NAME
    INSTALL - Slash Installation

SYNOPSIS
    This document describes how to install Slash, versions 2.2 and
    pre-releases of 2.3. For instructions on installation or upgrade of
    previous versions of Slash, see the INSTALL document included with those
    distributions.

    These instructions have only been tested on Linux. Installation under
    BSD and other Unix OSes should work similarly, but there are problems
    with the Makefile and installtion under some non-Linux OSes. Feel free
    to submit bug reports (or better, patches) for any such problems. We've
    had reports of the 1.0.x version of Slash running on Windows, but have
    done no testing and have no further information, and have no information
    about Slash 2 running on Windows.

    PostgreSQL was supported (alpha-quality) in earlier versions of Slash 2,
    but has not been updated at all since late 2001. At this point, Slash
    works only with MySQL.

    Slash can always be downloaded from SourceForge.net, from the FTP site,
    and via CVS.

            http://sf.net/projects/slashcode/
            ftp://ftp.slashcode.com//pub/slashcode/
            http://cvs.slashcode.com/

    See the SourceForge.net page for patches and bug reports.

  Which version should I use?
    If you are using Slash 2.2.5 or before, including all 2.1.x, 2.0.x, and
    1.x versions, you should upgrade to the latest version in the 2.2 tree,
    2.2.6, as soon as possible. There are security issues with previous
    versions. You should not install previous versions.

    As of this writing (June 2003), our last official release (2.2.6) was
    some time ago and many features have been added since. We have not yet
    released 2.3.0. If you want to use more recent code, check out CVS
    versions from cvs.slashcode.com. If you are installing a new Slash site,
    you probably do not want to use the very latest CVS, but you probably do
    want to use the latest "R_" tag available in CVS. See "VERSIONS", "CVS
    tags", below, for advice on choosing and maintaining a CVS installation.

  Important Note
    We know you want to get right into the installation, but you probably
    want to read this whole document first. Notably, the software and
    hardware requirements are given later on in the "REQUIREMENTS" section,
    which you probably want to go read now, to check for potential problems.

    Also, you will find information on upgrading a Slash site (which can be
    tricky); uninstalling; and troubleshooting for common problems.

INSTALLATION
  Installation Notes
    *   For slashd (see utils/slash, which starts slashd), mod_perl (see
        httpd/httpd.conf), and MySQL, we set all processes to run in GMT.
        Then it is easy to convert dates to whatever the user's local time
        is. If you have date offset problems, check that all of these are
        properly set to run in GMT. Your server(s) do not actually need to
        have their operating systems set to GMT (ours aren't), but if you
        want to do that, it won't hurt anything.

    *   You cannot have different versions of the Slash modules installed
        for different sites on the same Apache server. (Well, if you want
        to, you can try the Apache::PerlVINC module, but this is not
        recommended for performance reasons. Slash is designed to have one
        shared core of code for all Slash sites on a system.)

    *   All of the installation steps below should be executed as root.

  Installation Procedure
    There are six steps to installation. Skip the parts you already have
    installed (making sure you have the correct versions). Make sure to read
    the special note about Apache / mod_perl installation.

    1.  Install MySQL.

        If it is already installed, doublecheck that its version is at least
        the minimum required (see "REQUIREMENTS"). If you have questions
        about the installation process, please refer to MySQL documentation.

        Slash requires that your MySQL server run in the GMT timezome. Find
        your global my.cnf file (probably "/etc/my.cnf" or
        "/etc/mysql/my.cnf"), locate the "[mysqld_safe]" (or
        "[safe_mysqld]") group, and add this line to it:

                timezone = GMT

        Start, or restart, MySQL (it must be running for the installation of
        Perl modules and Slash).

        Create a database to be used by Slash.

        Create a username/password that can access that database (by
        default, we normally set the user to have all permissions, but that
        might not be appropriate for your site; make sure that you have at
        least privileges to select, insert, update, delete, create, drop,
        index and alter).

    2.  Install perl.

        perl is likely already installed on your machine; doublecheck that
        its version is at least the minimum required (see "REQUIREMENTS").

    3.  Install Apache and mod_perl.

        You MUST install mod_perl and Apache as directed here. OK, that is
        not strictly true, but unless you really know what you're doing,
        just assume it's true. If you already have mod_perl installed, it is
        probably not configured properly to work with Slash and you will
        have to rebuild it.

        If you are using the provided httpd.conf file from the slash
        distribution, and find that Apache is giving you errors, chances are
        mod_perl is not installed correctly, and you need to build it from
        scratch. Not following this direction is one of the most common
        reasons we see for a Slash install not working.

        Of course, if you have your own Apache modules or build options, you
        will need to modify the instructions here appropriately.

        First, untar apache and mod_perl. Then, go to the mod_perl
        directory, and have mod_perl build and install apache for you:

                perl Makefile.PL APACHE_SRC=/where_you_have_the_source DO_HTTPD=1 \
                        USE_APACI=1 PERL_MARK_WHERE=1 EVERYTHING=1 \
                        APACHE_PREFIX=/where_apache_will_be_installed
                make
                make test
                make install

        NOTE: You may be unsuccessful with "make test" if the perl modules
        are not yet installed. However, some Perl modules will not install
        without Apache and mod_perl installed. If you wish, come back and
        run "make test" after installing here, and then installing the Perl
        modules, to make sure everything is OK.

