Sitellite Installation Guide

The following is a step-by-step guide to installing the Sitellite Content Management System on Unix-based servers such as Linux or Mac OS X.

Sitellite 5 Beta

For information about the Sitellite 5 beta release, click here.

Before We Begin

For complete web server and browser compatibility information, please read our requirements page.

Please Have Ready

In order to complete the Sitellite installation process, you will need the following things:

A secure shell (SSH) account on your web server, and an SSH client such as Putty. On Unix-based systems you can simply type ssh username@servername at the command prompt. You will need this to begin the setup process.
Your MySQL database name, hostname, username, and password. The installer will need this information to create the Sitellite database schema and configuration files. If you need help creating a MySQL database, you can refer to these instructions.
A supported web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. This will be used to run the web-based installer.

If you do not have an SSH account, you may be able to substitute this by executing the equivalent commands through an FTP client. However, it is strongly recommended you use SSH.

Retrieving Sitellite

Method 1: Go-Sitellite

The first, although also the newest, method of retrieving Sitellite is to do so via the go-sitellite script. This is a shell script that you run from your web server (via SSH) which downloads and unpacks the latest Sitellite release. It performs all of the manual tasks leading up to the web-based installer for you, so that you don't have to do them yourself.

Note: The reason for keeping the second method around is two-fold: First, some people are not comfortable with the idea of executing a shell script from a remote server. If this includes you, please skip to method 2 below. The second reason is that occasionally a web server is not compatible with the go-sitellite script, which means you'll have to use method 2 anyway.

To run this script, log into your web server via SSH and enter the following command:

wget -q -O - http://www.sitellite.org/go-sitellite | sh

This command will download and execute the go-sitellite install script. The response you will see to this command will be the output of this script (an example of which is listed below), which will instruct you as to the next step (the web-based installer). That's all there is to it with this method.

Welcome to the Sitellite CMS installer.

Retrieving sources...

--20:23:15--  http://www.sitellite.org/.../sitellite-4.2.0-stable.tar.gz
           => `sitellite-4.2.0-stable.tar.gz'
Resolving www.sitellite.org... done.
Connecting to www.sitellite.org[65.103.151.41]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 5,697,013 [application/x-tar]

100%[=========================>] 5,697,013     23.93M/s    ETA 00:00

20:23:15 (23.93 MB/s) - `sitellite-4.2.0-stable.tar.gz' saved [5697013/5697013]

Unpacking sources...

Setting permissions...

Done.

Before you launch the web-based installer, which will guide you through
the remainder of the installation process, you will need to create a
MySQL database for your web site.  Please have your database name,
hostname, username, and password ready before proceeding.

To launch the web-based installer, go to the following address in
your web browser.  Note that you will need to replace 'example.com'
with the actual location of your Sitellite installation.

http://www.example.com/install

Thank you for using Sitellite!

Method 2: Manual Installation

Note: These steps are also outlined in the docs/INSTALL file included with Sitellite.

First, we need to retrieve the Sitellite CMS software from the Sitellite web site. You can either download this to your desktop then transfer it to your server, or download it directly to your server using the wget command if you're already logged in via SSH. Take a look at the following page for the latest Sitellite release:

http://www.sitellite.org/index/org-download-form

Once you've got Sitellite uploaded to your web server, you will need to extract the contents of the file with the following command:

tar -zxf sitellite-4.2.0-stable.tar.gz

This should create a directory called sitellite-4.2.0-stable The next step is to copy all of the contents of this directory into your main web site folder. To do this, you would use the following two commands:

cp sitellite-4.2.0-stable/.htaccess .
cp -R sitellite-4.2.0-stable/* .

Note that the dots are part of the commands.

The last step before the web-based installer can be run is to allow scripts running under the Apache web server (ie. Sitellite, the installer, PHP, etc.) to modify files in certain locations in Sitellite. This can be done via the following commands:

chmod -R 777 cache
chmod -R 777 inc/app/cms/conf/services
chmod -R 777 inc/app/cms/data
chmod -R 777 inc/conf
chmod -R 777 inc/data
chmod -R 777 inc/html
chmod -R 777 install
chmod -R 777 pix

You should now be ready to run the web-based installer, which will handle the rest of the installation process.

The Web-Based Installer

To run the web-based installer, open your web browser and point it to the following URL. Note that you will need to replace 'example.com' with the actual location of your Sitellite installation.

http://www.example.com/install

The web-based installer is a wizard that guides you through the process of configuring Sitellite, and does most of the work automatically. It will take you through the following list of screens:

Introduction - A friendly welcome screen that also lists several sources of additional information and support, should you need them.
License - The click-through license agreement.
Requirements - This screen runs a series of tests to try to ensure that your web server is configured correctly to run Sitellite. If any test fails it will tell you what to do and allow you to re-run the tests. As of 4.2.1, you can also continue the installation even if some tests fail, assuming you'll correct the issues later. This is intended for advanced users only.
Settings - This is where you'll be asked for your database information so that the installer can build your global settings file as well as create all the database tables used by Sitellite.
Installation - While the previous screen tests your database settings, this one actually performs the actual work.
Password - Here you create the initial password for the 'admin' user, so that there is never an insecure default password, and you're never tempted to just leave it at the default.
Finish Up - The installer marks that it's been run successfully, which prevents it from being run again against your wishes.

The last step then links you straight to the Sitellite CMS login screen, so you can immediately get started building your new web site.

Post-Installation Setup

Scheduler

Some features of Sitellite require a scheduled action to run on your server. These include (but aren't limited to): publish-ahead and auto-archiving of documents, integrating email and instant messaging into Sitellite's user inboxes, and running the SiteSearch add-on's indexer.

You will find detailed information about configuring and running the scheduler here.

Installing Additional Add-Ons

If you would like to install additional Sitellite add-ons, please review the page on installing add-ons here.

Upgrading Your Site

To upgrade your website as new updates become available, please refer to the upgrading guide.

First Steps

Once you have Sitellite running, you will want to begin building your new web site in it. Typically, this is a process involving two main steps:

Creating your web site's design templates. The SiteTemplate add-on, which is freely available on sitellite.org, will come in handy for this, as well as the courses and tutorials on building templates in Sitellite.
Creating your web site's content. Once you have your design in place, it's simply a matter of logging into Sitellite and writing or pasting your content into new pages. Please refer to the Sitellite User Manual for more information on this.

For more advanced web site requirements (ie. forms, product listings, etc.), please refer to the developer documentation on sitellite.org. There you'll find courses, tutorials, and more about Sitellite-based application development.

In Case of Trouble

The Sitellite installer tries to make things as trouble-free as possible, however not all web servers are made equal, and the differences between them can sometimes mean a little extra work getting Sitellite up and running smoothly.

If you do run into trouble, you can take a look at the following list of places to look for answers:

Make sure your server meets all the criteria outlined on the requirements page.
Take a look at the docs/KNOWN ISSUES file included in the Sitellite software download.
Take a look at the troubleshooting information in Sitellite's online documentation.
If all else fails, you can post a question to the Sitellite Developer Forum.