0xDECAFBAD - Tag: php

Getting Laconica up and running

2008-07-03T19:21:35+00:00

Update, 30 Sep 2008:

You don't want to follow the directions on this page—instead, leave this page and read this:

At one point, very early on in Laconica-time, this blog post offered useful information on getting Laconica up and running. But since then, my time has taken me away from playing with Laconica and thus this guide has fallen far behind. Hopefully soon I'll get back around to Laconica hacking, but not today.

I'm leaving the original text of this post here for posterity, but this is no longer current and following this guide will do more harm than good in confusing you about Laconica installation!

Again, to learn about getting Laconica up and running, leave this page and read this:

http://laconi.ca/darcs/README

The latest mini-sensations to arrive through my firehoses are identi.ca, a Twitter-clone / microblogging site, and the Open Source software Laconica, which powers the aforementioned site.

Having started and neglected two Twitter cloning attempts of my own, Cuckoo and OpenInterocitor, seeing someone else carry the torch with any modicum of momentum is attractive to me. So, I spent a little bit last night getting the code running on my own servers, and managed to do it twice:

See, the interesting thing promised by Laconica—and something I wanted in my own clones—is the ability to federate instances of the software. That is, users on one Laconica-based site should be able to subscribe to the updates from users on another site, by way of the OpenMicroblogging specification. Although federation isn't a silver bullet to a web-scale Twitter clone, I do think it's one of the most important bootstrap steps—but that's another blog post entirely.

Thus, since I'd like to see you run a Laconica site (or something like it) for mine to talk to, I figured I'd document how I got the thing running. My server is running Ubuntu Gutsy, so your mileage may vary. This is a long one, so check out the how-to after the jump...

Get the Laconica code

I got my copy of the code by using darcs, as described on the Laconica source page, like so:

sudo apt-get install darcs
darcs get --partial http://laconi.ca/darcs/

But, if you can't or don't want to use darcs right now, you can grab a Laconica tarball to get started.

Get modules and third-party prerequisites

I had already installed PHP and Apache, along with lighttpd, on my server. But, I found I needed a few more things. So, here's a slew of packages you may or may not already have:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 php5-cgi php5-cli php-pear php5-gd php5-mysql

Next, now that you've got PHP and PEAR, you can install some of the PEAR-based prerequisites:

sudo pear channel-update pear.php.net
sudo pear install channel://pear.php.net/Validate-0.8.1
sudo pear install DB_DataObject
sudo pear install Mail
sudo pear install Net_SMTP

After this, there are a few libraries that need to be downloaded by hand. For this, I created an extlib/ directory to keep them in, separate from Laconica's own lib/ which will be subject to updates to the software itself:

mkdir extlib xfers
cd xfers
curl -O http://openidenabled.com/files/php-openid/packages/php-openid-2.1.1.zip    
curl -O http://michelf.com/docs/projets/php-markdown-1.0.1m.zip
curl -O http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/php/OAuth.php
curl -O http://xmpphp.googlecode.com/files/xmpphp-0.1beta-r21.tar.gz
unzip php-markdown-1.0.1m.zip
cp 'PHP Markdown 1.0.1m/markdown.php' ../extlib/
unzip php-openid-2.1.1.zip
cp -r php-openid-2.1.1/Auth ../extlib/
cp OAuth.php ../extlib/
tar -zxf xmpphp-0.1beta-r21.tar.gz
cp xmpphp/*.php ../extlib/
cd ..
rm -rf xfers

Set up MySQL tables

I'll assume you already have MySQL installed. To set up a database for Laconica, I did the following:

mysql -uroot -p -e 'create database laconica';
mysql -uroot -p -e "grant all privileges on laconica.* to laconica@localhost identified by 'PASSWORD'";
mysql -uroot -p laconica < db/laconica.sql

Configure Laconica

So far, I've found at least two config files that need tweaking—namely config.php and dataobject.ini.

The first thing I did to config.php was to add the following at around line 6 to account for my extlib/ directory:

#If you have downloaded libraries in random little places, you
#can add the paths here
define('INSTALLDIR', dirname(__FILE__));
set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . INSTALLDIR . '/extlib');

The rest of the settings in config.php are somewhat self-explanatory. These are the ones I changed for my installation:

$config['site']['name'] = 'cafeonica';
$config['site']['server'] = 'decafbad.com';
$config['site']['path'] = 'laconica';
$config['site']['fancy'] = true;
$config['site']['theme'] = 'stoica';
$config['site']['email'] = 'l.m.orchard@pobox.com';
$config['site']['broughtby'] = '0xDECAFBAD';
$config['site']['broughtbyurl'] = 'http://decafbad.com/';
$config['db']['database'] = 'mysql://laconica:PASSWORD@localhost/laconica';
$config['db']['ini_laconica'] = $config['db']['schema_location'].'/stoica.ini';

After this, I tweaked the first few settings of dataobject.ini to the following:

database = mysql://laconica:PASSWORD@localhost/laconica 
schema_location = /www/decafbad.com/docs/laconica/classes 
class_location = /www/decafbad.com/docs/laconica/classes 
require_prefix = /www/decafbad.com/docs/laconica/classes/

Be sure to substitute your own web server paths and passwords in all the above. And finally, in order to allow the upload of avatar images, you'll need to tweak the permissions on the avatar/ directory, like so:

sudo chown -R www-data avatar
sudo chmod -R ug+rw avatar/

Configure Web Server

There isn't really much to configure if you're using Apache. There's a file htaccess.sample that needs to be copied to .htaccess—this will put in place all the mod_rewrite rules necessary to support "fancy" URLs.

