From a1434ee1cfc04c5f6af30738ec8610726e464570 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Evan Prodromou Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:32:39 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] finish the README file darcs-hash:20080922223239-5ed1f-1d34d37c75b2fc321e00063a788e9ca0c8baa359.gz --- README | 327 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------- 1 file changed, 280 insertions(+), 47 deletions(-) diff --git a/README b/README index b394454ea4..103a4574e8 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ README ------ Laconica 0.6.0 -12 September 2008 +22 September 2008 This is the README file for Laconica, the Open Source microblogging platform. It includes installation instructions, descriptions of @@ -62,6 +62,25 @@ License along with this program, in the file "COPYING". If not, see of using the software, and if you do not wish to share your modifications, *YOU MAY NOT INSTALL LACONICA*. +Additional library software has been made available in the 'extlib' +directory. All of it is Free Software and can be distributed under +liberal terms, but those terms may differ in detail from the AGPL's +particulars. See each package's license file in the extlib directory +for additional terms. + +New this version +================ + +New features in version 0.6.0 include: + +* Invitations by email. +* Users can mark messages as "favorites" (only Web, not API). +* A bridge to push messages on the Laconica instance to an account on + Twitter. +* Direct private messages between users on a server (only Web, not API + or IM or SMS). +* Restructured off-line daemons. + Prerequisites ============= @@ -84,6 +103,7 @@ 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. For some functionality, you will also need the following extensions: @@ -477,12 +497,96 @@ to these resources. Themes ------ +There are two themes shipped with this version of Laconica: "stoica", +which is what the Identi.ca site uses, and "default", which is a good +basis for other sites. + +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 Laconica 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. + Upgrading ========= +If you've been using Laconica 0.5 or lower, or if you've been tracking +the "darcs" version of the software, you will probably want to upgrade +and keep your existing data. There is no automated upgrade procedure +in Laconica 0.6. Try these step-by-step instructions; read to the end +first before trying them. + +0. Download Laconica and set up all the prerequisites as if you were + doing a new install. +1. Make backups of both your database and your Web directory. UNDER NO + CIRCUMSTANCES should you try to do an upgrade without a known-good + backup. You have been warned. +2. Shut down Web access to your site, either by turning off your Web + server or by redirecting all pages to a "sorry, under maintenance" + page. +3. Shut down XMPP access to your site, typically by shutting down the + xmppdaemon.php process and all other daemons that you're running. + If you've got "monit" or "cron" automatically restarting your + daemons, make sure to turn that off, too. +4. Shut down SMS and email access to your site. The easy way to do + this is to comment out the line piping incoming email to your + maildaemon.php file, and running something like "newaliases". +5. Once all writing processes to your site are turned off, make a + final backup of the Web directory and database. +6. Move your Laconica directory to a backup spot, like "mublog.bak". +7. Unpack your Laconica 0.6 tarball and move it to "mublog" or + wherever your code used to be. +8. Copy the config.php file and avatar directory from your old + directory to your new directory. +9. Copy htaccess.sample to .htaccess in the new directory. Change the + RewriteBase to use the correct path. +10. Rebuild the database. Go to your Laconica directory and run the + rebuilddb.sh script like this: + + ./scripts/rebuilddb.sh rootuser rootpassword database db/laconica.sql + + Here, rootuser and rootpassword are the username and password for a + user who can drop and create databases as well as tables; typically + that's _not_ the user Laconica runs as. +11. Use mysql client to log into your database and make sure that the + notice, user, profile, subscription etc. tables are non-empty. +12. Turn back on the Web server, and check that things still work. +13. Turn back on XMPP bots and email maildaemon. Note that the XMPP + bots have changed since version 0.5; see above for details. + +If you're upgrading from very old versions, you may want to look at +the fixup_* scripts in the scripts directories. These will store some +precooked data in the DB. + Configuration options ===================== @@ -560,59 +664,139 @@ You can configure the software to queue time-consuming tasks, like sending out SMS email or XMPP messages, for off-line processing. See 'Queues and daemons' above for how to set this up. -enabled: Whether to +enabled: Whether to uses queues. Defaults to false. - 'queue' => - array('enabled' => false), - 'license' => - array('url' => 'http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/', - 'title' => 'Creative Commons Attribution 3.0', - 'image' => 'http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.png'), - 'mail' => - array('backend' => 'mail', - 'params' => NULL), - 'nickname' => - array('blacklist' => array()), - 'avatar' => - array('server' => NULL), - 'public' => - array('localonly' => true), - 'theme' => - array('server' => NULL), - 'xmpp' => - array('enabled' => false, - 'server' => 'INVALID SERVER', - 'port' => 5222, - 'user' => 'update', - 'encryption' => true, - 'resource' => 'uniquename', - 'password' => 'blahblahblah', - 'host' => NULL, # only set if != server - 'debug' => false, # print extra debug info - 'public' => array()), # JIDs of users who want to receive the public stream - 'tag' => - array('dropoff' => 864000.0), - 'daemon' => - array('piddir' => '/var/run', - 'user' => false, - 'group' => false) - ); -Web ---- +license +------- -Mail +The default license to use for your users notices. The default is the +Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which is probably the right +choice for any public site. Note that some other servers will not +accept notices if you apply a stricter license than this. + +url: URL of the license, used for links. +title: Title for the license, like 'Creative Commons Attribution 3.0'. +image: A button shown on each page for the license. + +mail ---- -SMS +This is for configuring out-going email. We use PEAR's Mail module, +see: http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.mail.mail.factory.php + +backend: the backend to use for mail, one of 'mail', 'sendmail', and + 'smtp'. Defaults to PEAR's default, 'mail'. +params: if the mail backend requires any parameters, you can provide + them in an associative array. + +nickname +-------- + +This is for configuring nicknames in the service. + +blacklist: an array of strings for usernames that may not be + registered. A default array exists for strings that are + used by Laconica (e.g. 