Vanilla Forums

Wait, with number 4 what does it mean, it's not laid out that well.

Nevermind, I am retarded. I didn't have ctype enabled

Great Post!

Thanks for the write-up! I'll announce it so it stays at the top for others.

Cheers Mark - I was nearly put off what has shown itself to be a great new version because I couldn't get it installed. Hopefully this will get people through to the good stuff :)

I'm inclined to disagree with step 4. If your server is set up correctly, 755 or 775 permissions can and should be used. It's rare that you'd need to grant write access to "others" and, though I'm no Linux guru, I've seen it described as "insanely insecure."

I'd call 777 permissions a security flaw up there with not filtering user input before it gets put in a database query.

An excellent and helpful post otherwise. :)

Thanks for raising that Lincoln - I'm not very savvy with permissions so I can't really comment - all I know is it works with 777 and not without. Perhaps it can be set back after install? Or is there a middle ground between 755 and 777?

Mark, can you comment on this at all?

It all depends of the user owning the directory and the user that php is running.

Most of the time 777 is not needed.
Directory need 755 (read/execute for all plus write for owner), and files inside can be 644 (read for all, and write for owner).

@iamkeir Yes, as @bean said it depends on your setup. Telling people to set permissions to "777" is definitely the easiest sure-fire way of making it work, but it's not a good practice. At the very least, I'd try it with 755 and 775 before giving up and setting it to 777.

Thanks guys - like I said, I don't know much about permissions so I'm glad you flagged that... Not quite sure what to put for step 4 now though!

Thank you, @iamkeir, that was great help. :)
@Lincoln I've got a free hoster, shared with a friend, now I can do it! :D

I've got a 'Kind-of Mate' named Geoff G. He has a site named Sploder.info, it's completly amazing. Plus he used Vanilla 1, but he's got a Thanks button, report Post button and Quote button. You can Ip scan, and more. I think looking at http://www.sploder.info/>this, it wil really help with new Updates...

@iamkeir says:
4. Grant Read/Write permissions (777) to /cache/, /conf/, and /uploads/

I do not like this at all. You should work out what user/group needs to write to these directories (I guess www-data in Debian/Ubuntu) and make the directory permission match those. Otherwise, on machine that have many users, this is a security risk as anyone can do whatever they want to this directory.

Overall, @iamkeir thanks for this!

@yann, it has already been discussed 5/6 post earlier.

I'd like to update number 4 but what would people recommend I put here? How does one find out which users/groups need permissions? I'm trying to think of a straightforward piece of guidance for those not well-versed in web server permissions.

@bean I give up! Never post before a cup of coffee was ingested. Sorry 'bout that.

Hi There
Can you tell me if the latest version requires Pdo_MySQL
Regards
Robert

RobertW62:
Hi There
Can you tell me if the latest version requires Pdo_MySQL
Regards
Robert

Yes it does.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function ctype_alnum() in [documentroot]/garden/library/database/class.mysql.driver.php on line 58
PHP 5.2.9 with Suhosin-Patch 0.9.7 (cli) (built: Mar 16 2009 18:29:43)
Zend Engine v2.2.0
MySQL Server version: 5.0.85

Hello friends,
today, I downloaded the latest version of Vanilla 2 (Lussumo-Garden-ab7e046). The problem is that when I install it everything works perfectly but I can not log-in. I can not access the administrator user that I put in the installation.

Thank you very much everyone for your responses. CTW.

@ctwkkk
Maybe you double mistyped your password, so please re-install :). Otherwise add this to your conf/config.php file and post the problem/results in a new thread:
$Configuration['Garden']['Errors']['MasterView'] = 'deverror.master.php';

Hello, my first post :)

At the step 6, I can see this :
"Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_OBJECT_OPERATOR in /homez.338/website/www/forum2/index.php on line 30"

The 30th line is
Gdn::Session()->Start(Gdn::Authenticator());
and I didn't altered it.

Another question : This forum is on Vanilla 2 ?
I have just installed Vanilla 1.1.10, works great but don't have the slide menu at the right, and other things, as here we are. Normal ?

This forum is powered by Vanilla 2. Try posting your installation issue in a seperate discussion (with a descriptive title).

@Silencer

Thank you for answering. I will copy the code then.