On the other hand, if you're okay with uglier URLs with query parameters and whatnot, leave .htaccess alone and use $config['site']['fancy'] = false in your config.php.

For comparison, here are examples of non-fancy and fancy profile URLs:

http://decafbad.com/laconica/index.php?action=showstream&nickname=lmorchard
http://decafbad.com/laconica/lmorchard

One catch to the non-fancy and fancy thing, though—if you start off with non-fancy URLs and later switch to fancy, all of the profiles registered before that switch will appear with non-fancy URLs in the timeline. This is because the profile table stores the original URLs at registration in the profileurl column. You could change these if you like, but there be dragons.

Configure Lighttpd for "fancy" URLs (optional)

If you're like me, though, you're using something other than Apache for your main web server. Personally, I just got up and running with lighttpd not too long ago. Alas, that means the .htaccess rewrite rules won't work directly.

Admittedly, I am a novice to configuring lighttpd, so the following rules I added to my config could probably use some help:

url.rewrite-final += (
    "^/laconica/index.php(.*)$" => "$0",

    "^/laconica/$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=public",
    "^/laconica/rss$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=publicrss",
    "^/laconica/xrds$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=publicxrds",

    "^/laconica/doc/about$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=about",
    "^/laconica/doc/contact$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=contact",
    "^/laconica/doc/faq$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=faq",
    "^/laconica/doc/help$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=help",
    "^/laconica/doc/im$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=im",
    "^/laconica/doc/openid$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=openid",
    "^/laconica/doc/openmublog$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=openmublog",
    "^/laconica/doc/privacy$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=privacy",
    "^/laconica/doc/source$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=source",

    "^/laconica/main/login$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=login",
    "^/laconica/main/logout$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=logout",
    "^/laconica/main/register$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=register",
    "^/laconica/main/openid(?:\?(.*)|$)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=openidlogin&$1",
    "^/laconica/main/remote(?:\?(.*)|$)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=remotesubscribe&$1",

    "^/laconica/main/subscribe$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=subscribe",
    "^/laconica/main/unsubscribe$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=unsubscribe",
    "^/laconica/main/confirmaddress$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=confirmaddress",
    "^/laconica/main/confirmaddress/(.*)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=confirmaddress&code=$1",
    "^/laconica/main/recoverpassword$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=recoverpassword",
    "^/laconica/main/recoverpassword/(.*)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=recoverpassword&code=$1",

    "^/laconica/settings/avatar$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=avatar",
    "^/laconica/settings/password$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=password",
    "^/laconica/settings/profile$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=profilesettings",
    "^/laconica/settings/openid$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=openidsettings",
    "^/laconica/settings/im$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=imsettings",

    "^/laconica/notice/new$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=newnotice",
    "^/laconica/notice/(\d+)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=shownotice&notice=$1",

    "^/laconica/user/(\d+)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=userbyid&id=$1",

    "^/laconica/(\w+)/subscriptions$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=subscriptions&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/subscribers$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=subscribers&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/xrds$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=xrds&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/rss$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=userrss&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/all$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=all&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/all/rss$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=allrss&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/foaf$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=foaf&nickname=$1",

    "^/laconica/(\w+)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=showstream&nickname=$1"
)

That's it (for now)

And that's all I've got for you for now. At this point, it looks like my two Laconica installs are mostly working. I've not yet played with the XMPP bot, nor have I been able to see the OpenMicroblogging stuff working with remore subscriptions. However, I have been able to log in via OpenID, so that's something.

Archived Comments

Fabian Neumann
2008-07-03T22:36:12

Tried to remotely subscribe to you, but no success so far. Your laconica instance replied "Not expecting this response!" after what seemed like a successful oauth redirection :|
l.m.orchard
2008-07-03T23:27:14

Fabian: Unfortunately so far, that's been the thing I've seen between all Laconica instances I've seen—even identi.ca. Hopefully, it's something simple to work out
Igor
2008-07-04T11:56:43

Great!!! Thank you.
michael kamleitner
2008-07-04T18:11:56

yeah, great work man! you might add a note that php 5.2.1 is required for the function sys-get-temp-dir (though it's easy to add this function forolder php-installs, just see http://php.m-otion.at/manual/en/function.sys-get-temp-dir.php
Evan Prodromou
2008-07-04T18:55:33

Great! I'm so excited this is working. Question: can you help me with this bug: http://laconi.ca/PITS/00004 ? Also, maybe there's a bug in the finishremotesubscribe script? I've got a few people remote-subscribed in identi.ca, I'll find out what the problem was there.
Evan Prodromou
2008-07-04T18:57:19

Oh, also: you shouldn't have to update dataobject.ini!

And we need to set a mode for approved registration, for private instances... Wanna work on it?
l.m.orchard
2008-07-04T19:03:01

@Evan: Huh, I could've sworn things didn't work until I made those changes to dataobject.ini — I probably changed something else at the same time and though the dataobject.ini tweaks did it :)

I may also poke around at an INSTALL and maybe an approved reg mode too, after watching some fireworks and eating too much food...
Bill Deys
2008-07-04T19:20:58

Is there anyone out there that is helping people troubleshoot getting a site up and going. I'm having a hell of a time, but I'm betting it's an issue with my web server. I think the root of the problem is I don't have DB_DataObject in Pear. This has been a great help, just not smrt enough when things go off track! Thanks
Andrew Bashore
2008-07-04T19:33:50

I keep getting this error after following all your steps above.

