Friendica Communications Platform
(please note that this is a clone of the repository at github, issues are handled there)
https://friendi.ca
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328 lines
14 KiB
328 lines
14 KiB
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Friendica Installation
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We've tried very hard to ensure that Friendica will run on commodity hosting
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platforms - such as those used to host Wordpress blogs and Drupal websites.
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But be aware that Friendica is more than a simple web application. It is a
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complex communications system which more closely resembles an email server
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than a web server. For reliability and performance, messages are delivered in
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the background and are queued for later delivery when sites are down. This
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kind of functionality requires a bit more of the host system than the typical
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blog. Not every PHP/MySQL hosting provider will be able to support Friendica.
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Many will. But please review the requirements and confirm these with your
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hosting provider prior to installation.
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Before you begin: Choose a domain name or subdomain name for your server.
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Put some thought into this - because changing it is currently not-supported.
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Things will break, and some of your friends may have difficulty communicating
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with you. We plan to address this limitation in a future release. Also decide
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if you wish to connect with members of the Diaspora network, as this will
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impact the installation requirements.
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Decide if you will use SSL and obtain an SSL cert. Communications with the
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Diaspora network MAY require both SSL AND an SSL cert signed by a CA which is
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recognised by the major browsers. Friendica will work with self-signed certs
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but Diaspora communication may not. For best results, install your cert PRIOR
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to installing Friendica and when visiting your site for the initial
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installation in step 5, please use the https: link. (Use the http: or non-SSL
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link if your cert is self-signed).
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1. Requirements
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- Apache with mod-rewrite enabled and "Options All" so you can use a
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local .htaccess file
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- PHP 5.6+ (PHP 7 recommended for performance).
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- PHP *command line* access with register_argc_argv set to true in the
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php.ini file [or see 'poormancron' in section 8]
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- curl, gd (with at least jpeg support), mysql, mbstring, xml, zip and openssl extensions
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- some form of email server or email gateway such that PHP mail() works
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- The POSIX module of PHP needs to be activated (e.g. RHEL, CentOS have disabled it)
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- Mysql 5.5.3+ or an equivalant alternative for MySQL (MariaDB, Percona Server etc.)
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- ability to schedule jobs with cron (Linux/Mac) or Scheduled Tasks
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(Windows) [Note: other options are presented in Section 8 of this document]
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- Installation into a top-level domain or sub-domain (without a
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directory/path component in the URL) is preferred. This is REQUIRED if
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you wish to communicate with the Diaspora network.
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- For alternative server configurations (such as Nginx server and MariaDB
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database engine), refer to the wiki at https://github.com/friendica/friendica/wiki
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2. Unpack the Friendica files into the root of your web server document area.
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- If you copy the directory tree to your webserver, make sure
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that you also copy .htaccess - as "dot" files are often hidden
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and aren't normally copied.
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OR
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2b. Clone the friendica/friendica GitHub repository and import dependencies
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git clone https://github.com/friendica/friendica [web server folder]
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cd [web server folder]
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php bin/composer.phar install
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3. Create an empty database and note the access details (hostname, username,
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password, database name).
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- Friendica needs the permission to create and delete fields and tables in its own database.
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- Please check the additional notes if running on MySQ 5.7.17 or newer
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4. If you know in advance that it will be impossible for the web server to
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write or create files in your web directory, create an empty file called
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.htconfig.php and make it writable by the web server.
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5. Visit your website with a web browser and follow the instructions. Please
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note any error messages and correct these before continuing.
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If you are using SSL with a known signature authority (recommended), use the
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https: link to your website. If you are using a self-signed cert or no cert,
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use the http: link.
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If you need to specify a port for the connection to the database, you can do
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so in the host name setting for the database.
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6. *If* the automated installation fails for any reason, check the following:
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- ".htconfig.php" exists
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If not, edit htconfig.php and change system settings. Rename
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to .htconfig.php
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- Database is populated.
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If not, import the contents of "database.sql" with phpmyadmin
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or mysql command line
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7. At this point visit your website again, and register your personal account.
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Registration errors should all be recoverable automatically.
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If you get any *critical* failure at this point, it generally indicates the
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database was not installed correctly. You might wish to move/rename
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.htconfig.php to another name and empty (called 'dropping') the database
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tables, so that you can start fresh.
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****************************************************************************
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****************************************************************************
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******** THIS NEXT STEP IS IMPORTANT!!!! ***********
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****************************************************************************
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****************************************************************************
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8. Set up a cron job or scheduled task to run the worker once every 5-10
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minutes to pick up the recent "public" postings of your friends. Example:
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cd /base/directory; /path/to/php bin/worker.php
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Change "/base/directory", and "/path/to/php" as appropriate for your situation.
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If you are using a Linux server, run "crontab -e" and add a line like the
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one shown, substituting for your unique paths and settings:
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*/10 * * * * cd /home/myname/mywebsite; /usr/bin/php bin/worker.php
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You can generally find the location of PHP by executing "which php". If you
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have troubles with this section please contact your hosting provider for
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assistance. Friendica will not work correctly if you cannot perform this step.
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You should also be sure that $a->config['php_path'] is set correctly, it should
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look like (changing it to the correct PHP location)
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$a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/local/php56/bin/php'
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Alternative: If you cannot use a cron job as described above, you can use
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the frontend worker and an external cron service to trigger the execution
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of the worker script. You can enable the frontend worker after the installation
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from the admin panel of your node and call
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https://example.com/worker
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with the service of your choice.
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9. (Recommended) Set up a backup plan
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Bad things will happen. Let there be a hardware failure, a corrupted
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database or whatever you can think of. So once the installation of your
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Friendica node is done, you should make yoursef a backup plan.