        NOTE: If you know what you're doing, Slash will work with a DSO
        Apache. Be sure you're on the latest versions of Apache and mod_perl
        and remember PERL_MARK_WHERE=1 and EVERYTHING=1.

    4.  Install the Perl modules.

        Slash is powerful and complex, and, rather than reinvent the wheel,
        it often relies on CPAN modules. Open-source code reuse has many
        advantages. One disadvantage is that installing all those modules
        can be tricky, as you may be about to find out.

        You could install each module in Bundle/Slash.pm by hand, but this
        would be time-consuming. Instead, you'll want to install the bundle
        "Bundle::Slash" using CPAN.

            IMPORTANT NOTES (read through these first):

            Overall comment about CPAN module failure
                It is possible that upon typing "install Bundle::Slash", you
                will have one or more modules fail to install on the first
                try. The rest of the modules will be successfully installed
                but some won't. In that case you will want to fix the
                problems and retype "install Bundle::Slash" to make sure
                everything proceeds smoothly. Once that command gives you
                just a long list of "Foo::Bar is up to date," you are done.
                Until that point, you are not done; you must resolve the
                errors.

            Old Version of Bundle::Slash
                If you have previously installed Bundle::Slash, you will
                want to install it again, but you will need to delete the
                existing version. Go to your .cpan/Bundle directory (usually
                ~/.cpan/Bundle/) and remove Slash.pm.

            Overactive CPAN
                With some versions of the CPAN module, the module will try
                to download and install the latest version of Perl. Watch
                what the module is doing; if it begins to download an entire
                perl distribution, interrupt it (hit ctrl-C) until it stops,
                then try again with the CPAN module. This should not be an
                issue in the latest version of Bundle::Slash.

            Uninstalling Old Modules
                Sometimes, you will be installing a newer version of a
                module that exists elsewhere on the system. You probably
                want to tell the CPAN module to automatically remove older
                files. To do that from the CPAN shell, type:

                        cpan> o conf make_install_arg UNINST=1

                And if you want that to be CPAN's default from now on, add:

                        cpan> o conf commit

            Automatically Installing Dependencies
                Some of the modules in Bundle::Slash require other modules.
                We have not put some of those other modules in Bundle::Slash
                because, if those requirements change in the future, we
                don't want to make future Slash sites install more than they
                have to.

                If you see this:

                        ---- Unsatisfied dependencies detected during [FOO/Bar-1.23.tar.gz] -----
                            Foobar::Baz
                        Shall I follow them and prepend them to the queue
                        of modules we are processing right now? [yes]

                That's normal; just hit return.

                If it annoys you to have to do this, edit the
                "prerequisites_policy" field of your CPAN/Config.pm file.
                Or, just do this to change it to automatically follow
                dependencies and commit the change:

                        cpan> o conf prerequisites_policy follow
                        cpan> o conf commit

            Additional Libraries
                You must have certain libraries existing on your system
                before building, for Compress::Zlib and XML::Parser (see
                "REQUIREMENTS").

            BSD Systems
                If running BSD, also install the BSD::Resource module. We
                have heard reports of problems running Slash on BSD, but you
                are welcome to try; patches would be lovely.

            Alternate DBs
                Slash currently requires MySQL. While our design allows for
                supporting multiple DBs, actually supporting anything other
                than MySQL has fallen by the wayside since the release of
                Slash version 2.0. We have heard almost zero demand for any
                other database, and this isn't a feature we need ourselves,
                so it's not a high priority. Patches and feedback are, of
                course, always welcome.

            DBIx::Password
                When installing DBIx::Password, you will be asked for
                various information, the same information used to create the
                database and database user in Step 1. You will also be asked
                for a virtual user name, which will be the identifier for
                all of this data. You can just use the name of your site, or
                any other alphanumeric string. You will use this virtual
                user name in other places, so do not forget it. If you don't
                understand what you're doing here, don't fake it; this is a
                common reason we see for Slash installations failing.

            Documentation
                To read the README for any module, before or after
                installing:

                        cpan> readme MODULE

                To read the documentation of any of the modules, once they
                have been installed, type "perldoc MODULE" at the command
                line.

                See perlmodinstall for more information on installing perl
                modules.

        Now that you have read the above notes, you're ready to install the
        perl modules.

        To use the CPAN module, invoke the CPAN shell:

                perl -MCPAN -e shell

        (Or, you may have the unix command "cpan" already available, which
        does the same thing.)

        If this is the first time you've invoked CPAN, you will be asked to
        configure it.

        Next, install some important networking modules. Doing this first is
        optional but, if there are problems with these modules, you'll want
        to resolve them before moving on to the rest of the installation:

                cpan> install Bundle::LWP

        Make sure all those modules are installed and up to date before
        proceeding. Note that Net::Cmd has a history of being a little
        broken in its tests; if it fails on tests 8 and 9 of t/require, then
        it's OK; just do "force install Net::Cmd" and repeat "install
        Bundle::LWP".

