egroupware_official/doc/HOWTO.sgml

<!doctype linuxdoc system>

<!-- LinuxDoc file was created by hand by <Dan Kuykendall> 7 July 2000 -->
<article>
<title>
  phpGroupWare HOWTO
</title>
<author>
  Joseph Engo &lt;jengo@phpgroupware.org&gt;,
  Dan Kuykendall &lt;dan@kuykendall.org&gt;
</author>
<date>
  v1.1, 28 September 2000
</date>
<abstract>
<!-- $Id$ -->
  This document explains how to install and configure phpGroupWare.
</abstract>

<toc>
<sect>Introduction
<p>
  phpGroupWare is a web based groupware application that includes integrated features such as 
  email, calendar, todo list, address book, file manager, headline news, and a trouble ticket system.
  <p>It should run on all systems where PHP is available and currently supports MySQL and PostgreSQL.
</p>
<sect1>What is phpGroupWare and why should I use it?
<p>
  phpGroupWare is:<p>
  phpGroupWare is a web based groupware application that includes integrated features such as 
  email, calendar, todo list, address book, file manager, headline news, and a trouble ticket system.<P>

  You should use it if:<p>
  You would like a powerful groupware system that can be access from anywhere on the Internet. 
  For companies with a distributed user base, it's an ideal solution. Oh, and did I mention that its FREE?
</p>
<sect>Installation
<sect1>Requirements
<p>
  You will need PHP compiled and installed on your system.  You will also need MySQL or PostgreSQL setup. 
  If you are planning on using the email system, you will need to have an IMAP server installed and IMAP support compiled into PHP.
  You can have it installed as an Apache module or command line version, the Apache module is preferred.
  We will assume that you are running on a Linux or other Unix system for these steps. 
  Windows is supported, but there is no documentation for it currently.
</p>
<sect1>Tested Systems
<p>
  On Linux 2.2.x
  <itemize>
    <item>PHP 3.0.15+ / PHP 4.0.x
    <item>Apache 1.3.x
    <item>MySQL 3.22.25 or PostgreSQL 7.0.x
    <item>Courier-IMAP 0.33+ and/or qmail 1.03 for POP3 access
  </itemize>

  We have reports of it working on Windows NT and OS/2, and using Oracle as the database.
</p>
<sect1>Obtaining phpGroupWare
<p>
While we are still in the Beta phase of phpGroupWare, you may
want to track the CVS copy as closely as possible. The released
versions are more stable, but often contain bugs that have been fixed
in the CVS version.
<sect2>Released Versions
<p>
The downloads section on the <url url="http://www.phpgroupware.org/"> site
contains links to the most recent releases, and several mirror sites
for the releases.
</p>
<sect2>Developer's version from CVS
<p>
If you have never used CVS, you may want to read through the doucmentation
found at <url url="http://www.cvshome.org/">. 
The CVS pages for the core and apps projects can be found at
<url url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=7305" name="phpGroupWare Core CVS">, and
<url url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=9787" name="phpGroupWare Apps CVS">.
Follow the directions for <bf>Anonymous CVS access</bf> and you should
have the most recent development copy of phpGroupWare in no time.
</p>

<sect1>Installing on Tested Systems
<p>
  After you have met the system requirements, unpack the tarball in the html 
  directory of your webserver. (eg, /home/httpd/html)
</p>
<sect1>Configure phpGroupWare
<p>
  Copy the <tt>header.inc.php.sample</tt> file to 
  <tt>header.inc.php</tt> and edit the file, following the
  directions in the comments.
<p>
  Then point your browser to phpgroupware/setup/ which will
  create (or upgrade) the database tables. 
  You wil be asked to login, using the password set in
  <tt>header.inc.php</tt>. Setup will attempt to determine what version
  of the phpGroupWare database you have installed, and upgrade to the most recent
  version. 

<bf>NOTE:</bf>The developers are concentrating on getting the beta
  working, and have not spent a great deal of time building upgrade scripts from the
  alpha versions of phpGroupWare. You are advised to backup your existing alpha
  database before running the setup script to avoid problems!

