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The setup wizard

This section will guide you through and explain the various steps of the setup wizard.

The setup wizard is designed to automate the initial setup and configuration of a fresh Exponential installation. It can be started using a web browser immediately after that the necessary installation steps (described in the previous sections) are completed. The setup wizard will be automatically run the first time someone tries to access/browse the "index.php" file located in the Exponential directory.

The back button can be used to jump back to previous steps in order to modify settings. The setup wizard does not store or modify any data before the final step; thus, it can be safely restarted by re-browsing the "index.php".

Once the setup wizard is finished (all steps are completed), Exponential will not run it again when the "index.php" file is browsed. However, the wizard can be re-activated by changing the "CheckValidity" setting in the "settings/override/site.ini.append" file from "false" to "true".

A typical setup cycle consists of 11 steps:

1. Welcome page
2. System check
3. Outgoing E-mail
4. Database initialization
5. Language support
6. Site templates
7. Site access configuration
8. Site details
9. Site security
10. Site registration
11. Finish

Please note that some of the pages will be omitted during a bundled installation process. This is because some settings are already predefined in the bundled installations.

Welcome

This is the initial page of the setup wizard. By clicking "Next", the wizard will either jump to the "System Check" page (if some things need to be fixed) or the "Outgoing E-mail" page (if everything is okay).

System check

This page usually appears if some critical issues/problems were detected. It will displays information about important things that need to be fixed (and how to fix them) before the setup wizard can continue.

Issues
There may be several issues/problems, numbered and described within a section on the page. A suggestion to each problem is presented below the description of the problem itself. The setup guide will probably suggest that you run a couple of shell commands (in order to fix permissions, etc.). These commands must be executed within a system shell, where the current working directory is the Exponential directory. From the setup wizard page: simply copy & paste the commands into the shell. The system check will be re-run when the "Next" button is clicked.

Ignoring tests
Some issues/problems may be ignored using a checkbox labelled "Ignore this test". However, it is recommended to fix all issues rather than ignoring them.

Outgoing E-mail

The Exponential system uses E-mail to send out notices such as user registration and content approval. This section is used to configure how Exponential delivers its outgoing E-mail.

There are two options:
- Direct delivery through sendmail (must be available on the server).
- Indirect delivery using an SMTP relay server.

On Linux/UNIX: try to use sendmail, if unavailable: fall back to SMTP.
On Windows: use an SMTP server.

Sendmail:
Mail is delivered directly using the sendmail transfer agent. The sendmail binary is usually available on most Linux/UNIX systems. If sendmail is not available then SMTP should be used.

SMTP:
Mail is delivered through an SMTP server. At the minimum, the hostname of the SMTP server must be specified.

Database initialization

The setup will automatically detect database-support that has been compiled into the PHP scripting engine. If both MySQL and PostgreSQL is supported, the user will be able to choose one of these using a set of radio buttons (not shown in the screenshot above).

Information about the hostname of the server running the database engine, and a username/password combination needs to be provided. When clicking "Next" and if MySQL is used, the setup wizard will attempt to connect to the database. The setup will only continue if it is able to connect to the specified MySQL server with the specified username/password combination. PostgreSQL parameters are tested at a later stage during the setup wizard.

Language support

The Exponential system supports multiple languages. This step in the setup wizard allows the user to choose the primary language and additional languages for the site(s) being installed. The selected languages are used when displaying the administration interface, to determine character sets, date / number formats, etc. Only one primary language can be used. However, it is possible to use several additional languages. Additional languages may also be installed at later point (when the site is up and running). The radio buttons are used to choose the primary language, the checkboxes are used to choose additional languages.

Site templates

This step allows the user to install multiple sites. There are seven demonstration sites and a plain site. The plain site should be used when starting from scratch. The demonstration sites are examples that can be easily extended and built upon. They contain some artwork (images), CSS code and Exponential specific template files. Each site is unique, which means that each site needs its own database.