DB_DataObject Error: Unable to load schema for database and table (turn debugging up to 5 for full error message)

Do you have any idea how I might fix this?

My installation is at http://www.georgology.com/laconica/

Thanks.
l.m.orchard
2008-07-04T20:22:27

@Andrew: Hmm... I just removed a chunk of the instructions about tweaking dataobject.ini — I just readded it. Evan says it doesn't need changing, but I swear that your error is the exact thing I resolved by modifying dataobject.ini

You may want to give it a try.
Eric
2008-07-04T21:57:34

Very, nice article, alot of help! Thanks
Nick
2008-07-04T22:19:40

Thanks for the guide, after a bit of trial and error, it works perfectly!
Kevin
2008-07-05T03:28:57

I'm getting the

"Warning: main(DB/DataObject.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/xxxx/public_html/blogging/lib/common.php on line 32"

what am I missing? Thx for any help, I'm sure is something I've over looked.
Andy C
2008-07-05T11:34:22

Thanks for the HOWTO which was really helpful. I am trying to install laconica on Bluehost.

However I get a DB connection error (CONNECT: Checking for database database_ in options'). This is strange because I can access the laconica schema using the same DSN using a small test PEAR script.

Is it possible to get laconica to dump the DSN so I can check it is correct ?
Andrew Bashore
2008-07-05T14:33:03

I have solved the error in my previous comment. "DB_DataObject Error: Unable to load schema for database and table (turn debugging up to 5 for full error message)" The solution was to rename the "classes/stoica.ini" file to "classes/.ini". This has solved the problem on two installations. Also remember to set debugging back to "0".

Kevin:

Its probably a PEAR dependency that is not installed.
Andrew Bashore
2008-07-05T14:38:03

Error in my last comment. It should be "classes/YOUR DATABASE NAME.ini" not "classes/.ini". Sorry
Andrew Bashore
2008-07-05T14:47:11

One more thing. I did not have to modify anything in "dataobject.ini"
Kevin
2008-07-05T15:05:38

Thanks Andrew, I thought that pear is loaded I'll double check and make sure.
Kevin
2008-07-05T16:50:58

PEAR is loaded, BUT I just noted that laconica requires PHP 5, and my box is running PHP 4.
WebGuy
2008-07-06T01:20:53

Followed all the steps and everything, things seems to be working fine, but when i try to add an IM i get this error -> Fatal error: Class 'XMPPHP_XMPP' not found in /var/www/lib/jabber.php on line 47. Any idea how to fix that ?

Thanks
Neal Locke
2008-07-06T04:22:13

Getting the following error message:

Warning: require_once(DB/DataObject.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/.matuxa/iraneal/opensourcefaith.org/lib/common.php on line 32

Fatal error: requireonce() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'DB/DataObject.php' (includepath='.:/usr/local/php5/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/.matuxa/iraneal/opensourcefaith.org/lib/common.php on line 32

Looks similar to Kevin's but I know I have php5. I'm trying to install on shared hosting (dreamhost) at domain http://www.opensourcefaith.org/

Any suggestions?
Breyten
2008-07-06T13:51:02

@WebGuy, ln -s . XMPP && mv xmpp.php XMPP.php solved this issue for me. (Alternatively, you could mkdir instead)
Howard N
2008-07-07T00:05:24

Andy C did you have any luck resolving your issue with the PEAR error:

Checking for database database_ in options

I've slowly been working my way through getting laconia set up (thanks for the guide!) but have hit a wall with this error.
MRiGnS
2008-07-07T12:31:39

I got it set up but registration is not possbile, it displays this error:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class DBDataObjectCast could not be converted to string in /www/htdocs/test/lib/util.php on line 1001
Andy C
2008-07-07T17:39:57

HowardN - Yes.I discovered that my settings in 'config.php' (specifically [config][db]) weren't getting applied correctly so I modified the same settings 'lib/common.php' which worked. I know this shouldn't be needed and I know it's not correct but I'm just want to play with Laconica.
Andy C
2008-07-07T18:44:27

Remote sub from identi.ca to decafbad seems to be working now. Did you have to change anything on your end ? Are you on the latest Darcs code ? I am using the 0.4.1 tarball and get 'Not expecting this response'.
rid
2008-07-07T20:35:51

somewhat got something up using this guide at http://laconica.cabbitmedia.com/ but with a few bugs.

it's running on slackware 12.0.
Big Eclipse
2008-07-07T22:34:03

Page is blank. After following the steps and ensuring that everything is as it should be, the installation seem to have gone well. Not receiving any errors, but the page is just blank -- like an 'Untitled' page. Any ideas?
Don Park
2008-07-08T00:17:53

@webguy, according to evan, the tarball is out of date. get the subversion trunk with: svn co svn://netflint.net/xmpphp
martin english
2008-07-08T06:27:43

Neal_Locke: I'm attempting to install on dreamhost as well. I've spent a bit of time and found the following link - http://wiki.dreamhost.com/PEAR - which basically says PEAR on dreamhost is buggered. It does describe how to get a full installation of PEAR in your own domain, but it requries shell access which i can't get from work.