        After the LWP has been installed and configured successfully, "exit"
        the CPAN, reinvoke it with the "perl -MCPAN -e shell" command, and
        install Bundle::Slash:

                cpan> install Bundle::Slash

        This will be a long process. Several modules will ask to be
        configured during this process. Here are some tips:

        DBI Don't worry about the threading warning.

        DBIx::Password
            See IMPORTANT NOTES above.

        Apache::Test and Apache::Cookie
            You will need "httpd" and "apxs" in your $PATH, and even if they
            are there, you will probably see the lengthy error that starts
            "Apache cannot spawn child processes as 'root'". This is
            because, ironically, Apache::Test's self-tests are a colossal
            pain to actually run. Personally I just "force install
            Apache::Cookie" which is lame but solves the problem.

        Template
            The Template Toolkit is a complex install. Try accepting all the
            defaults and see if it works. It has 90 test scripts with over
            2000 tests, and installation will be halted if just 1 of these
            tests fails. Do a "look Template" and try your best to resolve
            the issues. The README includes a URL to the mailing list
            archives, where you may find help. If you're getting 100 errors,
            you need to fix them, but if you're down to 1 or 2 you can't
            fix, we suggest you make a note of what the failures were and
            just "force install Template".

        If you have problems, feel free to re-run "install Bundle::Slash".
        It will safely skip anything already installed.

        If you are feeling lucky and are in a big hurry, you might try
        "force install Bundle::Slash", which will skip all tests for all
        modules -- but if you do this and later things start to fail, you're
        on your own, don't complain.

        Again: once you are able to do "install Bundle::Slash" and see
        nothing but a long list of modules that are "up to date," you are
        done. Until you see that, you are not done with this step!

        If you wish to take full advantage of Slash, there are some plugins
        not installed and vars not turned on by default, which provide
        additional features, improve performance, or help in testing, which
        require additional perl modules and sometimes non-perl libraries.
        See the listing at the bottom of Bundle/Slash.pm, and see also the
        tips in plugins/Admin/README, plugins/HumanConf/INSTALL-NOTES, and
        plugins/Stats/README.

    5.  Install Slash.

        Unpack the distribution and go to the new directory that creates,
        and type:

                make
                make install

        Note: you will want the GNU versions of fileutils (version 4.0
        recommended, for cp and install) and make. Older versions of
        install, and make and cp from other systems, might not work.

        There are a few options to "make" and "make install" you may want to
        change.

                option          default                 purpose
                ==========================================================
                SLASH_PREFIX    /usr/local/slash        Location for
                                                        installed files
                INIT            /etc or /etc/rc.d       Location for init
                                                        scripts
                USER            nobody                  User to own files
                GROUP           nobody                  Group to own files
                CP              cp                      Name of or path to
                                                        alternate `cp`
                INSTALL         install                 Name of or path to
                                                        alternate `install`

        (USER and GROUP will also be changed later on a per-site basis, in
        step 6. while running install-slashsite.)

        So, for example, you might type (although the default SLASH_PREFIX
        is *strongly* recommended):

                make SLASH_PREFIX=/home/slash
                make install SLASH_PREFIX=/home/slash

        When done, a configuration file for Apache will be created at
        $SLASH_PREFIX/httpd/slash.conf. You can put its contents into your
        httpd.conf, or you can just "Include" it in your httpd.conf. You
        must do one or the other!

        WARNING!

        Please be aware that if you include $SLASH_PREFIX/slash.conf or
        $SLASH_PREFIX/sites/sitename/sitename.conf more than once, or if
        this file shares contents with directives in httpd.conf, that your
        Slash site WILL break. The directives in $SLASH_PREFIX/slash.conf
        should be run only ONCE in any any site context. Read through
        $SLASH_PREFIX/slash.conf to make sure it all looks proper.

    6.  Install your Slash site.

        Go to your installation directory (by default, /usr/local/slash) and
        execute (where "VIRTUAL_USER" is the name of the virtual user given
        in the DBIx::Password distribution):

                bin/install-slashsite -u VIRTUAL_USER

        The program will prompt for answers to several configuration
        questions. Answer the questions. When done, another configuration
        file will be created at $SLASH_PREFIX/$SITENAME/$SITENAME.conf. You
        can put its contents unto your httpd.conf, or you can just "Include"
        it in your httpd.conf.

        NOTE: Read the message printed at the end of running
        install_slashsite. Failure to pay attention here is another common
        reason we see for Slash installations not working.

    7.  Start it up.

        After installation of the site is done, and Apache has been stopped
        and started (do not try to "restart" Apache, but rather do a full
        stop and start), then run slashd. This should be done via the init
        script:

                /etc/init.d/slash start

        slashd is the daemon that runs routine maintenance on Slash sites,
        including sending out daily mailings, cleaning up the database, and
        updating stories. The init script above will start up an individual
        slashd daemon process process for each installed site.

INSTALLATION OPTIONS
  Multiple Servers
    You can, of course, have a separate database server from your Slash
    server. Further, you can have multiple web servers for one Slash site.
    Slashdot, for instance, has one primary server with all of the code
    (Apache, perl, etc.), and it runs slashd and NFS. Each web server then
    mounts the code read-only over NFS. Some notes:

    *   Make sure the MySQL server allows the user to log in from each web
        server, and the NFS server.

