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Uwe Steinmann 630b7b33d0 minor fixes

2023-05-24 09:49:39 +02:00

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SeedDMS Installation Instructions

REQUIREMENTS

SeedDMS is a web-based application written in PHP. It uses MySQL, SQLite3 or PostgreSQL to manage the documents that were uploaded into the application. Be aware that PostgreSQL is not very well tested.

Make sure you have PHP >= 7.3 and MySQL 5 or higher installed. SeedDMS will work with PHP running in CGI-mode as well as running as a module under apache.

Here is a detailed list of requirements:

A web server with at least php 7.4
A mysql database, unless you use SQLite
The php installation must have support for pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql or pdo_sqlite, php_gd2, php_mbstring, php_xml
Depending on the configuration the extensions php_ldap, php_mycrypt, php_gmp, php_libsodium, php_imagick must be installed
Various command line programms to convert files into text for indexing pdftotext, catdoc, xls2csv or scconvert, cat, id3 (all optional, only needed for fulltext search)
ImageMagic (the convert program) is needed for creating preview images
A bunch of packages from Packagist which all ship with the seeddms-quickstart archive

It is highly recommended to use the quickstart archive (seeddms-quickstart-x.y.z.tar.gz) because it includes all software packages (excluding those listed above in item 1. to 6.) for running SeedDMS. Hence, you still need a working web server with PHP and in addition a mysql or PostgreSQL database unless you intend to use SQLite.

QUICKSTART

The fastes way to get SeedDMS running is by unpacking the archive seeddms-quickstart-x.y.z.tar.gz on your webserver. Let's assume you use seeddms-quickstart-5.1.x.tar.gz. It will create a new directory seeddms51x containing everything you need to run SeedDMS with SQLite3. Even if you intend to use mysql in the long run it is advisable to first set up SeedDMS with SQLite3 and than just switch the database.

Setting up the web server

First of all you will need to set up your web server. Here, we will only focus on apache running on Debian/GNU Linux. Either let the document root of your web server point to the directory www below seeddms51x

DocumentRoot /var/www/seeddms51x/www

or add an alias. For apache this could be like

Alias /seeddms51x //seeddms51x/www

or even

Alias /mydms //seeddms51x/www

Do not set the DocumentRoot or Alias to the seeddms51x directory, because this will allow anybody to access your data and conf directory if it is not secured by a .htaccess file. This is a major security risk.

Make sure that the subdirectory seeddms51x/data and the configuration file seeddms51/conf/settings.xml is writeable by your web server. All other directories can be just readable by your web server, though it is advisable to even protect them from writing.

Adjusting the configuration of SeedDMS

In the next step you need to adjust the configuration file in seeddms51x/conf/settings.xml. Open the file in your favorite text editor and search for /home/wwww-data. Replace that part in any path found with your base directory where you placed seeddms51x (e.g. /var/www/html/seeddms51x). Alternatively, you can open the installer with a browser at http://your-domain/install (if the document root points to seeddms51x/www) or http://your-domain/seeddms51x/install/ (if you have set an alias like described above).

It will first ask to unlock the installer by creating a file ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL in the diretory seeddms51x/conf/. Change all paths by replacing /home/www-data with your base directory where you put seeddms51x. Set httpRoot to / (if the document root points to seeddms51x/www) or /seeddms51x (if you have set an alias seeddms51x like described above).

Once your configuration is done, save it, remove the file ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL and point your browser to http://your-domain/ or http://your-domain/seeddms51x.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS

You should always access your SeedDMS installation through a secured https connection, unless you precisly know what you are doing. SeedDMS ships an .htaccess file which already has some common security http headers set. In order for them to apply you need to activate the headers module. On Debian/GNU Linux this can be done with

a2enmod headers

Protect directories with data or configuration

A crucial point when setting up SeedDMS is the propper placement of the data directory. Do not place it below your document root of your web server! If you do so, there is a potential way that attackers can easily access your documents with a regular web browser. If you cannot place the data directory outside of document root, then either restrict access to it with an appropriate .htaccess file like the following. The SeedDMS quickstart archive already includes this .htaccess file.

# line below if for Apache 2.4
<ifModule mod_authz_core.c>
Require all denied
</ifModule>

# line below if for Apache 2.2
<ifModule !mod_authz_core.c>
deny from all
Satisfy All
</ifModule>

# section for Apache 2.2 and 2.4
<ifModule mod_autoindex.c>
IndexIgnore *
</ifModule>

Alternatively or in addition you can change the contentOffsetDir in settings.xml to something random, but ensure it is still a valid directory name. If you change contentOffsetDir, then do not forget to move data/1048576 to data/<your random name>. Also turn off directory listings in your apache configuration for the data directory.