I'll post tomite with (any) results....
Lee
2008-07-08T20:26:10

Hey guys, I've got lacania almost working; when I go to register, I get the following error:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class DBDataObjectCast could not be converted to string in C:xampphtdocsmessaginglibutil.php on line 1001

I'm also a little bit weirded out that I am getting the web page, but when I go check out the database no tables have been created... is this right? When and what code will actually create the database tables?

Thanks so much for your help! - Lee
Dan Brickley
2008-07-10T09:06:30
I'm collected some Dreamhost-specific notes that build on this: http://laconi.ca/Main/LaconicaOnDreamhost including a fix for Neal's "Failed opening required 'DB/DataObject.php'" problem. Help welcomed if others have experience w/ DH.

In short re DataObject, see this bit:
1. Your lib/common.php MUST be changed to ensure PEAR files can be found.
Add (with appropriate changes):
```
# set up a non-root PEAR repo (before we need it)
$extra_path = array("/home/path-to-your-stuff/pear/php");
set_include_path(implode(PATH_SEPARATOR, $extra_path) . PATH_SEPARATOR . get_include_path());
```
...before this bit:
1. global configuration object
require_once('PEAR.php');

If it doesn't work, try replacing path-to-your-stuff with the path to your stuff.
Axel Beckert
2008-07-13T14:15:27

PHP Markdown is also available via PEAR:
pear channel-discover pear.michelf.com pear install michelf/markdown
raghav
2008-07-15T10:59:09

hey i am having trouble with my copy of laconica ......everything has been installed perfectly........but there are two troubles:- 1.there is not theme been shown on the laconica pages......its complete white 2.when clicked on home link nothing comes up ........please help cos i am newbie in coding after hours of working i installed it but of no use................... here is the link
raghav
2008-07-15T11:00:16

sorry the link is this.........................

http://www.earnstop.com/raghav1211/laconica3/laconica/

http://www.earnstop.com/raghav1211/laconica3/laconica/
Herman
2008-07-17T10:22:14

Hi

I am trying to get a laconica install up on a box running RHEL 5.1, PHP 5.1.6 with Apache/2.2.3. However after completing all the steps recommended in your (very kewl) post above I run into the same brick wall as i did later when following the directions on http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3051

The error I keep getting is "Call to undefined method XMLWriter::fullEndElement()" in util.php on line 98.

Could there possibly be something that I am overlooking as I have on a previous install attempted to descend into the rabbit hole of "fixing" the laconica code which I am sure cannot be broken as so many other people have successfully deployed it?

Thanks
Eric_A
2008-07-17T16:18:50

Use the latest release of XMPP if you are getting XMPP errors with the latest version of laconica
raghav
2008-07-18T06:34:31

i solved my earlier problem of theme but now another problem is emerging that of configuring xmpphp.......can anyone explain it in detail how to install cos many people are not able to activate xmpphp in their laconica apps..........if i get the solution myself i would post it here............
Herman
2008-07-18T15:12:49

Hey,

So the problem with my the error mentioned in my previous post was that when PHP was compiled for the server in question the XmlWriter/Reader components were disabled. After re-compiling PHP on this server etc the error went away.

Now the error is the inability to connect to the MySQL server? This with the relevant connection string entries being made in config.php & dataobject.ini? These settings are definately correct as I am able to connect to the database from the command line copying and pasting the entries from these files.

However it seems like access is trying to be gained on a "strange" port? Is there some specific place where this has to be configured? The error I am getting boils down to this: "nativecode=Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket"

Any input regarding this problem would be greatly appreciated!
Herman
2008-07-18T15:14:36
Nick
2008-07-23T08:41:39

Just to note for more recent install 0.4.4 and onwards you need XMP-PHP at least 0.1-r50 or up. Available here.
Herman
2008-07-23T10:37:32

All the issues I experienced ended up being server related. After sorting my server out the laconica install went like a dream.
tagnu
2008-07-23T21:39:20

Hi,

Please merge the comments 15,16 regarding "DB_DataObject Error"

It may confuse first timers.

Wonderful post!!
sasi
2008-07-26T06:37:48

Thanks for your post, i was able to install laconica (after much pain - mainly due to server issues) But when i do a notice, i get this message

Problem saving notice.

Did anyone had similar problem...
Brian
2008-07-27T17:05:15

I can't start the xmppdaemon. I'm stuck:

Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::getStaticProperty() should not be called statically Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated 1217178205 [INFO]: Connecting to tcp://xxxx.com:5222 1217178205 [VERBOSE]: SENT: 1217178205 [VERBOSE]: RECV:
Alex Bellinger
2008-07-28T23:32:19
I've installed Laconica using the excellent instructions above, but am getting a couple of odd responses as follows:
- on logging out and after submitting a 'dent', laconica returns a blank page
- when I turn debut to 5 I see I get the following errors: DB_DataObject: ERROR: No Data return from get [and then userid or hash]
- error_log files are returning "Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /usr/share/pear/DB/DataObject.php:4006) in ... /util.php on line 876
Any ideas what I need to tweak in order to correct these errors?
Edward
2008-07-31T19:11:10

I'm getting problems installing Laconica.

