Installing Geeklog

New Installation	Upgrading To New Version	Common Problems
Pre-Installation Checklist Installation Instructions	Pre-Upgrade Checklist Upgrade Instructions	Installation Post-Installation
Glossary path: A physical location on a server that describes where files and directories are. On Windows paths begin with the drive letter (c:/inetpub/wwwroot/), on *nix paths start at root (/) like (/var/www/) url: Uniform Resource Locator, the address of a specific piece of information on the web (http://www.foo.com/)

Before installing Geeklog for the first time, please make sure you have or know the following:

1. A web server running PHP 4.04 or higher
2. A web server running MySQL, with access to a database or the ability to create a database
3. The ability to create a new database in MySQL or access to an existing one
4. A telnet or SSH connection to your web server (although FTP will work). This document will be written assuming you have command line access to your server, but we will note the major differences for FTP users.
5. The ability to unpack a tarball (file ending in tar.gz)
6. You know the difference between a path and a URL
7. You know how to determine your system paths
   
   

   SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT PARSE ERRORS: Some users have reported that WinZip corrupts certain files in the Geeklog tarball during decompression which will cause errors during the installation process. You are strongly urged not to use WinZip. Try WinRAR if you must decompress the file locally, or better yet, unpack the file from your server (requires telnet/SSH access). Parse errors can also be caused by using a WYSIWYG editor on lib-common.php, e.g. Dreamweaver - you should use a "plain text editor".

   
   

The following instructions will refer to the public_html directory a lot. Here is what this is all about:

Basically, a Geeklog installation consists of two parts: The part that is visible "to the world" - which is everything in the public_html directory. "public_html" is a popular name for the world-accessible directory that can be found on a webserver ("htdocs" and "www" are other popular names). So if you have such a directory, just copy everything from Geeklog's public_html directory into that directory on your webserver. Then you only need to set up $_CONF['path_html'] (in config.php) to point to that directory.

The other part of Geeklog, which is everything outside the public_html directory, should not be accessible via a URL since it contains sensitive information. So you should really put those files and directories outside of your document root (i.e. outside the web server's public_html, htdocs, or www directory). Then you only need to set up $_CONF['path'] (again, in config.php) to point to the place where you put those files and directories.

Separating the install in this way will also ensure that you can access your Geeklog site directly via a domain name (if you have one), e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com/, and that you don't need to include "public_html" in the URL.

Please read this section COMPLETELY before beginning.

1. Unpack the tarball *within* your web tree by running the following in your shell (this assumes you have ssh access and that you are working with the tarball on the designated server - this can be locally or hosted elsewhere):
   
   tar -zxvf geeklog-1.3.8rc2.tar.gz
   
   FTP, Windows Users: unpack the tarball on your local computer and upload the result to your designated server. Everything uploads as ASCII except the images.
   
   
2. For *nix installations the following may be required:
   
   chown -R webuser:webuser /path/to/geeklog
   
   This guarantees that everything in that path belongs to you, typical settings are www:www or nobody:nobody and more often than not doesn't matter.
   
   
3. For *nix installations cd into /path/to/geeklog and do the following:
   
   chmod -R 775 logs/
chmod -R 775 public_html/backend/
chmod -R 775 public_html/images/articles
chmod -R 775 public_html/images/userphotos
   
   FTP Users: If you're doing the chmod via a FTP client, you must also apply the chmod to the files in logs/ and public_html/backend as well as the directories themselves. Most, if not all, ftp clients do not perform this command recursively. That means you need to set each file within each of these directories manually.
   
   

   SPECIAL NOTE: Not following step #3 correctly is the #1 reason why people receive errors when they first try to use Geeklog. Take your time and get it right. Also, some users have reported problems if the above permissions are not set to 777. Try 775 first and only be more permissive if you receive an error message. There is also a script at http://yourgeeklogsite/admin/install/check.php that can test the permissions for you.

   
   
4. Create the database you want Geeklog to reside in. If you are not familiar with using MySQL, you are urged to get phpMyAdmin and use it to create a new database. If you have no idea what the previous two sentences mean, contact your sysadmin for help.
   
   
5. Edit config.php with the appropriate settings for your server. For installation, this basically means "set your paths," as all other variables can be changed after a successful installation. The config.php file contains comments to help you out.
   
   Windows users, you should be able to use the Unix '/' in your paths without any problems. Otherwise, you will need to use the doubled Windows slashes '\\'.
   
   Please read the comments in config.php carefully.
   
   
6. Edit lib-common.php and change the require_once() at the top to point to the location of your config.php file.
   
   
7. Open your browser and navigate to http://yourgeeklogsite/admin/install/install.php and follow the directions!
   
   
8. Once you see the success message, you are ready to go. You can now delete the admin/install directory (and all files within it).
   
   
9. Read the first story on your Geeklog site to learn how to log in as the administrator. Please remember to change the default passwords on all pre-configured accounts right away.
   
   

If you run into problems or keep getting error messages, please see the section on common installation problems below.

1. Upgrading is no different than a fresh installation except your database already exists and needs to be upgraded.

1. Back up any files with custom code in them and back up your database.
   
   

   SPECIAL NOTE: Please pay special attention to the older config.php and lib-common.php files, these files contain database and path information you entered the last time you installed Geeklog and they MUST be copied over to the NEW config.php and lib-common.php files.

   
   
2. You can choose to either rename or remove your current Geeklog directory. Although in the end you will be deleting the older install it's probably safer to keep the old copy around for a few days *just* in-case you forgot to transfer some files.
   
   
3. Uncompress the new version and copy the result to the same path that your old installation had. For instance, if your old Geeklog was in /usr/home/www/geeklog/, then your new installation should also be in /usr/home/www/geeklog/.
   
   
4. The next step depends on which version of Geeklog you are upgrading from.
   
   If you are upgrading from Geeklog 1.2 or earlier, change to /path/to/geeklog/sql/updates and apply all needed database updates. For example, if you are upgrading from Geeklog 1.1, you will need to apply 1.1_to_1.2.sql and 1.2_to_1.2.2.sql which will upgrade your database to Geeklog 1.2.5-1. I say 1.2.5-1 because there were no database changes from 1.2.2 to 1.2.5-1 (e.g. a 1.2.2 database is the same as a 1.2.5-1 database). If you are uncomfortable using the MySQL command line to do this, you can do it via phpMyAdmin as well.
   
   If you are upgrading from 1.2.5-1 or a more recent version, the second step of the installation script should have an option to convert your database to the current version.
   
   Please note that only "basic" version number are listed, because, for example, Geeklog 1.3.7 and 1.3.7sr2 use the same database. So if you're upgrading from Geeklog 1.3.7sr2, just select "1.3.7" (the same applies to 1.3.5 / 1.3.5sr1 / 1.3.5sr2).
   
   
5. The rest of the upgrade process is identical to the install process. Once you successfully run the install script, you should be ready to go after restoring any files with custom code.