Difference between revisions of "Setting up Elgg VM on CedeusGeoNode"

Revision as of 15:41, 12 September 2014

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Elgg VM setup

1. copying basicubunutu1404.vdi file and renaming to elgg.vdi
2. creating the tilestream VM on CedeusDB (ip.18):
   • VBoxManage createvm --name elgg --ostype Ubuntu_64 --register
   • VBoxManage modifyvm elgg --memory 4096
   • VBoxManage modifyvm elgg --cpus 4
   • VBoxManage modifyvm elgg --nic1 nat
   • VBoxManage storagectl elgg --name "SATA Controller" --add sata --controller IntelAhci
   • assign the (old) disk image a new uuid

     VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid elgg.vdi

   • attach the (old) disk image:

     VBoxManage storageattach "elgg" --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium elgg.vdi

   • VBoxManage storagectl elgg --name "IDE Controller" --add ide --controller PIIX4
   • set the nat rules (ports):

     VBoxManage modifyvm elgg --natpf1 "ssh,tcp,,15022,,22"

     VBoxManage modifyvm elgg --natpf1 "apache,tcp,,15080,,80"

3. optional - set VRDE port:
   • VBoxManage modifyvm elgg --vrdeport 7765 (Note: 3389 is the default port anyway)
4. start the VM

   VBoxHeadless -s elgg --vrde on &

   the VM will listen on port 7765

5. The following step do not seem to be necessary with Ubuntu 14.04 and new VirtualBox - however, are necesary for 12.04. But if so: connect with VRD and adjust network card settings (remember the existing VM have an old password)
   • open /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and comment out existing network adapters
   • reboot
   • check if ssh connection works
6. change the computers name in /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname
7. restarting Apache gives the error message: "apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 ..."

=> solve this by adding ServerName elgg as the last line in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file

Elgg Setup

General Docs: http://learn.elgg.org/en/latest/

Install docs:

• http://learn.elgg.org/en/latest/intro/install.html and http://learn.elgg.org/en/latest/intro/install.html#ubuntu-linux
• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-setup-elgg-on-a-debian-or-ubuntu-vps--2

• Elgg needs LAMPS (MySQL 5+, PHP 5.3.3+), so:
• check what software packages are installed on the VM with dpkg -l

=> looks like 14.04 comes with MySQL 5.5 and PHP 5.5

• however, I am missing php5 gd lib, so lets (re-)install the bunch of libs

sudo apt-get install php5 php5-gd php-xml-parser php5-mysql

• Apache rewrite module should be enabled too

sudo a2enmod rewrite

• downnload Elgg from http://elgg.org/download.php => I downloaded 1.8.19, the latest available and stable (= non RC) version
• unzip and place in www folder of server

unzip elggXXX

mv elggXXX elgg (i.e. rename folder)

sudo cp -r elgg /var/www/html/ (copy folder to www/html to be accessible for Ubuntu 14.04)

• create a data folder outside of /www or /public_html and make it accessible via for elgg:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /elggdata

=> www-data is apache's user that writes to file system. The above command grants apache ownership of the data directory.

• create a database for elgg:

mysql -u root -p (pw 20...s)

CREATE DATABASE elgg;

CREATE USER elgguser IDENTIFIED BY 'elggpassword'; -- (elggpwd: elggc...s) -- perhaps may be better to use CREATE USER 'elgguser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'elggpasswd';

GRANT ALL ON elgg.* TO elgguser;

\q

• to be enable .htaccess in document root the access settings need to be changed in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default from AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All for the directory /var/www/html/ => Problem, this was for older Apache version, now in Ubuntu 14.04 we have 000-default.conf that does not contain this setting yet. So we do the following:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Search for DocumentRoot /var/www/html and add the following lines directly below::

<Directory "/var/www/html">

AllowOverride All

</Directory>

and do restart apache2

• move and rename files (perhaps use sudo)

mv /var/www/html/elgg/htaccess_dist /var/www/html/elgg/.htaccess

mv /var/www/html/elgg/engine/settings.example.php /var/www/html/elgg/engine/settings.php

• Open up the settings.php file and fill in the database access details:

sudo nano /var/www/html/elgg/engine/settings.php

set:

• $CONFIG->dbuser = 'elgguser';
• $CONFIG->dbpass = 'elggc...s';
• $CONFIG->dbname = 'elgg';
• $CONFIG->dbhost = 'localhost';
• $CONFIG->dbprefix = ;

• navigate to http://146.155.17.19:15080/elgg/install.php to perform the setup
• some settings I did:
  • registration open/public accessible
  • name Cedeus - miCiudad
  • login ssteinig (2..s) : registered email is uzh (2nd user: ment...r : s...o4...)
  • outgoing email fuer elgg(!): ssteiniger-uc (not shure if this works, though)

Settings after Elgg installation

Elgg 1.8.19 ist installed/accessible now via http://146.155.17.19:15080/elgg/ (the test version with Elgg 1.8.3: if the VM is running http://146.155.17.19:31080/elgg/)

• in Administration > Settings > Advanced Settings
  • set "default access permissions" to "friends"
  • uncheck "Allow new users to register"
• Plugins:
  • activated Embed 1.8
  • activated Diagnostics 1.8
  • download and install : Spanish Formal Core language pack for Elgg 1.8 : http://community.elgg.org/plugins/1479860/1.0/spanish-formal-core-language-pack

  Note, the user can define his language. So, the admin pages can be English while new user will have Spanish as default.

  • download and install : Friend request for Elgg 1.8 : http://community.elgg.org/plugins/384965/3.3/friend-request
  • download and install: Honeypot Spam Catcher for Elgg 1.8 : http://community.elgg.org/plugins/1131529/1.0/honeypot-spam-catcher
  • todo check: User validation by admin for 1.8.X for Elgg 1.8 : http://community.elgg.org/plugins/875414/1.1/user-validation-by-admin-for-18x
  • todo check: Member Selfdelete 1.8.x for Elgg 1.8 : http://community.elgg.org/plugins/860132/1.1/member-selfdelete-18x
  • todo check: Elgg Captcha for Elgg 1.8 : http://community.elgg.org/plugins/1172111/1.8.15C/elgg-captcha
  • todo check: Spam Checker for Elgg 1.8/1.9 : http://community.elgg.org/plugins/1650435/1.9/spam-checker

some notes on programming with Elgg

• dev environment: IDE PhpStorm

  Note, I have setup the programming environment so, that the elgg plugin's project/files are directly modified in /var/www/html/elgg/mod/...

• disable caching (in admin settings) and enable display of php errors
• documentation : see in the elgg install folders: .../elgg/documentation/
• we also have the Elgg book by C Costello and M. Sharma : http://www.packtpub.com/web-development/elgg-18-social-networking
• (plugin) examples can be found in .../elgg/documentation/examples/ + .../plugins in particular for start.php and manifest.xml files that have to be in a plugins root folder