"Fatal error: Call to undefined method XMLWriter::fullEndElement() in /var/www/html/vbtwitter/lib/util.php on line 98"

I have XMLWriter installed though - PHPInfo shows that it's enabled. Any ideas?
SaigonNezumi (Kevin)
2008-08-07T15:14:27

Great guide. I am working on this project with my high school students here in Vietnam. They want to see if they can do a start-up company with this application marketed at students. Great guide.
IT_V
2008-08-10T10:02:08

Warning: require_once(markdown.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/darcs/lib/common.php on line 122

Fatal error: requireonce() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'markdown.php' (includepath='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear:/var/www/darcs/extlib') in /var/www/darcs/lib/common.php on line 122

WHo can help me huhuh.. i got this problem ...
IT_V
2008-08-10T10:02:54

Warning: require_once(markdown.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/darcs/lib/common.php on line 122

Fatal error: requireonce() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'markdown.php' (includepath='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear:/var/www/darcs/extlib') in /var/www/darcs/lib/common.php on line 122
IT_V
2008-08-10T10:53:58

ok i almost done but i got problem again .... when i click on the login it gave me blank page ... and when i click on openID i gave me this error

Warning: require_once(Auth/OpenID.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/darcs/lib/openid.php on line 24

Fatal error: requireonce() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'Auth/OpenID.php' (includepath='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear:/var/www/darcs/extlib') in /var/www/darcs/lib/openid.php on line 24

anyone can help me fix that ... thanks alot
Durbin
2008-08-17T20:38:33

To everyone who is getting XMLWriter problems, My guess is its because there are XMLWriter functions like fullEndElement() that were added or modified from php5.1.6 to php5.2.5. Unfortunately centos and redhat don't support php past 5.1.6 so i've been searching for a hack that allows 5.2.5 on centos of redhat, found a couple but haven't got them to work.
Durbin
2008-08-17T23:37:05

found a solution for the "Call to undefined method XMLWriter::fullEndElement()" problems. It is due to the fact that these functions aren't included in older versions of php, see here. http://us2.php.net/manual/en/migration52.functions.php

but here is a great wiki on upgrading to php5.2.x on centos or redhat

http://www.atomicorp.com/wiki/index.php/PHP

once I upgraded everything worked properly.
Leo Laporte
2008-08-22T05:12:47

Excellent and very useful instructions. We're up and running. I'd love to get XMPP and XRDS running, but all in good time! Thanks so much!
Adam Sjøgren
2008-08-24T19:20:37

I can log in to identi.ca with my OpenID, but neither to your laconica instance on decafbad.com or Leo Laportes on army.twit.tv - my guess is that you don't allow OpenID Provider endpoints with self-signed SSL-certificates - do you know what identi.ca has set up differently, since they seem to allow self-signed certs?
Marco
2008-08-29T12:19:25

Hi, I cannot install PEAR or other dependencies and I tried install laconica3, is a development tarball based on 0.4.3, but I received following error: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected TSTRING in /home/web/publichtml/laconica/lib/util.php on line 468. Could you help me? Thanks
Friedrich Zohmann
2008-09-04T15:35:35

I installed Laconia using this manual and its working fine, but I dont know how to get it federated. Can you please tell me, where to find info on that.

thanks, Friedrich
Håkan Eriksson
2008-09-14T22:35:00

I have Laconica 0.5.0 up and running at the adress: http://www.korvmedbrod.com

I have this installed on Dreamhost PS I have trouble to get XMPP daemon to work, I only get error mess when i use $ ./scripts/startdaemon.sh . Like this: Starting xmppdaemon.php... Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /my_laconica_path/lib/util.php on line 543 DONE.

I have switched over to PHP5 in the DH panel, can anybody help me, please!
Webcubes
2008-09-15T09:23:59

Hello, I have a laconica installation and it works well except for the IM and mail stuff. When I run xmppdaemon.php, I get the daemon working and can post notices, but the daemon dtops working and the jabber(update@domain.com) get signed off. I get the following error while I run xmppdaemon on a PHP5 linux box.

Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/PEAR.php:563) Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/PEAR.php:566) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::getStaticProperty() should not be called statically (/home/adelphus/public_html/blog/lib/common.php:93) Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/Mail.php:154) Unknown error type: [8] Undefined offset: 3 (/home/adelphus/public_html/blog/lib/jabber.php:57) Unknown error type: [8] Use of undefined constant CLAIM_TIMEOUT - assumed 'CLAIM_TIMEOUT' (/home/adelphus/public_html/blog/xmppdaemon.php:341) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::getStaticProperty() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:4101) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::getStaticProperty() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:2236) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method DB::connect() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:2241) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method DB::parseDSN() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB.php:520) Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/common.php:1017) Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/common.php:1220) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method DB::isError() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB.php:557) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::isError() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:2260) Unknown error type: [2048] is_a(): Deprecated. Please use the instanceof operator (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/PEAR.php:275) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::isError() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:2132) ...........

Can anyone help me with this issue?

Thanks, Webcubes
ta
2008-09-19T00:14:12

Hi,

It would be great if somebody can help me on this:

XML Parsing Error: no element found Location: http://localhost/laconica/index.php?action=public Line Number 1, Column 1:

Thanks
Raseel
2008-09-27T21:37:58

How do you fix the following error : "Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /my_laconica_path/lib/util.php on line 532"

Its in the function common_set_user()/

OPML reading lists in FeedMagick2

2007-10-17T07:22:47+00:00

For anyone who's interested: I've been hacking a little bit on FeedMagick2 again, with the latest addition being an OPML reading list feed blender.