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The most important file is the `.htconfig.php` file in the base directory.
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As it stores all your data, you should also have a recent dump of your
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Friendica database at hand, should you have to recover your node.
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10. (Optional) Reverse-proxying and HTTPS
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Friendica looks for some well-known HTTP headers indicating a reverse-proxy
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terminating an HTTPS connection. While the standard from RFC 7239 specifies
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the use of the `Forwaded` header.
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Forwarded: for=192.0.2.1; proto=https; by=192.0.2.2
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Friendica also supports a number on non-standard headers in common use.
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X-Forwarded-Proto: https
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Front-End-Https: on
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X-Forwarded-Ssl: on
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It is however preferable to use the standard approach if configuring a new server.
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#####################################################################
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If things don't work...
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#####################################################################
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#####################################################################
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- If you get the message
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"System is currently unavailable. Please try again later"
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#####################################################################
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Check your database settings. It usually means your database could not
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be opened or accessed. If the database resides on the same machine, check that
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the database server name is "localhost".
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#####################################################################
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- 500 Internal Error
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#####################################################################
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This could be the result of one of our Apache directives not being
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supported by your version of Apache. Examine your apache server logs.
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You might remove the line "Options -Indexes" from the .htaccess file if
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you are using a Windows server as this has been known to cause problems.
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Also check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must generally
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be world-readable.
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It is likely that your web server reported the source of the problem in
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its error log files. Please review these system error logs to determine what
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caused the problem. Often this will need to be resolved with your hosting
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provider or (if self-hosted) your web server configuration.
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#####################################################################
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- 400 and 4xx "File not found" errors
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#####################################################################
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First check your file permissions. Your website and all contents must
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generally be world-readable.
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Ensure that mod-rewite is installed and working, and that your
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.htaccess file is being used. To verify the latter, create a file test.out
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containing the word "test" in the top directory of Friendica, make it world
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readable and point your web browser to
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http://yoursitenamehere.com/test.out
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This file should be blocked. You should get a permission denied message.
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If you see the word "test" your Apache configuration is not allowing
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your .htaccess file to be used (there are rules in this file to block access
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to any file with .out at the end, as these are typically used for system logs).
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Make certain the .htaccess file exists and is readable by everybody, then
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look for the existence of "AllowOverride None" in the Apache server
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configuration for your site. This will need to be changed to
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"AllowOverride All".
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If you do not see the word "test", your .htaccess is working, but it is
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likely that mod-rewrite is not installed in your web server or is not working.
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On most flavour of Linux,
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% a2enmod rewrite
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% /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
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Consult your hosting provider, experts on your particular Linux
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distribution or (if Windows) the provider of your Apache server software if
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you need to change either of these and can not figure out how. There is
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a lot of help available on the web. Google "mod-rewrite" along with the
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name of your operating system distribution or Apache package (if using
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Windows).
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#####################################################################
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- If you are unable to write the file .htconfig.php during installation
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due to permissions issues:
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#####################################################################
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create an empty file with that name and give it world-write permission.
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For Linux:
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% touch .htconfig.php
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% chmod 777 .htconfig.php
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Retry the installation. As soon as the database has been created,
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******* this is important *********
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% chmod 755 .htconfig.php
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#####################################################################
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- Some configurations with "suhosin" security are configured without
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an ability to run external processes. Friendica requires this ability.
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Following are some notes provided by one of our members.
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#####################################################################
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On my server I use the php protection system Suhosin
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[http://www.hardened-php.net/suhosin/]. One of the things it does is to block
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certain functions like proc_open, as configured in /etc/php5/conf.d/suhosin.ini:
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suhosin.executor.func.blacklist = proc_open, ...
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For those sites like Friendica that really need these functions they can be
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enabled, e.g. in /etc/apache2/sites-available/friendica:
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<Directory /var/www/friendica/>
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php_admin_value suhosin.executor.func.blacklist none
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php_admin_value suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist none
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</Directory>
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This enables every function for Friendica if accessed via browser, but not for
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the cronjob that is called via php command line. I attempted to enable it for
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cron by using something like
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*/10 * * * * cd /var/www/friendica/friendica/ && sudo -u www-data /usr/bin/php
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-d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none -d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none
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-f bin/worker.php
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This worked well for simple test cases, but the friendica-cron still failed with
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a fatal error:
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suhosin[22962]: ALERT - function within blacklist called: proc_open() (attacker
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'REMOTE_ADDR not set', file '/var/www/friendica/friendica/boot.php', line 1341)
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After a while I noticed, that bin/worker.php calls further php script via
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proc_open. These scripts themselves also use proc_open and fail, because they
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are NOT called with -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none.
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So the simple solution is to put the correct parameters into .htconfig.php:
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// Location of PHP command line processor
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$a->config['php_path'] = '/usr/bin/php -d suhosin.executor.func.blacklist=none
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-d suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist=none';
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This is obvious as soon as you notice that the friendica-cron uses proc_open to
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execute php-scripts that also use proc_open, but it took me quite some time to
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find that out. I hope this saves some time for other people using suhosin with
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function blacklists.
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########################################################################
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Unable to create all mysql tables on MySQL 5.7.17 or newer
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#######################################################################
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If the setup fails to create all the database tables and/or manual
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creation from the command line fails, with this error:
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ERROR 1067 (42000) at line XX: Invalid default value for 'created'
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You need to adjust your my.cnf and add the following setting under
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the [mysqld] section :
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sql_mode = '';
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After that, restart mysql and try again.
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