    *   Make sure, if you use the same httpd tree on all machines, that the
        httpd.conf is listening to the proper IP addresses. This can be done
        by putting all of the IP addresses in the conf file, or by having a
        separate Listen file on each machine. Similarly, make sure that each
        web server's logfiles unique to each machine, not written to the NFS
        volumes.

  Virtual Hosts
    Slash has support for virtual hosts, so you can have multiple Slash
    sites on one machine. Simply execute step 6 in the install process for
    each Slash site (after adding a new virtual user to DBIx::Password for
    each).

  SSL
    In Slash, there are two variables for the root URL of the site.
    absolutedir is the full URL, including protocol, while rootdir is the
    URL without protocol:

            absolutedir     http://slashcode.com
            rootdir         //slashcode.com

    absolutedir is used only for creating external links to the site (such
    as in RSS files). rootdir is used for internal links; that way, you can
    use the same HTML pages for SSL and non-SSL. You don't have to do
    anything special to the code or preferences to allow it to work with SSL
    by itself, SSL and non-SSL together, or non-SSL by itself.

  Non-Root
    It is possible to install and run everything here without root.

    It is not easy. If you don't know your flavor of unix intimately, we
    don't recommend trying this.

    Describing the process for a non-root install would take up significant
    space and time, having to account for differences in various systems,
    and all the workarounds necessary for it to work. We don't support it,
    and we're not going to document it.

    If you must have a non-root install, consult the various documentation
    for Apache, MySQL, and perl about running and installing without root
    access. Then, for Slash, you need to set the make variables PREFIX,
    SLASH_PREFIX, and INIT appropriately for your needs.

    Note: Slash sites (or, more accurately, Apache + mod_perl and MySQL)
    take up a lot of system resources. It is *not advisable* for anyone to
    run Slash on any system, without the permission of the administrator of
    that system.

  Separate Image Server
    Those of you with infinite RAM will have no problems hosting as many
    Slash sites as you want on a single box running just Apache. Those whose
    RAM is limited may be able to keep your MaxClients down to a reasonable
    level to avoid going into swap, and still not lock clients out of your
    website, by using a separate webserver process to deliver your images.

    This is possible with any website, of course, not just a Slash site, but
    because Slash's httpd clients all have mod_perl, a lot of perl modules,
    and a lot of templates all compiled into RAM, they are especially heavy.
    While serving an image may take only a few milliseconds, which would you
    rather have tied up on your computer for those milliseconds, 25 MB of
    RAM or 5 MB?

    Slashdot, and some other Slash sites we're hosting, are currently using
    boa 0.94.14rc17 (http://www.boa.org/) for images. Boa is fast and has a
    small footprint. It's easy to build ("./configure && make") but you have
    to install it yourself by copying the binary and mkdir'ing a little tree
    wherever you want it. We did roughly this. Your mileage may vary. This
    sets up an alternate server just for images on port 8080, and sets
    Slash's imagedir var to point to it. Your apache will still serve images
    at the old URLs if anyone requests them, but nobody will, because your
    site's pages will all point to boa:

            # Install boa and set up its files.
            cd /usr/local/src/boa-0.94.14rc17
            ./configure && make
            mkdir /usr/local/boa
            mkdir /usr/local/boa/bin
            mkdir /usr/local/boa/htdocs
            cp -a src/{boa,boa_indexer,webindex.pl} /usr/local/boa/bin/
            ln -s /usr/local/slash/site/mysite/htdocs/images /usr/local/boa/htdocs/images.mysite.com
            touch /usr/local/boa/htdocs/favicon.ico

            # Set up and edit boa conf file.
            cp examples/boa.conf /usr/local/boa/
            # At this point we patched /usr/local/boa/boa.conf, changing
            # Port to 8080, ServerName to www.mysite.com, DocumentRoot to
            # /usr/local/boa/htdocs, and commenting out the DirectoryIndex,
            # DirectoryMaker, Alias and ScriptAlias directives.

            # Start boa.
            /usr/local/boa/bin/boa

            # In mysql client:
            # UPDATE vars SET value='//www.mysite.com:8080/images.mysite.com' WHERE name='imagedir';
            # UPDATE stories SET writestatus='dirty';

            # Restart apache, slashd;  let slashd rewrite .shtml files both
            # recent and archived.

    You'll probably also want to create a script in your init.d and rcN.d
    directories so boa runs at startup along with apache.

UPGRADING
    These upgrade procedures are still in testing. Please read them entirely
    before beginning. We are not responsible for any loss of data or
    functionality.

  Slash 1.0 -> Slash 2.2
    You've got a site running Slash 1.0, from 2001? We're so sorry to hear
    that.

    Please read the complete documentation of utils/slash1toslash2.2. We
    believe it will convert your database from Slash 1.0 to a new Slash 2.2
    database, but it hasn't been tested in some time. The program
    documentation (which can be read with perldoc) details exactly what
    process it follows to do the conversion, so you can attempt to do it by
    hand if you prefer.

  Slash 2.0 -> Slash 2.2
    Slash 2.2 is a major upgrade from Slash 2.0. It takes a little bit of
    work to get it going.