What's an OPML reading list? Basically, it's the same as as OPML export of a feed reader's subscription list - only rather than doing a one-time import into another program, the OPML is itself treated as a live feed. A feed reader that supports OPML reading lists will continually check the list for updates and sync RSS/Atom feed subscriptions with its contents, maybe in a special sub-folder.

Here's a quick demo:

The itch I mean to eventually scratch is to replace the front page of decafbad.com with a live updating aggregation of the stuff I create and capture daily on the web. It'll be basically a self-assembling tumblelog pulled from many different services across the web. It'll also replace the footer of accumulated crud I've got on this very blog - which I thought was a good idea at one point, but now consider NeatLikeDigitalWatches.

With that in mind, the next thing I plan to develop is an hAtom module or XSL transform. This will turn the blended feed into an XHTML page. Maybe someday, hAtomic will launch, and I'll have a nice pretty style for the page too. Some time after that, I might work up a module that stows away dated historical archives of the feed and pages. I have further plans and ideas, but I'm trying to focus on the itchy spots first so that I might actually get something done in this round of serial enthusiasm.

A Curmudgeon Playing with the CodeIgniter Framework and OpenID

2007-07-23T14:37:33+00:00

One bit of hackery I did this weekend was to explore the CodeIgniter PHP framework, which is even less magic yet more glued-together out of the box than the Zend Framework. Also, very much less magic than CakePHP and barely in the same universe as Symfony. I think I may have found my sweet spot of simplicity and comprehensible magic.

CodeIgniter has is a PHP 4 / 5 framework that provides a lightweight Model / View / Controller arrangement with URL routing and a useful but minimal constellation of utility classes and helpers. The view templates are in PHP, with just a bit of pre-processing. The controllers are plain-old PHP classes whose methods are called via simple URL routes.

The model layer of CodeIgniter, however, is the weakest part of the trio - which I actually like a lot. It's not a magical ORM - instead it's just a simple superclass from which to derive, mostly there to suggest that a separate model is a good thing to write. The DB abstraction classes just make the job of writing SQL statements easier and don't pretend that there's no impedance mismatch between objects and relational tables.

The depth of code in CodeIgniter is shallow enough that I felt I was able to get into developing quickly while still taking side trips through the framework methods I was calling and get at least a glance at what being taken care of for me. There's always danger in magic, but this stuff doesn't really get out of hand.

To doodle around with an idea, I threw together a layout decorator class to support the sort of nested templates I'm used to from Symfony. Out of the box, CI views are simple, offering facilities for calling sub-templates and "partials" but not directly providing conventions for such. My first swatches of code add a bit of that.

After playing around with layouts, the next thing I did was to use CI sessions and the PHP OpenID Library to develop both an auth producer and consumer. CodeIgniter doesn't come with a ready-made user auth system, though it does come with its own implementation of sessions using encrypted browser cookies to replace PHP's native sessions - another feature I really like.

Kind of odd - but on the same toy app I can sign up for local accounts, sign into other sites with OpenID URLs based on local accounts, and sign into my CI app with external OpenID identities.

The wild bit is that I can even sign in locally with one OpenID URL, then use the newly created local profile to get a second OpenID URL to sign in somewhere else. Seems interesting yet possibly dangerous. I mostly just glued the right parts together and got the Auth_OpenID black-box modules working - now that I have an operational OpenID system, I need to study it further.

The next thing I want to do is work more on profile managment, offer some of the OpenID Simple Registration fields, and look into supporting multiple auth IDs linked to the same user profile.

It might also be fun to do something like "catalogue the sites that a user logs into and automatically construct a homepage." Overall, I've got some vague notional ideas to build a personal status collector and maybe some federated social networking and messaging stuff. But, one hack at a time.

Hopefully, I'll get this code I've got so far into better shape and commit to my SVN repository. Sooner than later, otherwise it'll never get off my dev box.

Archived Comments

Aristotle Pagaltzis
2007-07-24T01:34:03

Hmm, a system that treats its own OpenIDs just like any other OpenID and considers them foreign credentials for which it creates a new account seems… weird. It seems it should recognize its own OpenIDs and map them back to the corresponding username.
Elroy Jetson
2007-08-24T20:51:24

Thanks for pointing this framework out. Some how it had slipped through my fingers.

I have tried them all and was (maybe still am) close to dumping php for ruby and the rails framework.

Once I started digging into rails all the php frameworks just seemed like awkward teenagers that have to do everything their own way just to prove that they are different.

codeIgniter is small. Simple to setup and, so far anyway, seems about as elegant as you are going to get using php.
Cody Ray
2008-06-03T21:30:09

Did you ever put this into your SVN? I can't seem to find it through Trac.

A Curmudgeon Playing with the Zend Framework

2007-07-09T20:21:41+00:00

Because it's been awhile since I last surveyed the landscape, I played around a bit with web frameworks this weekend. Mainly, I tried getting something simple working with the Zend Framework. After intermittent play and much studying of documentation between Saturday and Sunday, I got to "hello world."

Unlike other web frameworks of late, Zend Framework doesn't come with any magical CLI tools to build out directory trees and / or generate code. Being somewhat suspicious and curmudgeonly about that sort of magic to begin with, this actually struck me as an attractive thing about ZF. In fact, what I really liked about ZF at first glance is that it's less of a monolithic system and more of a bucket of parts from a single source that fit together decently.

