will be

   stored. Usually a command like this will work:

       mkdir /var/www/statusnet-files

2. Make the file uploads directory writeable by the web server. An

   insecure way to do this is:

       chmod a+x /var/www/statusnet-files

3. Tell StatusNet to use this directory for file uploads. Add a line

   like this to your config.php:

       $config['attachments']['dir'] = '/var/www/statusnet-files';