Red Matrix Installation We've tried very hard to ensure that the Red Matrix will run on commodity hosting platforms - such as those used to host Wordpress blogs and Drupal websites. It will run on most any Linux VPS system. Windows LAMP platforms such as XAMPP and WAMP are not officially supported at this time - however we welcome patches if you manage to get it working. Be aware that the Red Matrix 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 the Red Matrix. Many will - but please review the requirements and confirm these with your hosting provider prior to installation. (And preferably before entering into a long-term contract.) 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. Decide if you will use SSL and obtain an SSL cert before software installation. You SHOULD use SSL. If you use SSL, you MUST use a "browser-valid" certificate. Please test your certificate prior to installation. A web tool for testing your certificate is available at "http://www.digicert.com/help/". When visiting your site for the first time, please use the SSL ("https://") URL if SSL is available. This will avoid problems later. 1. Requirements - Apache with mod-rewrite enabled and "Options All" so you can use a local .htaccess file - PHP 5.3+. The later the better. - PHP *command line* access with register_argc_argv set to true in the php.ini file - and with no hosting provider restrictions on the use of exec() and proc_open(). - curl, gd (with at least jpeg support), mysqli, mbstring, mcrypt, and openssl extensions. The imagick extension is not required but desirable. - some form of email server or email gateway such that PHP mail() works - Mysql 5.x or MariaDB - ability to schedule jobs with cron. - Installation into a top-level domain or sub-domain (without a directory/path component in the URL) is REQUIRED. 2. Unpack the Red Matrix 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 and aren't normally copied. 3. Create an empty database and note the access details (hostname, username, password, database name). 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. If you are using SSL with a known signature authority, use the https: link to your website. 6. *If* the automated installation fails for any reason, check the following: - ".htconfig.php" exists If not, edit htconfig.php and change system settings. Rename to .htconfig.php - Database is populated. If not, import the contents of "database.sql" with phpmyadmin or mysql command line 7. At this point visit your website again, and register your personal account. Registration errors should all be recoverable automatically. If you get any *critical* failure at this point, it generally indicates the database was not installed correctly. You might wish to move/rename .htconfig.php to another name and empty (called 'dropping') the database tables, so that you can start fresh. **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** ******** THIS NEXT STEP IS IMPORTANT!!!! *********** **************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** 8. Set up a cron job or scheduled task to run the poller once every 5-10 minutes to pick up the recent "public" postings of your friends. Example: cd /base/directory; /path/to/php include/poller.php Change "/base/directory", and "/path/to/php" as appropriate for your situation. If you are using a Linux server, run "crontab -e" and add a line like the one shown, substituting for your unique paths and settings: */10 * * * * cd /home/myname/mywebsite; /usr/bin/php include/poller.php 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. Friendica will not work correctly if you cannot perform this step. You should also be sure that $a->config['system']['php_path'] is set correctly, it should look like (changing it to the correct PHP location) $a->config['system']['php_path'] = '/usr/local/php53/bin/php'; ##################################################################### 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. 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 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. The Red Matrix 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 Red Matrix that really need these functions they can be enabled, e.g. in /etc/apache2/sites-available/redmatrix: <Directory /var/www/redmatrix/> php_admin_value suhosin.executor.func.blacklist none php_admin_value suhosin.executor.eval.blacklist none </Directory> This enables every function for Red Matrix 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/redmatrix/ && 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 cron job still failed with a fatal error: suhosin[22962]: ALERT - function within blacklist called: proc_open() (attacker 'REMOTE_ADDR not set', file '/var/www/redmatrix/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['system']['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 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.