'doc', 'main', 'avatar', 'theme') + but you may want to add others if you have other software + installed in a subdirectory of Laconica or if you just + don't want certain words used as usernames. + +avatar +------ + +For configuring avatar access. + +server: If set, defines another server where avatars are stored in the + root directory. Note that the 'avatar' subdir still has to be + writeable. You'd typically use this to split HTTP requests on + the client to speed up page loading, either with another + virtual server or with an NFS or SAMBA share. Clients + typically only make 2 connections to a single server at a + time (http://ur1.ca/6ih), so this can parallelize the job. + Defaults to null. + +public +------ + +For configuring the public stream. + +localonly: If set to true, only messages posted by users of this + service (rather than other services, filtered through OMB) + are shown in the public stream. Default true. + +theme +----- + +server: Like avatars, you can speed up page loading by pointing the + theme file lookup to another server (virtual or real). The + theme server's root path should map to the Laconica "theme" + subdirectory. Defaults to NULL. + +xmpp +---- + +For configuring the XMPP sub-system. + +enabled: Whether to accept and send messages by XMPP. Default false. +server: server part of XMPP ID for update user. +port: connection port for clients. Default 5222, which you probably + shouldn't need to change. +user: username for the client connection. Users will receive messages + from 'user'@'server'. +resource: a unique identifier for the connection to the server. This + is actually used as a prefix for each XMPP component in the system. +password: password for the user account. +host: some XMPP domains are served by machines with a different + hostname. (For example, @gmail.com GTalk users connect to + talk.google.com). Set this to the correct hostname if that's the + case with your server. +encryption: Whether to encrypt the connection between Laconica and the + XMPP server. Defaults to true, but you can get + considerably better performance turning it off if you're + connecting to a server on the same machine or on a + protected network. +debug: if turned on, this will make the XMPP library blurt out all of + the incoming and outgoing messages as XML stanzas. Use as a + last resort, and never turn it on if you don't have queues + enabled, since it will spit out sensitive data to the browser. +public: an array of JIDs to send _all_ notices to. This is useful for + participating in third-party search and archiving services. + +tag --- -XMPP ----- +Miscellaneous tagging stuff. + +dropoff: Decay factor for tag listing, in seconds. + Defaults to exponential decay over ten days; you can twiddle + with it to try and get better results for your site. + +daemon +------ + +For daemon processes. + +piddir: directory that daemon processes should write their PID file + (process ID) to. Defaults to /var/run/, which is where this + stuff should usually go on Unix-ish systems. +user: If set, the daemons will try to change their effective user ID + to this user before running. Probably a good idea, especially if + you start the daemons as root. Note: user name, like 'daemon', + not 1001. +group: If set, the daemons will try to change their effective group ID + to this named group. Again, a name, not a numerical ID. Troubleshooting =============== -The primary output for +The primary output for Laconica is syslog, unless you configured a +separate logfile. This is probably the first place to look if you're +getting weird behaviour from Laconica. + +If you're tracking the unstable version of Laconica in the darcs +repository (see below), and you get a compilation error ("unexpected +T_STRING") in the browser, check to see that you don't have any +conflicts in your code. Myths ===== @@ -636,11 +820,60 @@ assumptions. and password into the file on a production Web server; unscrupulous persons may try to read it to get your passwords. -Further information and Feedback -================================ +Unstable version +================ -There are several ways to get more information and +If you're adventurous or impatient, you may want to install the +development version of Laconica. To get it, use the darcs version +control tool (http://darcs.net/) like so: + darcs get http://laconi.ca/darcs/ mublog + +To keep it up-to-date, use 'darcs pull'. Watch for conflicts! + +Further information +=================== + +There are several ways to get more information about Laconica. + +* There is a mailing list for Laconica developers and admins at + http://mail.laconi.ca/mailman/listinfo/laconica-dev +* The #laconica IRC channel on freenode.net (http://www.freenode.net/). +* The Laconica wiki, http://laconi.ca/trac/ + +Feedback +======== + +* Microblogging messages to http://identi.ca/evan are very welcome. +* Laconica's Trac server has a bug tracker for any defects you may find, + or ideas for making things better. http://laconi.ca/trac/ +* e-mail to evan@identi.ca will usually be read and responded to very + quickly, unless the question is really hard. Credits ======= + +The following is an incomplete list of developers who've worked on +Laconi.ca. Apologies for any oversight; please let evan@identi.ca know +if anyone's been overlooked in error. + +* Evan Prodromou, founder and lead developer, Control Yourself, Inc. +* Zach Copley, Control Yourself, Inc. +* Earle Martin, Control Yourself, Inc. +* Marie-Claude Doyon, designer, Control Yourself, Inc. +* Ciaran Gultnieks +* Michael Landers +* Ori Avtalion +* Garret Buell +* Mike Cochrane +* Matthew Gregg +* Florian Biree +* Erik Stambaugh +* 'drry' +* Gina Haeussge +* Ken Sheppardson (Trac server, man-about-town) +* Tiago 'gouki' Faria (entrans) + +Thanks also to the thousands of people who have tried out Identi.ca, +installed Laconi.ca, told their friends, and built the Open +Microblogging network to what it is today.