    1.  BACK EVERYTHING UP ON THE EXISTING SITE.

    2.  Install Bundle::Slash. If you have done so previously, follow the
        instructions for removing the existing version of Bundle::Slash
        before proceeding.

    3.  Apply this patch to your installed Slash::Install module (probably
        easiest to hand-edit the file):

          --- Install.pm~ Wed May  9 15:02:34 2001
          +++ Install.pm  Fri Sep 28 12:44:41 2001
          @@ -116,7 +116,7 @@
           sub writeTemplateFile {
                  my($self, $filename, $template) = @_;
                  open(FILE, '>' . $filename) or die "$! unable to open file $filename to write to";
          -       for (keys %$template) {
          +       for (qw(section description title page lang name template seclev)) {
                          next if ($_ eq 'tpid');
                          print FILE "__${_}__\n";
                          $template->{$_} =~ s/\015\012/\n/g;

    4.  Run "template-check" on your site, and make a note of every change
        you've made to the standard templates. You will need to make those
        changes again, manually, later.

        This is unfortunately unavoidable, because templates include code
        that changes significantly between releases. It is recommended that
        you compile your changes into a THEME so they may easily be updated
        and applied.

    5.  Stop Apache and slashd on the target machine(s).

    6   Install Slash.

        If installing on a different machine ...

        1   Install slash 2.2 as normal. Do not yet run install-slashsite.

        2   Make sure that from this machine, you can access not only the
            database used for this installation, but the one used for the
            old installation. You may wish to, instead of accessing that
            database directly if it on another machine, dumping it and
            adding it to your new database server under a different name.

        3   Add a virtual user to DBIx::Password for the old installation.

        If installing on the same machine ...

        1   Create a new database for the new installation. You cannot use
            the same database for both installations.

        2   Add a new virtual user to DBIx::Password for the new database,
            and update (and flush) MySQL privileges appropriately. You
            cannot use the same virtual user for both installations.

        3   It is highly recommended that you move /usr/local/slash (or
            whatever your installation directory is) to a new location, such
            as /usr/local/slash-old, and install a clean slash 2.2
            installation. However, this is not necessary to do; you may
            install slash 2.2 on top of the slash 2.0 installation.

            The reason to not move anything is that you can keep any
            customizations done (images, additional scripts and plugins,
            static files, etc.). The reason to move it is so that everything
            is clean. It is highly recommended that you move it, and then
            manually copy back the pieces you want.

        4   In any event, either move the old directory, or don't, and then
            install slash 2.2 as normal. Do not yet run install-slashsite.

    7.  If you have plugins or themes from the old installation to install,
        copy them over now. Warning: some plugins and themes might need to
        be ported first. You may wish to deal with them later if they are
        not yet ported to slash 2.2.

    8.  Run install-slashsite. Use the new virtual user.

    9.  Copy over any files (images, FAQs, etc.) that need to be copied, if
        necessary.

    10. Run update script, utils/slash2toslash2.2. Read its instructions!

    11. Update templates.

    12. Doublecheck Apache configs (httpd/slash.conf,
        site/sitename/sitename.conf). These configs have changed from the
        last version. Read the comments and set them up as desired.

    13. Start Apache.

    14. Start slashd.

  Slash 2.2.x -> Slash 2.2.y
    Read all of this section before doing any of it.

    The first thing to do is to, as per the instructions below under
    INSTALLATION, unpack the latest distribution and run make and make
    install with the proper arguments.

    Overwriting Changes
        This process will overwrite any customizations of your installed
        modules, or customizations of the installed scripts in
        /usr/local/slash/themes/ and /usr/local/slash/plugins/ (for themes
        and plugins that come with Slash). If you ran install-slashsite with
        the default option of using symlinks, and made customizations to the
        originals instead of breaking the symlink and copying the file over,
        then this will overwrite your changes.

        If you did modify the original instead of a copy, then break the
        symlink, copy over the original (as modified), and then continue.
        The original will be copied over by the new version, and your
        modified copy will remain intact.

    Templates
        With every update, there are changes to templates. But most people
        will modify their templates. A relatively simple way to see what has
        changed is to use template-tool and template-check. This procedure
        should help most users deal with the integration of new templates
        into an existing site (it will only work with the slashcode theme,
        but a simple modification to the code of template-check can fix
        that).

        Dump
            Use template-tool to dump your templates into an empty
            directory.

                    % mkdir templates
                    % cd templates
                    % template-tool -u VIRTUAL_USER -d

            (Defaults to current directory.)

        Compare
            Use template-check to compare installed templates in
            /usr/local/slash/themes/slashcode/ and /usr/local/slash/plugins/
            against the templates that have been dumped.

                    % template-check -u VIRTUAL_USER

            (Defaults to current directory.)

            This will use diff to show you the differences. You can either
            go into the templates with a text editor (in another window) and
            change the dumped ones by hand, edit them by hand in the
            Template Editor via the web browser, or take a note of every
            template you want to copy over your existing template.

            After each directory of templates is done, hit "q" to continue
            to the next plugin/theme.