All I end up with is this:

Fatal error: Class 'PDO' not found in /home/dan/public_html/lussumo-Garden-634f9d6/conf/config-defaults.php on line 16

Any help?

As stated in v2 requirements, it does need PDO installed.
It's even mentionned a few comments above.

Maybe it will be a good idea to add a link to the requirements (or copy them) on the comment that started this discussion.

Just a note of other newbies like me. Make sure your rewrite rules are enable in you virtual hosts file by checking the "AllowOverride". By default this is often set to "AllowOverride None" in the section. Changing this to "AllowOverride All" will solve the problem.

There may be a more granular way to solve this as well.

Hey guys, regarding 4), when I did a new install on my server with the latest garden, I didn't have to change any permissions at all... I'm guessing that this may be because my server is set up correctly that I don't need to change the permissions? It would make sense, because it was with my localhost that I need to edit folder permissions when I first wrote the guide.

@iamkeir That would be a good assumption, I think. If your server is well-configured, you should be able to skip step 4 completely.

Cheers @Lincoln :)

Doesn't work for me. I've done a couple of reinstalls. I just get a nice-looking page with links that do nothing.
I'd be interested in knowing what the "issues" are. It looks like my install works fine, but I get an unusable forum.

In an addendum, I wrote up a github report on this:
http://github.com/vanillaforums/Garden/issues/#issue/302

@MagShare I'm working on this. Could you help me by confirming that you're running PHP in FastCGI mode?

I'll check.

I know that Nexcess is switching their servers over to FastCGI, but I don't know if my server is one of them.

I'll respond with a post in just a bit...

The verdict is in:

No, FastCGI is not enabled on that host. I didn't think it was, but I don't have any software that cares about the difference.

I recently modified the Request object in the RC branch to make it a little smarter. Care to give the new version a try? So far I have the same code working on:

1) my local Apache + libphp5 stack
2) my local nginx + fastcgi stack
3) my local Apache + fastcgi stack
4) my Site5.com VPS
5) my MediaTemple VPS

I will do so.

Thanks!

No dice. However, I'm not sure I got the correct version. I took it straight from the trunk. I didn't see any new commits there.

OK, this may have something to do with it. I am getting endline differences between the two installs.

No matter what I do, it keeps coming up snake-eyes. I have a feeling that it is an endline issue. I'll see if I can do anything on the server end to play nicer with funky endlines.
Since the vast majority of folks don't seem to be experiencing the issue, I'll step aside. It's a shame, as I really like what I see here, but I can't get it to work on my server, no matter what. I know that my server is solid, but it may be non-standard.
If this does become an issue in the future, I am more than happy to let ya'll have a temporary account on the server to play with.

@MagShare, you want http://github.com/vanillaforums/Garden/tree/rc

Thanks!
I sent the install to a friend who has another Nexcess account (the FastCGI version), and he was able to get it working.
If this doesn't work, I'll pore over our info dumps, and see if there is anything that could explain it.

Well, it sorta works:

http://magshare.org/vanillaforums-Garden-cced7d8/settings

On first blush, it tried to direct me to

http://magshare.org/settings

Which gives you my excellent 404 page. I'll dig around the config, later, to see if I can figure it out.

Actually, looking at this, it may be the same as before, except with the wrong baseURL.

I'll look over our infos, and see if I can determine the issue.

I think I may know what the problem is. I think it's battling mod_rewrites.
I'm installing this at the main level of a WP site with pretty permalinks.
I'm gonna set up a separate account with a subdomain. I'll bet it works. It will be a while before I can report back, as the DNS needs to seed out.

Nope. Back to the drawing board.

http://forum.magshare.org/

It works with the new fix on the new domain.
There may be an issue with the base directory.
In any case, this is enough for me to go with now.
Thanks!

I've just upgraded - but I can't reply to existing topics? :/

New topics are fine. Existing ones not so much.

Hi there!

Call me a soar loser or whatever else you can think of. I get everything that is written in the post and its very well written I will say. Kudos to iamkeir!

My question is: Where is the install folder located? Its not really standing out and "Waving" its hands at me right now.

Thanks for the input in advance.

Thanks,
Tim

Well I finally found out where the "install" folder was. Of course this was the folder I created when I unzipped the file.