  If you get no error messages, continue on to phpgroupware/setup/config.php 
  to configure phpGroupWare to your system.
<p>
  If you are using the email system you will need to create a temporary directory 
  where file uploads will be stored.  For security reasons, you should <tt>chown
  nobody.nobody</tt> and <tt>chmod 700</tt> to that directory.  Depending on your system configuration.  
  Default installs of Apache normally run as the user nobody.  You may need your system 
  administrator to do this for you if you do not have root access.
<p>
  If you do not have access to root, create this file and run it.
<verb>
  <?php 
    if (mkdir("/path/to/temp/directory",0700)) { 
      echo "Directory created successfully"; 
    } else { 
      echo "Error creating directory"; 
    }
</verb>
  If you have access to cron, you may want to setup the files in the cron 
  directory.
<p>
  stalesessions.pl - There are 2 reasons for this file. 
<itemize>
  <item>Users always forget to logout. This way the session doesn't sit around forever, creating a possible security risk. 
  <item>The email system requires plain text passwords which are stored in the sessions table.
</itemize>

  This file is not required, you can simply disable cron_apps in the admin -> applications section
  to clean out the sessions table during login and logout.
<p>
  stale_uploads.pl - This will delete file attachments for messages that where not 
  completed.  If a users browser crashes, Internet connection dies, etc, their
  files will sit there forever unless deleted.  You could add a few lines to 
  logout.php that will look in the temp directory for any stale uploads and delete 
  them.  But, once again, it becomes a performance issue.
</p>

<sect>Testing the install
<p>
  If your config is setup properly you can now login.  Point your browser to the 
  installed location and login with the username <tt>demo</tt> and the password is <tt>1234</tt><newline>
  At this point it would be a good idea to create a new user with administrative privileges and 
  delete the old one.
</p>
<sect>Installing additional applications
<p>
Once you have the core phpGroupWare install up and running,
you may want to download and install additional applications. 

You should consult any <tt>README</tt> or <tt>INSTALL</tt>
files that come with the new application first, as most require you
to create additional tables in the database, and add additional
translation data to the lang table (typically a file called <tt>lang.sql</tt>)

You install the new application within the phpGroupWare install tree by
copying the application directory into the phpGroupWare install location,
and enabling the application through the Administration page. 

For example, this is the process to install the
Headlines application (see <url url="http://sourceforge.net/phpgwapps/"> for
more on this and other applications).
<itemize>
<item>Download the .tar.gz file for the application, or check out the source
with cvs with
<verb>export CVSROOT=':pserver:anonymous@cvs.phpgroupware.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/phpgwapps'
cvs login   (just hit enter if prompted for a password)
cvs co headlines</verb>

<item>Move the <tt>headlines</tt> directory into your phpGroupWare
install directory.

<item>Log into phpGroupWare as an administrative user, and go to the Administration page.

<item>In the first section, choose the <tt>Applications</tt> link

<item>Click on add, and fill in the form.
<descrip>
<tag/Application name/ should be identical to the name
of the directory you moved into the phpGroupWare install, in this case use <tt>headlines</tt>
<tag/Application Title/this is shown in the navigation bar and other places to refer to the
new application. Enter <tt>Headlines</tt> for this example.
<tag/Enabled/This can be used to disable an application for all users temporially. You
should normal check the box to enable the application.
</descrip>
<item>Back in the Administration page, you need to enable the application for specific users
or user groups by editing them, and checking the new <tt>Headlines</tt> box that appears
in the middle of the account editing page.
<item>Once you have added the Headlines app to your account, you should see a Headlines
entry in the Administration and Preferences pages, and there should be an icon for
the Headlines application in the navigation bar.
<item>Once you enable a few of the Headlines sites through the Administration page link, you
should see headlines grabbed from the sites you selected when you click on the Headlines
icon in the navigation bar.
</itemize>
</p>
<sect>Trouble-shooting
<p>
<bf>WARNING!</bf> phpGroupWare is still Beta software, expect some bugs
along the way. If you run into a problem not discussed here, contact us
through one of the methods listed on the website.