        Sync
            If you made changes by hand via the web, you are done.
            Otherwise, take the list of templates to update, and pass the
            full filenames to template-tool (this will either be the
            templates you modified by hand in the dump directory, or the
            unmodified ones in the installation directories). You might need
            to put each filename in quotes because of the ";" character in
            the filenames. This will overwrite your existing template with
            the new template.

                    % template-tool -u VIRTUAL_USER -s LIST

  Slash 2.2.6 -> Slash CVS
    Use the sql/mysql/upgrades file; see "VERSIONS", "CVS tags", below. This
    file is human-readable and very long. You can upgrade a 2.2.6 to the
    latest CVS by methodically applying every step in this file, but it is
    tedious and requires an engaged human brain reading the comments (i.e.,
    don't "mysql slash < upgrades", that will fail miserably).

  Slash CVS -> later Slash CVS
    Again, use the sql/mysql/upgrades file (and the caveat just mentioned
    still applies). Start from the CVS tag you left off at, and proceed to
    the CVS tag you upgraded to (which should be the end of the file). If
    you're not sure which tag you left off at, you might check the var
    'cvs_tag_currentcode', which will contain the right value if you last
    updated after September 2005.

    In general, you should stop apache and slashd, do a "make install",
    apply the upgrades file a line at a time for each Slash site, run
    "template-tool -U -u virtusename" and "symlink-tool -U -u virtusername"
    for each Slash site, and then start slashd and apache back up.

REQUIREMENTS
  Software Requirements
    Below, we list the main software components needed. The recommended
    version is noted, along with the earliest version that has been tested
    (or is expected) to work. The earliest versions are not recommended or
    supported, but should work.

    perl
        Version 5.8.6 (5.6.1).

                http://www.cpan.org/

    MySQL
        Version 4.1.18 (4.0.12).

                http://www.mysql.com/

        MySQL 3.23.x is no longer supported, as of CVS tag T_2_5_0_33
        (October 18, 2004). Slashdot has been running on MySQL 4.1.x with no
        problems, so we now recommend that, but 4.0.x works as well. We have
        been testing 5.0.x for months but currently, no production sites run
        it.

    Apache
        Version 1.3.33.

                http://httpd.apache.org/

        Since most of Apache 1.3.x's recent releases included security
        fixes, we wouldn't recommend running an earlier version. As far as
        we know, Slash is not compatible with Apache 2.x.

    mod_perl
        Version 1.29.

                http://perl.apache.org/

    memcached
        Memcached is not required, but more and more, we are adding
        optimizations to Slash which take load off your database. If you are
        concerned about performance, this is one of the first options to
        install.

                http://www.danga.com/memcached/

    Sendmail or other transport daemon
        Refer to your OS distribution.

    Perl module distributions
        See http://search.cpan.org/ and http://www.cpan.org/ to get each
        module individually; however, we recommend you download them using
        the CPAN module. (See "INSTALLATION", item 4, "Install the Perl
        modules.")

        The latest version of each module is recommended.

        For Compress::Zlib, the zlib development library is required. For
        XML::Parser, the expat library is required. If they are not present
        on the system already, download and install them before installing
        the modules.

                http://www.gzip.org/zlib/
                http://sf.net/projects/expat/

        On Debian Linux, try:

                apt-get install zlib1g zlib1g-dev libexpat1 libexpat1-dev

        The current list of required perl modules can be found in the
        Bundle/Slash.pm file. At its end we also list optional modules,
        which may be required depending on your setup.

  Hardware Requirements
    There are no specific hardware requirements.

    Slash is designed to work well on multi-machine setups, with one or more
    webheads that are separate from one or more MySQL DB machines. But for
    low-load sites (1-5 pages/sec or slower), it can probably be run OK on a
    single machine.

    Apache (with mod_perl) and MySQL both take up a lot of RAM. Running a
    complete system with 128MB might be possible, if you do some tuning of
    the configuration, but a practical minimum of 256MB is recommended, and
    you will be much happier with at least 1GB of RAM. See "INSTALLATION
    OPTIONS", "Separate Image Server" for tips on saving some RAM.

    Disk space depends on how busy you expect the site to be. Slash keeps a
    small database -- even Slashdot.org's DB compresses down to under 2 GB.
    The disk files as installed are under 0.5 GB, and grow predictably as
    stories and comments are added (keep an eye on the site/foo/logs/
    directory, too). A minimum of 1 GB of disk is recommended.

    Necessary processor speed is also dependent on how busy the site is. A
    Pentium II/400 equivalent is recommended, but obviously, the faster the
    better.

    For the curious, Slashdot (as of September 2001) runs on nine machines:
    nine webservers (each is Pentium III/600, 1GB RAM, 9GB hard drive), one
    NFS server (600MHz PIII, 1GB RAM), and three database servers (quad
    600MHz PIII, 4GB RAM). One database server is live, one is a replicated
    backup, and a third is for doing live searches and performance-intensive
    SELECTs by daemons etc.

    However, this is certainly overkill for most sites (and possibly even
    overkill for Slashdot). slashcode.com runs on two web servers and one
    NFS/database server. Many sites can run fine on just one machine for
    everything (we use a minimum of two web server machines on every site
    for load balancing and redundancy).