And, all my favorite parts are there: Among other things there's config, logging, a front controller with URL routing, template-system agnostic view support, and somewhat non-magical DB / model support.

These were all things I'd grabbed from PEAR for my more recent PHP mini-framework play, but I figured there should be some benefit from finding them in a unified collection like the Zend Framework.

The experience was somewhat similar to rolling my own, though. I stumbled through some docs and eventually found some blog entries and a tutorial. It's all very loosely-coupled and somewhat DIY, which is actually what I wanted. The experience has left me wondering if I really should have wanted it, but I'm guessing it'll go easier from here on out.

In the meantime, though, I feel like I have a decent grasp on what all those loosely-coupled parts are doing. I've skimmed through code, traced wires, broken things and watched the errors.

See, my problem with a lot of modern magic-imbued web frameworks is that I have a deep distrust of what they're doing. They come with a lot of moving parts doing things that I don't see - and when I do finally see them, I tend to run into decisions with which I disagree. I see abstraction where I think the gritty concrete needs to be left bare. I often see lots of astronaut acrobatics that just have to be burning tons of cycles. I see further acrobatics done to compensate, unrolling loops and pre-parsing config files - which requires further layers of magical tools to generate code and caches.

Too many moving parts wherein assumptions can hide, later to bite me when we're hundreds of miles into the post-launch desert and trying to fight scaling fires or develop a new feature with some weird angles to it.

For example, consider Symfony for PHP. Their configuration system runs PHP code that results in YAML. Parsing that YAML, along with cascading layers of other generated YAML, then drives a PHP code generation stage, composing all the static code necessary to bootstrap the framework with each request. There's an amazing amount of flexibility exposed by that system, and it's quite clever - but my curmudgeonly side catches whiffs of insanity.

Maybe that's really the issue - I've been doing this stuff long enough to have written my own one of everything, so I've got my own opinions and I like to have a grasp on everything. I've written front controllers, templating systems, and model abstraction layers. I've worked in a half-dozen or so languages doing all the above. I don't yet accept that web app development has passed the da Vinci point - a single developer should be able to grasp the structure of a web framework in mind without getting lost in too many fractal branchings.

Anyway, I'm rambling like an old grouch, but I think I've reached my point. Hopefully more actual experimentation soon.

Say hello to FeedMagick2

2007-04-30T03:06:32+00:00

Yeah, things have been basically silent around here thanks to post-work brain fryage and a general lack of things to say. Really, everyone else around the blogosphere seems to be covering things satisfactorily. However, I have been idly working on a new project over the past few weeks, namely a total rewrite and redesign of my format-ignorant feed filtering and munging kit dubbed FeedMagick.

You can find a demo installation of FeedMagick2 here and find it ready for checkout from SVN over here. It's basically just a step away from being a proof of concept, but I'm hoping to get around to fleshing out docs and battening down the hatches with tests. In any case, if my serial enthusiasm holds out, this thing could eventually subsume everything else I've done with feeds.

For now, peek at some of these highlights:

Master Personal Feed - One big feed blended from 10 other personal metadata feeds pulled from various Web-2.0-ish sites.
Feed to JSON via Magpie - Get feed data parsed by way of Magpie into JSON data structures
Flickr Favorites Feed - Feed of photos marked as favorites by a Flickr user, pulled via the API
jbox.com scraper - Pipeline composed of HTML Tidy and XSL to scrape jbox.com to build an RSS feed of new items for sale.

Beyond practical examples, there are some things under the hood that seem keen to me. Apropos of my pipes-via-web ramblings back in February, I'm trying out a few different approaches to pipelining feed content through processor modules. My original FeedMagick relied on feeding URLs to URLs as parameters. That, unfortunately, can be mighty cumbersome and inefficient. So, FeedMagick2 explores a few more approaches:

The first and obvious approach is to chain them together in a single script. So, I've got objects instances that pass content from one to the next. The thing is, the pipe works in reverse: The driver script asks the last module in the pipe for content, which then asks the one before it for content, and so on. At any point along the way, modules can cache the output of previous modules, and refrain from calling up the chain.
The second way to chain pipelines together is just like the first FeedMagick: Some pipelines start with fetching a URL. That can be an original feed, or a URL leading to the output of an antecedent pipeline. And, oh yeah, most pipelines are run via parameterized URLs, so there's that bit of handy recursion.
The third way to chain pipelines together is with HTTP POST: A pipeline can accept feed data via the request body of an HTTP POST, thus allowing antecedent pipelines (or even cURL scripts) to push data into the pipeline rather than getting pulled via URL. This is kind of like my years-old jiggery pokery with pipelines via XML-RPC, only much much simpler.

I'm also poking around at making all of the above available at the command line via PHP-CLI, and I'm having gratuitous fun exploring PEAR to roll my own stripped-down web framework. I still hate PHP, but I'm at least finding ways to entertain myself while I'm holding my nose. Of course, I find weird things entertaining.

And, as a side note, the only reason I'm using PHP is because I'd like to play around with the idea of the de facto WordPress installation requirements standard. That is: If you can run WordPress, you can run this. In reality, I don't think I'm there, but I'm hoping to get close. For one, I'm refusing to play with anything older than PHP 5.

Anyway, play with it, tell me what you think and give me a reason to keep hacking at it. :)

Archived Comments

jamesv
2007-04-30T11:39:15

Aw man, now I've got to port all the code you wrote while you were here over to this new hotness ;) I really like (and appreciate) the single script approach.