The phpGroupWare developers can often be seen hanging out in #phpGroupWare
on irc.openprojects.net if you require real-time help.

Also check the FAQ in this directory for additional common questions,
it is available as FAQ.sgml, FAQ.txt and FAQ.html

<sect1>I get "Unable to open mailbox" when using the email application
<P>At the time of this writing (2000-09-27) you must use the same
username and password in phpGroupWare that you use to log into
your mail server. If you change your password and it still isn't working,
try logging out of phpGroupWare (the rightmost icon in the navigation bar)
and then log back in.

An preference page to edit the email settings is being developed, and should
appear shortly after the first beta release.
</p>

<sect1>It seems to hang when I try to read my mail
<P>This is often a problem if you are using POP3 instead of IMAP, and you have
more than a few hundred messages in your mailbox.

By default, php is set up to time-out a request that takes over 30 seconds
to complete. phpGroupWare must do a lot of work the first time your POP3 mailbox
is opened, and every time you get new mail, which may take more than the 30
second timeout.

You can either clean up your mailbox with another mail program, or
add the line
<code>
set_time_limit(0);
</code>
to the top of the inc/phpgwapi/phpgw_msg_pop3.inc.php file, just before
the line <verb>class msg extends msg_common</verb> 

If you choose to edit the file, be patient when loading a large POP3
mailbox - the author tested against a mailbox with 2500 messages in it,
but it took 15 minutes to load the page. We highly suggest you use IMAP
if you expect to have more than a few hundred messages in your mailbox.
</p>

<sect1>When I log in I see the directory listing instead of a web page
<P>If you are using Apache, this often means you need to add 
<tt>.php</tt> to the <tt>DirectoryIndex</tt> line in your httpd.conf file.

For example:
<code>
DirectoryIndex index.php index.php3 index.html index.htm index.cgi
</code>
</p>
<sect1>I get garbage that looks like code when I go to the phpGroupWare URL
<P>This is often because you have php3 installed, which does not map <tt>.php</tt> to the PHP engine.

For PHP3:
<code>
AddType             application/x-httpd-php3 .php3 .php
</code>
For PHP4:
<code>
AddType             application/x-httpd-php .php3 .php
</code>
</p>
<sect>About this document
<sect1>New versions 
<p>
  The newest version of this document can be found on our website <url url="http://www.phpgroupware.org"> as SGML source, HTML, or TEXT.
</p>
<sect1>Comments 
<p>
  Comments on this HOWTO should be directed to the phpGroupWare developers mailing list 
  <url url="mailto:phpgroupware-developers@lists.sourceforge.net" name="phpgroupware-developers@lists.sourceforge.net">.<P>
  To subscribe, go to <url url="http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=7305"
name="http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=7305">
</p>
<sect1>History 
<p>
  This document was started by Joseph Engo and reworked by Dan Kuykendall.
</p>
<sect1>Version History 
<p>
  Old Version
</p>
<p>
<itemize>
  <item>Created by Jengo, wasn't in SGML HOWTO format.
</itemize>
<p>
  v1.0 (July 6, 2000)
</p>
<p>
<itemize>
  <item>Built proper SGML version.
  <item>Included the FAQ.
  <item>Other minor additions.
</itemize>
</p>
<p>
 v1.1 (September 27-29, 2000) - blinky
</p>
<p>
<itemize>
  <item>Added Testing Install section
  <item>Added Trouble-shooting section
  <item>Added description of application installation
  <item>Changes for the new setup program
</itemize>
</p>
<sect1>Copyrights and Trademarks 
<p>
  Copyright (c)  Dan Kuykendall.
  Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
  under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
  or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation
</p>
<p>
  A copy of the license is available at
  <url url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.txt" name="GNU Free Documentation License">.
</p>
<sect1>Acknowledgments and Thanks 
<p>
  Thanks to Joesph Engo for starting phpGroupWare (at the time called webdistro) and the core of this HOWTO. 
  Thanks to all the developers and users who contribute to making phpGroupWare such a success.
</p>
</article>