Site access configuration

The access method determines how the site(s) will be accessed from within a web browser. There are three options:

- URL
- Port
- Hostname

URL
This is the default and recommended setting. The different sites are accessed using a specific notation in the URL. This is done by inserting some text right after the "index.php" part of the URL. Example:

http://www.eaxmple.com/index.php/admin
http://www.example.com/index.php/user

Port
A port number is appended to the hostname of the web server, the port number determines which site to display/access. Example:

http://www.example.com:80
http://www.example.com:81

This option requires additional changes to the configuration file of the web server.

Hostname
Each site is assigned a unique hostname and can be accessed using that specific hostname. Example:

http://admin.example.com/
http://user.example.com/

This option requires changes on the DNS server.

Site details

This step allows the user to modify site specific things like the name of the site, which database to use, etc. At the minimum, a database must be chosen for each site that is being installed. The available databases will be displayed in the "Database:" dropdown box(es). The "Refresh" button can be used to update the list(s) (if a database is being created at this point).

If one or more of the databases already contain some data, the "Site Details" page will reappear and ask what to do. Possible actions are:

- Leave the data and add new
- Remove existing data
- Leave the data and do nothing
- I've chosen a new database

The last option is to be used when another database is chosen.

Site security

This step suggests some basic modifications that should be carried out in order to secure the site(s) being installed. The suggested security tweaks basically deny access to the configuration files. It is important to either install the .htaccess file or set up Virtual Host Mode access; or else the site(s) will be vulnerable.

Site registration

It is possible to register the Exponential installation. This can be done automatically from within the setup wizard, which will send an E-mail to 7x. No confidential data will be transmitted and 7x will not misuse or sell these details. The information is used internally for statistics and improvment of Exponential. Typical things that will be sent:

- System details (OS type, etc)
- The test results
- The database type
- The site name
- The url of the site
- Languages chosen

 

Finish

This is the last page of the setup wizard. The sites you've chosen to install have been installed. The different sites (and their respective user and administration sections) can be reached through the URLs shown on this page. It is a good idea to store the information displayed on this page.

Reactivating Setup Wizard

If for any reason you want to setup your site from scratch, you can do so by changing the value of Checkvalidity setting to true

[SiteAccessSettings]

CheckValidity=true

in file settings/override/site.ini.append.php.

Comments

No way to edit the images

maybe eZ crew do not want us to contribute these

can't get the configuration screens to come up

I installed everything manually because I am using yahoo web hosting and don't have access to the box. When I hit index.php it just throws back an empty HTML file with a header but no body. I must have missed something.

chris_r_malek@yahoo.com

To George P.

In your settings/override/site.ini.append.php

There should be a section called [SiteAccessSettings] where you'll find
CheckValidity=false

Set this to CheckValidity=true and you'll start the setup wizard again

trond�ge

Norwegian laguage problem

I use Suse9.0. Everything works fine when I choose English as the default language.
When I try to use one of the Norwegian languages, I get this error trying to access the main page:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted at (null):0 (tried to allocate 40 bytes) in /srv/www/htdocs/notrix/test1/lib/ezxml/classes/ezxml.php on line 374
Fatal error: Exponential did not finish it's request

The execution of Exponential was abruptly ended, the debug output is present below.

Do I have to install any aditional language package or something like that?

Reactivating setup wizard

Please mention also how setup wizard can be reactivate in case on need redo the setup.

I found this information before, somewhere, in The Documentation, but I cannot succeed finding it now more.

Contributing

I tried to contribute all the screenshots for this page. I clicked edit, and then add an object, a box popped up telling me there were no objects associated and I could not find anywhere to upload the screenshots. Maybe this is why no one is contributing as much as they would. Where do i add an object so that it can be used?

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Contents

Installation

Normal installation
Bundled installation
Manual installation
The setup wizard
The cronjob script
Virtual Host setup
Upgrading
Adding extensions
Removing Exponential


Created

17/09/2003
10:59:04 am
by Balazs Halasy

Last updated

16/03/2004
1:21:42 am
by liu spider

Authors

Balazs Halasy
liu spider



This page is part of the Exponential documentation. The documentation is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. All contributions will be released under the terms of this license.