path: root/forum/documentation/INSTALL

CONTENTS
------------------
A. PREREQUISITES
B. INSTALLATION
   1. Settings file
   2. Database
   3. Running Askbot in the development server
   4. Installation under Apache/WSGI
   5. Full text search
   6. Email subscriptions
   7. Sitemap
   8. Miscellaneous
C. CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS (settings_local.py)
D. CUSTOMIZATION


A. PREREQUISITES
-----------------------------------------------
Note: by default all installation activity is made in the superuser 'root' account.
This can be achieved either by logging in as root (su root),
or - if you have program sudo installed - prefix all commands with sudo.
So sodo will be listed below as optional.

0. We recommend you to use python-setuptools to install pre-requirement libraries.
If you haven't installed it, please try to install it first.
e.g, [sudo] apt-get install python-setuptools

1. Python2.5/2.6, Django v1.1.1

1A If you are using MySQL, mysql client for python must be installed
[sudo] easy_install mysql-python

2. Python-openid v2.2
http://openidenabled.com/python-openid/
[sudo] easy_install python-openid

4. html5lib
http://code.google.com/p/html5lib/
Used for HTML sanitizer
[sudo] easy_install html5lib

5. Markdown2
http://code.google.com/p/python-markdown2/
[sudo] easy_install markdown2

6. Django Debug Toolbar
http://github.com/robhudson/django-debug-toolbar/tree/master

7. djangosphinx (optional - for full text questions+answer+tag)
http://github.com/dcramer/django-sphinx/tree/master/djangosphinx

8. sphinx search engine (optional, works together with djangosphinx)
http://sphinxsearch.com/downloads.html

9. recaptcha_django
http://code.google.com/p/recaptcha-django/

10. python recaptcha module
http://code.google.com/p/recaptcha/
Notice that you will need to register with recaptcha.net and receive
recaptcha public and private keys that need to be saved in your
settings_local.py file

11. South
http://south.aeracode.org/docs/installation.html
Used for database schema and data migrations
[sudo] easy_install South

EXTRA DEPENDENCIES FOR PYTHON 2.4
* hashlib (made standard in python 2.5)

NOTES: django_authopenid is included into Askbot code
and is significantly modified.  http://code.google.com/p/django-authopenid/
no need to install this library

B. INSTALLATION
-----------------------------------------------
0. Make sure you have all above python libraries installed.

   DO NOT name the main directory 'askbot' - this name is reserved
   for the future name of the app file itself.

   make askbot installation server-readable on Linux command might be:
   chown -R yourlogin:apache /path/to/askbot-site

   directories: 
    /path/to/askbot-site/forum/upfiles
    /path/to/askbot-site/log
   must be server writable

   on Linux type chmod
   chmod -R g+w /path/to/askbot-site/forum/upfiles
   chmod -R g+w /path/to/askbot-site/log

   above it is assumed that webserver runs under group named "apache"

1. Settings file

Copy settings_local.py.dist to settings_local.py and
update all your settings. Check settings.py and update
it as well if necessory.
Section C explains configuration paramaters.

Minimally required modification of settings_local.py are
DATABASE_NAME
DATABASE_USER
DATABASE_PASSWORD
DATABASE_ENGINE

If you set these up, and your database is ready (see section 2),
run (note that application 'forum' is under control of south migration system:

python manage.py syncdb #create tables for anything not under control of migration system
python manage.py migrate forum #run migration command - will apply all migrations in sequence

Now you are ready to test your installation:
python manage.py runserver `hostname -i`:8000
(choose another port number if you wish)

and askbot should be running - if you have any issues at this point (or later:)
please post them at http://askbot.org/meta

2. Database

Prepare your database by using the same database/account
configuration from above.

If your host has database manager in the control panel - you 
can use that or you can create database by typing commands manually

on MySQL the commands are:

create database askbot DEFAULT CHARACTER SET UTF8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
grant all on askbot.* to 'askbot'@'localhost';

And then run :

python manage.py syncdb
python manage.py migrate


3. Running Askbot on the development server

Run "python manage.py runserver" to startup django
development environment.
(Under Linux you can use command "python manage.py runserver `hostname -i`:8000",
where you can use any other available number for the port)

you might want to have DEBUG=True in the beginning of settings.py
when using the test server

