Howto install a multitiki on a GForged Sever

by Xavier de Pedro. October'2004.

Introduction

I'll explain how I did install Tiki (1.8.4) on a server with GForge, and also two more tiki sites using its multi-install capability. In my case, I installed them on http://ourproject.org (op.o), which offers free hosting for free projects (with copylefted content). So these steps can be followed easily there, and I guess that they are reproducible at any GForge'd server (version 3 or later).

Specific details of a GForged server

We have to take into account some specificities of a GForged server:

1. For a multitiki install, there is a slightly different procedure than the one described in RecipeMultitiki, on InstallVirtualHosting, because with GForge, there is no need of root access to touch any httpd.conf.
   .
2. If we consider, for instance, a parent tiki site called "myproject" and installed at URL http://myproject.ourproject.org, the URL of the multitiki child sites (for instance, site1, site2...) are of the form:
   • http://myproject.site1.ourproject.org ,
   • http://myproject.site2.ourproject.org ...
     (instead of the common names for virtual hosting:
     http://site1.myproject.ourproject.org,
     http://site2.myproject.ourproject.org, ...).
   
   .
3. The op.o GForged server allows users to connect through SSH to execute commands, to the path (for a user called "userX"):
   
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   /var/lib/gforge/chroot/home/users/userX/

   
   And the project, called "myproject", is created at:
   
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   /var/lib/gforge/chroot/home/groups/myproject/

Setup of the new subdirectories in the multitiki

We'll assume that you already have an account at any Gforge'd server (such as op.o)

1. Download Tiki to your local computer.
   .
2. Open a SSH file transfer connection to the Gforge'd server
   .
3. Upload the file containing tiki install, and follow the common procedures described under the file "install" for a common single tiki install on Unix, except that permissions to directories have to be set, as far as I know, as 777 (permission to read execute and write to other users and groups in the server), instead of 755 or 775, as reported in other places in tw.o.
   .
   (if no success, get more information from InstallTiki to solve the problem that may have risen).
4. So that once you have your base tiki up and running, you have to execute again the setup command from the base directory where you installed tiki in (in my case, under /var/lib/gforge/chroot/home/groups/myproject/htdocs/ ):
   1. Log in again (if needed) to your gforged server account, using a ssh enabled program (such as Putty for Linux or M$ Window$, or Secure Shell for non commercial users on M$ Window$)
      You should be in your home directory, like
      
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      /var/lib/gforge/chroot/home/users/userX/

   2. Move to the directory of your project "myproject", and execute the command
      
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      cd ../..
      cd /groups/myproject/htdocs/
      ./setup.sh userX groupX 02777 site1 site2

   
   where userX is the name of the user, and groupX is the name of the project (groupX=myproject)
   (in a similar manner to what is explained in InstallVirtualHosting)
   .

Creation of the new databases

Request your GForge'd server admin to create the two new databases for you (assume names ddbb1 and ddbb2).

Configuration of the database information on Tiki

1. In a similar manner to what is explained in RecipeMultitiki, the local.php file must be modified to be like:
   
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   <?php
   $db_tiki='mysql';
   $dbversion_tiki='1.8';
   $host_tiki="localhost";
   $user_tiki="userX";
   $pass_tiki="****";
   
   if ($_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"] == "myproject.ourproject.org") {
   	$dbs_tiki    = 'ddbb0';
   	$tikidomain  = '';
   } elseif ($_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"] == "myproject.site1.ourproject.org") {
   	$dbs_tiki    = 'ddbb1';
   	$tikidomain  = 'site1';
   } elseif ($_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"] == "myproject.site2.ourproject.org") {
   	$dbs_tiki    = 'ddbb2';
   	$tikidomain  = 'site2';
   } else {
   	// default case, your choice is to block or open to a default domain
   	$dbs_tiki    = 'myproject';
   	$tikidomain  = '';
   }
   ?>

Fill in the databases of the child tikis

1. If needed, place a copy of tiki-install.php again under your base htdocs directory (normally it's deleted or renamed for security reasons after your first tiki installation, whenever it was).
2. Call to tiki-install.php from your favourite browser at your site1, such as:
   
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   http://myproject.site1.ourproject.org/tiki-install.php

   
   And follow the steps of the web installation assistant, creating a ddbb with, for instance, a BasicEnabled profile for easy use.
   Hopefully everything would be executed successfully 😊
3. Click on Click here to proceed into tiki without removing the script
   • Check that your base child tiki is installed successfully.
4. And go for the second child tiki (site2), repeating from step 2 to fill the second database (ddbb2), at
   
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   http://myproject.site2.ourproject.org/tiki-install.php

5. Then you can (and must) remove or rename the tiki-install.php script, and enter the second child tiki site. If the browser does not remove autmoatically the tiki-install.php script, the do it manually, from /var/lib/gforge/chroot/home/groups/myproject/htdocs/, with the command:
   
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   mv ./tiki-install.php ./tiki-install.done

And that should be it!😀

In case this brief tutorial was useful to anybody, I would appreciate receiving comments on this page. 😉

Bug on Tiki 1.8.4 related to a multitiki configured like in this example