Another question: I now get the error "No input file specified." with no other errors or anything else on the screen. How? When I go to install the vanilla forum from the folder I created "Forum" then I get this error message. I have gave the 3 files 777 permission. Im not sure if this helps but here is the url that I get when try to install the forum. First: www.forum.xxxxxxx.com/Forum then it changes to this: www.forum.xxxxxxxxx.com/Forum/index.php/dashboard/setup

Can anyone please assist me?

Greatly Appreciated.

-Tim

For whomever it may concern, here's how I setup Vanilla.

--Download the latest vanilla
http://github.com/vanillaforums/Garden/downloads or
http://download.github.com/vanillaforums-Garden-Vanilla_2.0_rc1-0-gcb12ba2.tar.gz

--I had to change the .htaccess file for the site to work (it wouldn't even show up until
I did this

#RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteBase /com.mysite/development/vanilla/vanillaforums_rc1/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [QSA,L]

--Set permissions the right way (instead of 777)
> cd /path/to/my/vanilla/install
> sudo chgrp -R www conf cache uploads
Note that "www" is my apache's group. In other servers it may be "apache" or something else.
See you /etc/httpd/httpd.conf file to find your group.
> chmod -R 775 conf cache uploads

--Create a mysql DB and user

--Load Vanilla and configure.

Hello!

Is it possible to install Vanilla on nginx?

@Elfet: yes.
More info there: http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/9915/vanilla-on-nginx/

I've figured out the permissions issue on Linux. You should never set 777. Use 775 instead.

If 775 doesn't work, you'll need to either:

A) Add the 'apache' user to the group that owns your web directory.
-or-
B) Change the group of the file/directory in question to 'apache'
-or-
C) Change the owner of the file/directory in question to apache (in which case you can even use 755)


Either way you'll need shell access or open a support ticket to do this.

To do A, use this on Red Hat/CentOS:

# usermod -a -G groupnamehere apache

To do B, use this:

# chgrp -R apache /path/to/file/or/directory

To do C, use this:

# chown -R apache /path/to/file/or/directory

Careful with chown! You can break things by chown'ing the wrong files. Double-check your paths before hitting enter.

Note that apache sometimes gets run as another user or group name; 'apache' is simply the default.

You mileage may vary, but if you have tech support worth a damn they'll be able to help you figure it out.

Remember kids: '777' permissions will get your box hacked. :D

I just installed Vanilla2. I am able to sign in with the user and password I created using google chrome and everything appears ok. When I try to sign in with firefox, basically nothing happens. I am not signed in and there is no error message.

I figured it out. Removed cookies for the site and I got signed in.

Trying to import Vanilla 1 data into Vanilla 2. I've got all the tables in the same database (the GDN_ and LUM_). The import screen makes no sense to me. It says "Use this page to import data from another forum that was exported using Vanilla's exporter." Vanilla 1 doesn't have an exporter as far as I know. It wants to upload a file. Makes no sense. The Vanilla 1 files I want to import are in the same database. Why do I need to upload anything?

We're building a standalone app to export any forum into a special Vanilla 2 file. That's the file the importer is looking for. Almost done!

Bugger! didn't realise that we were not in a position to import the Vanilla 1 forums yet, I've just upgraded my busy forum and am too now sitting at the import page.

Any news or even a beta I can try and use for now?

@rockwaldo Sent you a message.

Has anyone seen the problem of php running as user 'nobody', so that certain files (config.php for example) are owned by the user 'nobody' and can't be modified except by that user? I have this problem and so for starters am not able to edit config.php.

@ewhillis That's definitely a problem to raise with your host. They'll need to fix that for you if you don't have shell access. The server isn't configured properly.

GoDaddy install error message for Vanilla 2 - any help is appreciated....

The connection parameters you specified failed to open a connection to the database. The database reported the following error:
SQLSTATE[28000] [1045] Access denied for user 'b2b1019406401585'@'97.74.215.192' (using password: YES)

Did you follow the advice of one of the other users with a similar problem: change your password on the server to something reasonable (not too long) and then try again?

I've installed on godaddy fine. If you are entering an ip address for your database host then I don't think that's correct. For the sake of consolidation I'm going to point you to the answer I gave on another thread.

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/comment/104375/#Comment_104375

If you're on a shared hosting enviroment, such as 1and1, make sure you add in the .htacess the small line of AddType x-mapp-php5 .php