4. Installation under Apache/WSGI

The main wsgi script is in the file django.wsgi
it does not need to be modified

4.1 Configure webserver
Settings below are not perfect but may be a good starting point

---------
WSGISocketPrefix /path/to/socket/sock #must be readable and writable by apache
WSGIPythonHome /usr/local #must be readable by apache
WSGIPythonEggs /var/python/eggs #must be readable and writable by apache

#NOTE: all urs below will need to be adjusted if
#settings.FORUM_SCRIPT_ALIAS !='' (e.g. = 'forum/')
#this allows "rooting" forum at http://example.com/forum, if you like
<VirtualHost ...your ip...:80>
    ServerAdmin forum@example.com
    DocumentRoot /path/to/askbot-site
    ServerName example.com

    #run mod_wsgi process for django in daemon mode
    #this allows avoiding confused timezone settings when
    #another application runs in the same virtual host
    WSGIDaemonProcess askbot
    WSGIProcessGroup askbot

    #force all content to be served as static files
    #otherwise django will be crunching images through itself wasting time
    Alias /m/ /path/to/askbot-site/forum/skins/
    Alias /upfiles/ /path/to/askbot-site/forum/upfiles/
    <Directory /path/to/askbot-site/forum/skins>
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    #this is your wsgi script described in the prev section
    WSGIScriptAlias / /path/to/askbot-site/django.wsgi

    #this will force admin interface to work only
    #through https (optional)
    #"nimda" is the secret spelling of "admin" ;)
    <Location "/nimda">
        RewriteEngine on
        RewriteRule /nimda(.*)$ https://example.com/nimda$1 [L,R=301]
    </Location>
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/askbot/access_log common
    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/askbot/error_log
</VirtualHost>
#(optional) run admin interface under https
<VirtualHost ..your ip..:443>
    ServerAdmin forum@example.com
    DocumentRoot /path/to/askbot-site
    ServerName example.com
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile /path/to/ssl-certificate/server.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/ssl-certificate/server.key
    WSGIScriptAlias / /path/to/askbot-site/django.wsgi
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/askbot/access_log common
    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/askbot/error_log
    DirectoryIndex index.html
</VirtualHost>
-------------

5. Full text search (using sphinx search)

   Currently full text search works only with sphinx search engine
   And builtin PostgreSQL (postgres only >= 8.3???)

   5.1 Instructions for Sphinx search setup
   Sphinx at this time supports only MySQL and PostgreSQL databases
   to enable this, install sphinx search engine and djangosphinx

   configure sphinx, sample configuration can be found in
   sphinx/sphinx.conf file usually goes somewhere in /etc tree

   build askbot index first time manually

   % indexer --config /path/to/sphinx.conf --index askbot

   setup cron job to rebuild index periodically with command
   your crontab entry may be something like

   0 9,15,21 * * * /usr/local/bin/indexer --config /etc/sphinx/sphinx.conf --all --rotate >/dev/null 2>&1
   adjust it as necessary this one will reindex three times a day at 9am 3pm and 9pm

   if your forum grows very big ( good luck with that :) you'll
   need to two search indices one diff index and one main
   please refer to online sphinx search documentation for the information
   on the subject http://sphinxsearch.com/docs/

   in settings_local.py set
   USE_SPHINX_SEARCH=True
   adjust other settings that have SPHINX_* prefix accordingly
   remember that there must be trailing comma in parentheses for
   SHPINX_SEARCH_INDICES tuple - particlarly with just one item!

   in settings.py look for INSTALLED_APPS
   and uncomment #'djangosphinx',


6. Email subscriptions

   This function at the moment requires Django 1.1

   edit paths in the file forum/cron/send_email_alerts
   set up a cron job to call forum/cron/send_email_alerts once or twice a day
   subscription sender may be tested manually in shell
   by calling foru/cron/send_email_alerts

7. Sitemap
Sitemap will be available at /<settings_local.FORUM_SCRIPT_ALIAS>sitemap.xml
e.g yoursite.com/forum/sitemap.xml

google will be pinged each time question, answer or
comment is saved or a question deleted

for this to be useful - do register you sitemap with Google at
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

8. Miscellaneous

There are some demo scripts under foru/sql_scripts folder,
including badges and test accounts for CNProg.com. You
don't need them to run your sample.

C. Customization

Other than settings_local.py the following will most likely need customization:
* locale/*/django.po - language files that may also contain your site-specific messages
  if you want to start with english messages file - look for words like "forum" and
  "Askbot" in the msgstr lines
* skins