Installing Grebe - Jul 30, 2014

Documenting the steps, which will lead to additional programming changes to make it simpler.

• With the hosting provider, add DNS information, if necessary.
• Create a CNAME record if installing the code under a subdomain.
  • grebe CNAME @
• May have to wait a while before DNS updates in order to use the new subdomain website.

• Log onto remote server.

• Change to user root. or use sudo ahead of each command.
  • https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

• Change directory to web server config area. This example uses the Nginx web server, and it assumes that FastCGI has been installed.
  • cd /etc/nginx

• Need to create a server block config file to support Grebe.
  • http://wiki.nginx.org/ServerBlockExample
    • "VirtualHost" is an Apache term. Nginx does not have Virtual hosts, it has "Server Blocks" that use the server_name and listen directives to bind to tcp sockets.
• This is an example of using Grebe under a subdomain.
  • cd sites-available
  • vim grebe.yourdomain.com
  • add the following and save the file:

########
# GREBE
########

server {
        listen   80;

        server_name grebe.yourdomain.com;

        location ~ ^/(css/|javascript/|images/) {
          root /home/grebe/Grebe/root;
          access_log off;
          expires max;
        }

        location /api/v1 {
             root /home/grebe/Grebe/root/api/v1;
             index grebeapi.pl;
             rewrite  ^/(.*)$ /grebeapi.pl?query=$1 break;
             fastcgi_pass  127.0.0.1:8999;
             fastcgi_index grebeapi.pl;
             fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
             include fastcgi_params;
        }

        location / {
             root /home/grebe/Grebe/root;
             index grebe.pl;
             rewrite  ^/(.*)$ /grebe.pl?query=$1 break;
             fastcgi_pass  127.0.0.1:8999;
             fastcgi_index grebe.pl;
             fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
             include fastcgi_params;
        }
}

• Create a link to the new Nginx server block file.
  • ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/grebe.yourdomain.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

• Restart Nginx.
  • /etc/init.d/nginx restart

• Create a home directory for Grebe.
  • mkdir /home/grebe

• Change to Grebe directory.
  • cd /home/grebe

• Create directories that will host markup and HTML template files that represent the posts created. These directories exist outside of document root, but they are used by the Grebe code.
  • mkdir posts
  • mkdir markup

• Within the /home/grebe directory, download or copy over the gzipped tar file that contains the Grebe code, and unpack it. Example file: Grebe-29Jul2014.tar.gz
  • unpack in two steps:
    • gunzip Grebe-29Jul2014.tar.gz
    • tar -xvf Grebe-29Jul2014.tar
  • or unpack in one step:
    • tar -zxvf Grebe-29Jul2014.tar.gz
• The unpacking creates a directory called Grebe.

• Change ownership of all contents under the Grebe directory to the owner (username) and group that Nginx operates under.
  • chown - R owner:group Grebe

• While in /home/grebe change directory to Grebe.
  • cd Grebe

• For curiosity sake, show a listing of all files and subdirectories under Grebe:
  • ls -lR

• The directory structure under Grebe:
  • lib
    • API
    • Client
    • Config
    • CPAN
      • Algorithm
      • HTML
      • JSON
      • REST
      • Text
      • URI
        • Escape
      • XML
      • YAML
    • JRS
  • nginx
  • root
    • api
      • v1
    • css
    • images
    • javascript
      • splitscreen
  • sql
  • t
  • tmpl
  • yaml

• While at /home/grebe/Grebe, change to the web root directory.
  • cd root

• Edit the small file grebe.pl. Here is the entire file. Ensure of the proper directory structures after the lib commands.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;
$|++;
use lib '/home/grebe/Grebe/lib';
use lib '/home/grebe/Grebe/lib/CPAN';
use Client::Dispatch;
Client::Dispatch::execute();

• While in /home/grebe/Grebe/root, change directory to the version one API directory. Since we're under the web root directory for the Nginx web server, this directory is part of the API URL.
  • cd api/v1

• Edit the small file grebeapi.pl. Here is the entire file. Ensure of the proper directory structures after the lib commands.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;
$|++;
use lib '/home/grebe/Grebe/lib';
use lib '/home/grebe/Grebe/lib/CPAN';
use API::DispatchAPI;
API::DispatchAPI::execute();

• Change to the directory that contains the database files.
  • cd /home/grebe/Grebe/sql

• This assumes that MySQL is installed.

• Create a new database and database user for Grebe. If planning to use an existing database, then skip these steps.
• Enter this command to get into the mysql command line interface: (it will ask for the root password)
  • mysql -uroot -p
• At the mysql> prompt, enter the following commands, one at a time:
  • create database grebe;
  • create user 'grebe'@'localhost' identified by 'set_your_password_here';
  • grant all privileges on grebe.* to 'grebe'@'localhost';
  • flush privileges;
  • quit;

• Create the Grebe database tables.
  • mysql -ugrebe -pyourpassword -D grebe < grebe-users.sql
  • mysql -ugrebe -pyourpassword -D grebe < grebe-posts.sql
  • mysql -ugrebe -pyourpassword -D grebe < grebe-tags.sql
  • mysql -ugrebe -pyourpassword -D grebe < grebe-sessionids.sql

• Change directory to the location of the Config module.
  • cd /home/grebe/Grebe/lib/Config

• Edit Config.pm and make the appropriate directory location change for the variable $yml_file which points to the location of the Yaml configuration file.
  • my $yml_file = "/home/grebe/Grebe/yaml/grebe.yml";

• Change directory to the Yaml config file location.
  • cd /home/grebe/Grebe/yaml
    • For testing, enable debug mode.
      • debug_mode: 1

• Edit the file grebe.yml and make the appropriate changes.

• If read_template: 1, then the following files need linked from the Grebe/tmpl directory to the posts directory.
  • ln -s /home/grebe/Grebe/tmpl/header.tmpl /home/grebe/posts
  • ln -s /home/grebe/Grebe/tmpl/inc_headernav.tmpl /home/grebe/posts
  • ln -s /home/grebe/Grebe/tmpl/footer.tmpl /home/grebe/posts

• Open web browser and enter the following URL:
  • http://grebe.yourname.com
• The site or blog app should load, displaying the default image header and other links.

• Create a user account:
  • http://grebe.yourname.com/signup

• Login:
  • http://grebe.yourname.com/login

## To-do

• provide info for using MailGun to send e-mails for creating accounts and for using the no-password login feature.