VERSIONS
    Each version of slash has a code name, and the files on CVS for that
    version are tagged with that name. The current release is always MAIN.
    The versioning scheme is as Linux and Perl are,
    revision.version.subversion. version is even for releases, and odd for
    development. The codename applies to the development version and
    subsequent release.

    For example, 1.0.11 is a normal release, while 1.1.0 is the first
    development release for what will be the next release (either 1.2 or
    2.0).

    The CVS repository is tagged with version numbers, so to get release
    1.0.3, use tag "v1_0_3_0". The last number (in this case a zero) will be
    incremented during development ("v1_0_3_1", "v1_0_3_2", etc.) until the
    next release.

  Codenames
    v1.0
        beast

    v2.0
        bender

    v2.2
        fry

  Security note
    We are no longer releasing bugfixes, even for security, for the 1.0 or
    2.0 versions, and do not recommend their use. If we become aware of
    security issues in the 2.2 tree, we will release another version. For
    this reason, if you are using any version of Slash in 2.2.x or earlier,
    we recommend you upgrade to the latest version of 2.2, which as of this
    writing (June 2003) is 2.2.6.

  CVS tags
    Our development of 2.3/2.4 has gone on exceptionally long without a
    tarball release of 2.3.0. Most Slash hosting sites are choosing to
    follow CVS instead of waiting, and we encourage this.

    Installation of the latest CVS (as of June 2003) is almost identical to
    the installation of 2.2.

    You probably do not want to use the very latest CVS, as the Slash
    developers are constantly updating it. If you wish to live on the edge,
    try a T_2_3_0_x tag ("Testing in 2.3.0 branch" -- one or two of these
    are added every week, Slashdot uses them, but they may have bugs). If
    you are content with recent code that the developers believe is likely
    to be free of major bugs, look for a recent R_2_3_0_x cvs tag ("Release
    candidates for 2.3.0").

    To upgrade from 2.2.x to the CVS tree, you will need to follow the
    instructions in the sql/mysql/upgrades file. At the moment, these are
    just SQL commands you will need to issue, but read carefully because you
    may have to use judgement and issue command-line commands and so on. (We
    are working on a tool to automate this process.) Once you are upgraded
    to, or have installed, a given CVS tag, upgrading to later CVS tags is
    simply a matter of following along in that file -- we append as we go,
    and each T_* tag is clearly marked.

TROUBLESHOOTING COMMON INSTALLATION PROBLEMS
    Here are some common reasons why Slash installations fail.

    *   Failure to build mod_perl with PERL_MARK_WHERE=1 EVERYTHING=1.

        We emphasize this in the instructions for a reason. Go back and
        reread the Installation Procedure, step 3.

    *   Perl module installation troubles.

        If you have a unix-like system with CPAN properly installed and no
        serious firewall issues, perl module installation will usually go
        pretty smoothly. Some modules will have overactive testing code; for
        example, if your system lacks "nslookup", some of the net-related
        modules will complain and refuse to install themselves even though
        it isn't strictly speaking necessary. If you suspect overactive
        testing, "force install Foo::Bar" for the offending module and then
        try "install Bundle::Slash" again.

        We list perl 5.6.0 as supported, but 5.6.1 is recommended. If you're
        having CPAN installation troubles, upgrading to the latest version
        will make life easier. Note that you'll want to recompile
        mod_perl/Apache after upgrading perl.

    *   Multiple Perls installed.

        If you have more than one binary file named "perl", trouble awaits.
        It's OK to have a "/usr/bin/perl5.00503" even after installing
        5.6.1, but if your "/usr/bin/perl" is a different version from
        "/usr/local/bin/perl", you may be in for a world of hurt.

    *   httpd.conf errors.

        After you "install-slashsite", you're told that you probably want to
        add "Include /usr/local/slash/httpd/slash.conf" to its httpd.conf.
        Note that that file Include's your site-specific conf file at
        /usr/local/slash/site/sitename/sitename.conf. One way or another
        those site-specific directives have to be processed by Apache.

        Are you doing virtual hosting? Make sure you've set it up correctly.

    *   Database authentication issues.

        For each dynamic page your Slash site delivers, an Apache httpd
        child needs to connect to your MySQL server. There's a chain of
        access to get from Apache to MySQL and a number of places where it
        can break:

        *   The Apache child httpd process needs to have read access to your
            DBIx/Password.pm module file. That process is probably running
            as "nobody:nobody" (or similar). If you don't know where
            DBIx/Password.pm was installed, try:

            # perl -MDBIx::Password -le 'print $INC{"DBIx/Password.pm"}'

            If that fails, it's probably not installed; check also

            # locate DBIx/Password.pm | grep perl

            Make sure the module is installed and that "nobody:nobody" can
            read its .pm file. If you've sharing that file over the network,
            did you set up ownership correctly?

            (If you are concerned about security on a multiuser system,
            first, don't let people on your system you don't trust, and
            second, you may wish to chmod DBIx/Password.pm 750, give it a
            group, and set Apache to run with that group.)

        *   The DBIx/Password.pm file needs to be correctly configured. Open
            it up with a text editor and make sure $virtual1 contains an
            entry for your Slash virtual user that is correct in every
            respect: driver, (MySQL) username, database, password, host, and
            connect string. These are the values you typed in when you
            installed the module but maybe you made a typo.

