==================================================================== Gekko 0.5.x | Installation Notes ==================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation requirements ==================================================================== 1. Basic requirements --------------------- * A complete understanding and agreement to the GNU/GPL. * HTTP Server (Gekko was developed using Apache) which must be working with PHP. * PHP Version >= 4.3.6 * MySQL Version >= 3.23.54 * Minimun UNIX commands knowledge. * Mozilla Firefox (if you want to use our Visual Content Editor) Please notice that Gekko is not currently being tested under a Windows(R) server, so, it will probably fails because the way Gekko access some files... We don't know when we're going to start testing under that environment... If you want Gekko running on such a system stop complaining and start programming! 2. Useful features ------------------ PHP's useful features: * GD Libray for image manipulation * bz2 and zlib for data compression. * fsockopen(), mail(), functions enabled. * php.ini: register_globals OFF -------------------------------------------------------------------- How to install/upgrade ==================================================================== A fresh installation --------------------- For those who can't wait: Unpack Gekko, browse to install.php script and follow on-screen directions, it will be easier if you have FTP access to your site. 1.- Unpack Gekko Gekko is distributed compressed as a .tar.gz or a .tar.bz2 file, you can uncompress those kind of files using the "tar" program as follows: me@unix $ tar -vxzf gekko-version.tar.gz You'd change -xvzf options for -xvjf if you downloaded a .tar.bz2 file. If you still use Windows(R), you can use an open source program like 7-zip (http://www.7-zip.org) to extract .tar.gz or tar.bz2 files. After file extraction a directory named gekko-version is created, you'd change to that directory and copy contents of ./src/ to the location you want Gekko to be installed: me@unix $ cd gekko-version me@unix $ cp -r src/* ~/public_html You can also upload Gekko via some protocol like FTP to a remote server, please refere to your protocol client documentation to do so. 2.- Fire up your favorite web browser and point it to Gekko's install.php script http://www.example.org/install.php Chose you prefered site language. If you have an FTP server running on that server, you can let Gekko handle file permission corrections, if you don't trust on Gekko or if you want to do things your way you may set file permissions by hand: me@unix $ chmod a+w data temp dbconf.php In the above example "data", "temp" and "dbconf.php" were made world-writable. We recommend you made them writable _only_ for the user who is running your HTTP server. However this is a potential security risk there is no other way Gekko could save and access files. (If you know other _fast_ method without using database queries, please let us know) In Windows(R) systems there is no need to do such a thing since by default (AFAIK) every user may write down a file wherever he wish. Make sure you're selecting "FRESH INSTALLATION" and no other method. Keep going with on-screen directions and finish installation. After installation completes, you must change permissions of dbconf.php to be readable-only: me@unix $ chmod 755 dbconf.php If Gekko keeps asking for file permission corrections and you're sure you've performed those, you can skip directly to index.php. Now that you have a working system, you'd delete "install" directory and "install.php" scripts for security reasons (there is no need for those files anyways). 3.- Login as the user you've just created (that's the superuser) and start configuring your website. 4.- Please take your time to know Gekko and for writing us your feelings, suggestions or questions about it, send us a postcard of the place you live or something like that, we like those :). All kinds of contributions are appreciated. Thank you for using Gekko, we hope you can enjoy this software as we enjoy to develop it! Upgrading and existing Gekko's package -------------------------------------- YOU SHOULD ALWAYS MAKE A DATABASE BACKUP BEFORE TRYING TO UPGRADE. There is no way to recover your data if you (or we) commited a mistake and you didn't backup your database. So please, take a minute to do so. Notice that due to differences between releases prior to 0.5, it's practically impossible to make a clean upgrade to 0.5+ series, however, some important data could be restored (check install/patches directory). At the end of April 2006, Gekko will not be shipped with 0.4 patches anymore. For those who can't wait: Unpack a fresh Gekko package under a temporary directory, change directory to ./gekko-newversion/src and delete temp, data, dbconf.php and cgdb.php scripts, overwrite your old package files with the new ones, point your favorite browser to Gekko's install.php script and follow on-screen directions. Be sure you're selecting "UPGRADE" and no "FRESH INSTALLATION"! 1.- Backup your database, you can do this the quick way (if you're using mysql) as follows: me@unix $ mysqldump -u my_mysql_user -p my_database > backup.sql me@unix $ gzip backup.sql You also can use Gekko's backup module. If you want to make a whole Gekko backup you must compress "data" and "temp" directories me@unix $ cd ~/public_html me@unic $ tar -cvzf ~/gekko-data.tar.gz data temp 2.- Get and unpack a Gekko recent version to a temporary directory (check step 1 of installation instructions), let's suppose you're extracting your new package to ~/tmp and that your older package was installed under ~/public_html. Change to your NEW-PACKAGE/src directory and delete those files and directories: - dbconf.php - cgdb.php - temp - data Change to your OLD-PACKAGE/ directory and backup "dbconf.php" me@unix $ cp dbconf.php ~/dbconf.backup me@unix $ chmod 700 ~/dbconf.backup 3.- Overwrite all your files from your NEW-PACKAGE/src to your OLD-PACKAGE/ directory. If you deleted "dbconf.php" from the old-package, you could restore it, just change permissions of "dbconf.php", it must be world-writable me@unix $ chmod a+w dbconf.php Fire up your favorite web browser and point it to Gekko's install.php script and follow on-screen directions. Be sure you're selection UPGRADE instead of FRESH INSTALLATION or you could lost all your database data! Change permissions of dbconf.php to be read-only just as you did in installation procedure. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Release notes ==================================================================== * Gzip output is enabled by default (if zlib is loaded), this feature can save lots of bandwith usage. * There is a known MSIE bug when handling PNG images (alpha channel doesn't work), however, Gekko is using a ugly hack to add ugly HTML code that forces an ugly browser, MSIE, to use alpha channel. It makes that browser very slow and some users reported MSIE just crashes, but we really don't care. If you want to continue using IE you should pray for your salvation before the second coming of Jesuschrist and upgrade to IE7 just to view correct PNG transparency (I really don't know if MSIE 7 will include decent PNG support). What can I do? - You can deactivate that patch from the administration panel, you will see ugly PNG images with gray blackground where it is supposed to have transparency. - You can also reduce the amount of PNG images Gekko uses by deactivating menu icons and/or tweaking templates. - You can use a good browser that supports standards, like Mozilla Firefox, and start "spreading the word" - You can convert all .png images in .gif ones, but believe me, those will look really bad. - You can blame Gekko developers :). ----------