Is caching at a module level done automatically, or is that something I need to flag in my original call? Some installs of the original code base are now aggregating large sections of a pool of around 400 feeds, and eeking out even minor performances gains would be just lovely.
dRAUPP
2007-04-30T13:40:16

hawt.
l.m.orchard
2007-04-30T14:43:54

@jamesv: Take a look at the source to this big-ish pipeline, all the way at the end:

http://decafbad.com/2007/04/FeedMagick2/pipelines/masterfeed

You can basically slap a Cacher module at the tail-end or even middle of a long string of modules, and it'll cache the results of everything before it. I've got a cache lifetime set in the conf/config.php, and you can also set the lifetime in the Cacher parameters. There can multiple Cacher's per pipeline too.

This thing might not quite yet be even as stable / in working order as the original FeedMagick, but it might be worth poking at for you. :)
kellan
2007-04-30T16:02:31

For one, I’m refusing to play with anything older than PHP 5.

That must be nice.

And curse you, this looks interesting, now I've got to find time to look at it.
John Manoogian III (jm3)
2007-04-30T17:53:08

addendum to README:
Installation
cp conf/config.php-dist conf/config.php chmod a+w logs - RewriteBase /~lorchard/FeedMagick2 + RewriteBase /FeedMagick2
l.m.orchard
2007-04-30T17:58:49

@jm3: Ah! Good catch. I really need to eventually installer-ify that kind of stuff.
megalar
2007-08-05T12:25:34
Yesterday my host upgraded to php5 so I ran over to your svn dump and installed feedmagick2. After editing the $baseurl and rewritebase i tested it and it worked like a charm, so I took a nap. Upon waking I was gonna go play with it and see what hacks I could get going with it but something was fubar. Warning: fopen(/home/megalar/www/html/feedmagick/logs/feedmagick2-debug-20070805.log) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /usr/share/php/Log/file.php on line 216 are the errors I get as you can see @ my site. If it hadn't worked to begin with I would think module problems on my server. To my knowledge, and my host's knowledge, nothing has changed since the upgrade so I'm wondering if it is some sort of bug or a server problem that waited a few hours to reveal itself. The latter doesn't really make much sense to me but I can't rule it out since I'm not r00t on the box and am not 100% certain my host didn't bork something while I slept.
```
              anyhoo, your thoughts?
```

XoxoOutliner and further outline addressing adventures

2006-11-15T08:07:12+00:00

Revised the addressing code a bit, adding a few new kinds of addresses and getting ready to support sub-outline updates. That is, fetch a sub-branch of an outline and then later post a change to that sub-branch using the same address. Needs more thought - ie. what happens if things move between fetch and update? - but here are a few more samples:

First is a straight linear index counting down from the top of the outline:
- http://decafbad.com/2006/11/XoxoOutliner/outlines/README;index:4?format=xoxo
Second is a navigation of outline structure, alternating numbers and letters:
- http://decafbad.com/2006/11/XoxoOutliner/outlines/README;level:3c4?format=xoxo

That's all for now. In my next round of enthusiasm, I may try stealing Tom Morris' Opath idea...

Archived Comments

Vincent D Murphy
2006-11-18T20:52:07

I think (and said as much on Tom Morris' site) that a fragment identifier would be a better solution, in which case Opath would be a fragment identifier syntax for OPML and XOXO. At least it would be the best solution from a REST/web architecture point of view..
l.m.orchard
2006-11-18T21:40:41

One reason I didn't use the #identifier URI syntax for suboutlines is because some gymnastics need to be done to get the hash through to the server from a browser. Otherwise, it gets treated as an in-page anchor. The semicolon syntax seems to work well for a set of path-segment parameters, and follows the standard (if I've read it correctly).

In either case, it works for me, and should be just fine in a REST context - the suboutline syntax here should always identify a single parent outline node as a resource, and will eventually work for GET / PUT / POST / DELETE.

Now I just need to implement a solution for the Lost Update Problem.
Michael Poremba
2008-09-18T23:45:56

Wondering if you ever completed your online outliner? Check out dynamiclist.com, a functioning but incomlete project I launched back in 2001. The editor is rich and works well. Been thinking of reviving now that all major browsers support the contentEditable tag.

XoxoOutliner and suboutline addressing

2006-11-13T09:34:02+00:00

Here's a feature I just hacked together for XoxoOutliner and plan to refine further:

Not entirely sure that this is how I want this to work, but these three URLs demonstrate the ability to address and fetch subsets of outlines. I'm hoping this will be a basis for selective transclusion in other outlines, or maybe even in a sidebar of a blog. (Which, depending on the blog software, might be built from outlines anyway.)

good gregarius

2006-08-18T04:43:20+00:00

Oh, and apropos my serial enthusiast ways, I've shacked up with a different news aggregator again. I was using newsRiver again, but the temporary lack of a spare server to run it on in the midst of the move had me feedless. So, after a brief flirtation with Bloglines - which went down promptly after I started using it - I switched using Gregarius. I have to say: This is a pretty keen aggregator. It doesn't support reading lists, but I have an itch to implement that support. Otherwise, the feed folders work pretty much how I'd like them to work - as a prioritized and stratified River of News. I might also think about hacking my evolving feed reader template as a drop-in theme for Gregarius.