            If you have only one machine for your whole setup, host can be
            "localhost". Otherwise use an IP number.

        *   Network connectivity.

            Can the Apache machine connect to the MySQL machine?

        *   MySQL permissions.

            The username field in your DBIx/Password.pm file refers to a
            MySQL user which you set up in step 1 of the Installation
            Procedure. Make sure this user has permission to connect to the
            Slash site's database you also set up in step 1 (and check it
            from the Apache machine over the network too). If you don't
            fully understand MySQL permissions, don't guess; start your
            reading here:

            http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_MySQL_
            Database_Administration.html#Privilege_system

        *   mod_gzip

            Are you finding that POST operations fail? Have you compiled in
            mod_gzip? mod_gzip 1.3.19.1a doesn't handle incoming POST very
            well, with the result that our User.pm handler() gets called
            twice, and the second time through, there's no more data on
            STDIN, so your form is empty. We use this patch to make it
            ignore POSTs:

                    --- mod_gzip_BROKEN_FOR_POST.c  2003-09-26 14:26:36.000000000 -0700
                    +++ mod_gzip.c                  2003-10-06 11:39:45.000000000 -0700
                    @@ -2155,12 +2155,15 @@
                         ap_table_setn( r->notes,"mod_gzip_result",ap_pstrdup(r->pool,"DECLINED:UNHANDLED_REDIR"));
                        }
                      else
                        {
                         ap_table_setn( r->notes,"mod_gzip_result",ap_pstrdup(r->pool,"DECLINED:INIT1"));
                        }
                    +   if ( r->method_number == M_POST ) {
                    +       return DECLINED;
                    +   }

                      ap_table_setn( r->notes,"mod_gzip_input_size", ap_pstrdup(r->pool,"0"));
                      ap_table_setn( r->notes,"mod_gzip_output_size",ap_pstrdup(r->pool,"0"));
                      ap_table_setn( r->notes,"mod_gzip_compression_ratio",ap_pstrdup(r->pool,"0"));

                      #endif

            Or just use mod_gzip 1.3.26.1a and omit POST from the list of
            methods it handles, in your httpd.conf:

                    mod_gzip_handle_methods GET

    *   Make sure you don't confuse the different types of "users":

        *   Apache user -- a unix system user account, e.g. "nobody";

        *   DBIx::Password virtual user -- SlashVirtualUser directive;

        *   MySQL user -- DBIx::Password virtual user field, points to a
            database user.

        If slashd doesn't seem to be working, check its log and make sure it
        has permission to write its files. It is probably running as your
        Apache user "nobody", and if that user doesn't have write permission
        to your web directories and/or .shtml and .rss files and so on,
        slashd's current behavior is to log an error and die. (If you want
        to make slashd run as a different unix system user, edit the second
        field in "/usr/local/slash/slash.sites".)

    If you've doublechecked all this, you're sure you followed the
    directions, and it still doesn't work, stop in IRC #slash on
    irc.slashcode.com and ask your question. Someone there may know the
    answer.

    If you are trying to install Slash from someone else's package, maybe a
    BSD package, or an RPM that someone built, or by a Debian apt-get
    command -- good luck to you, we hope it goes well, we love packages,
    they're great when they work. But if installation fails, complain to the
    package maintainers, not us. For those who download our tarball and
    follow our instructions carefully, installation should go smoothly.

UNINSTALLING
    If you want to uninstall a site, there are two steps you must follow:

    1.  Stop slashd with "/etc/init.d/slash stop" ("/etc/rc.d/init.d/slash
        stop" for Red Hat systems). Then edit "/usr/local/slash/slash.sites"
        to remove the line referencing the site you wish to uninstall. Then
        restart slashd with "/etc/init.d/slash start".

    2.  Edit your Apache httpd.conf file so that the directives for the
        site's VirtualHost are not included. If you did the standard
        install, that file probably "Include"s
        "/usr/local/slash/httpd/slash.conf", which "Include"s
        "/usr/local/slash/yoursitename/yoursitename.conf", so you'll want to
        delete or comment out the "Include" line in the file
        "/usr/local/slash/httpd/slash.conf". Restart Apache with
        "/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl stop ; sleep 10 ;
        /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl start".

    There are also five optional steps you may follow:

    3.  Back up your site's database, if it has anything you care about:
        "mysqldump -umysqlusername -p sitedatabasename >
        /some/dir/sitedb.sql".

    4.  Drop your site's database: "echo DROP DATABASE sitedatabasename |
        mysql -umysqlusername -p".

    5.  Remove the virtual user for your site's database from the
        DBIx::Password file, whose location you can probably find with:

        # perl -MDBIx::Password -le 'print $INC{"DBIx/Password.pm"}'

    6.  Back up your site's html documents, if you care about any of them:
        "cp -pvR /usr/local/slash/site/yoursitename/htdocs
        /some/dir/htdocs".

    7.  Delete your site's directory tree: "rm -rf
        /usr/local/slash/site/yoursitename".

VERSION
    $Id: INSTALL,v 1.43 2006/02/26 21:30:40 jamiemccarthy Exp $