Securing the configuration file

The configuration can be fully controlled by any administrator of SeedDMS. This can be crucial for those configuration options where external commands are being configured, e.g. for the full text engine or creating preview images. As a hoster you may not want this configuration options being set by a SeedDMS administrator. For now you need to make the configuration file settings.xml unwritable for the web server. In that case the SeedDMS administrator can still see the configuration but will not be able to change it.

Since version 5.1.23 and 6.0.16 of SeedDMS there is some preliminary way to hide parts of the configuration which makes them unchangeable for the SeedDMS administrator.

Setting a new encryption key

Though this is not related to setting up the web server environment, it is important to recreated the encryption key in SeedDMS once SeedDMS is running. Just open the settings in the admin tools and empty the currently set encryption key on the tab 'System'. Save the settings and check the key again. It should be a new one. Save the settings again. The encryption key is mainly used for creating tokens in HTML forms to prevent CSRF attacks.

UPGRADING FROM A PREVIOUS VERSION OF SEEDDMS

As SeedDMS is a smooth continuation of LetoDMS there is no difference in updating from LetoDMS or SeedDMS.

You have basically two choices to update SeedDMS:

you install a fresh version of SeedDMS and copy over your data and configuration
you replace the software in your current installation with a new version

The first option is less interuptive but requires to be able to set up a second temporary SeedDMS installation, which may not be possible, e.g. because of storage limitations. It can be the only option if you change servers.

The first update procedure is only needed if the version changes on the minor or major version number. Changes in the subminor version number will never include database changes and consequently it is sufficient to use the existing data directory and database with the new version. Choose the second update option in this case.

In both cases make sure to have a backup of your data directory, configuration and database.

Fresh installation and take over of data

The first update option is to set up a new instance of SeedDMS and once that is running take over the data from your current (old) instance.

just do a fresh installation somewhere on your web server and make sure it works. It is fine to use SQLite for it, even if your final installation uses MySQL.
replace the data directory in your new installation with the data directory from your current installation. Depending on the size of that directory (and whether the new installation is on a new server or the old server) you may either copy, move or place a symbolic link. The content of the data directory will not be changed during the update. Its even perfectly save to browse through your documents and download them after finishing the update. The data directory will not be modified until you actually modify documents.
copy over the configuration settings.xml into your new installation. This will effectively make your new installation use the data from your old installation, because all paths are still pointing to the old installation.
if you use mysql you could as well make a copy of the database to make sure your current database remains unchanged.
modify the settings.xml to fit the environment of the new installation. This will mostly be the httpRoot, the paths to the installation directory and possibly the database connection.
create a file ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL in the conf directory and point your browser at http://hostname/seeddms/install The install tool will detect the version of your current SeedDMS installation and run the required database updates. If you update just within the last version number (e.g. from 5.1.6 to 5.1.9), this step will not be required because such a subminor version update will never contain database updates.

Upgrading your current installation

Instead of setting up a new installation, you may as well replace the php files in your current installation with new versions from the quickstart archive.

get the SeedDMS quickstart archive seeddms-quickstart-x.y.z.tar.gz and unpack it somewhere on your disc.
copy the directory seeddms-x.y.z from the unpacked archive into your current installation and make the link seeddms point to this new directory.
copy the directory pear from the unpacked archive into your current installation, replacing the existing directory. Make a backup of pear before the replacement if you want to ensure to be able to go back to your old version.
you may compare your conf/settings.xml file with the shipped version conf/settings.xml.template for new parameters. If you don't do it, the next time you save the configuration the default values will be used.
create a file ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL in the conf directory and point your browser at http://hostname/seeddms/install The install tool will detect the version of your current SeedDMS installation and run the required database updates. If you update just within the last version number (e.g. from 5.1.6 to 5.1.9), this step will not be required because such a subminor version update will never contain database updates.

THE LONG STORY

This section is mostly outdated but may still contain some valueable information for those trying to understand the installation process.

If you intend to run a single instance of SeedDMS, you are most likely better off by using the quickstart archive as described above. This section is mostly for users who wants to know more about the internals of SeedDMS or do packaging for a software distribution, which already ships some of the additional software SeedDMS requires.

SeedDMS has changed its installation process with version 3.0.0. This gives you many more options in how to install SeedDMS. First of all, SeedDMS was split into a core package (SeedDMS_Core-<version>.tar.gz) and the web application itself (seeddms-<version>.tar.gz). The core is a pear package which could be installed as one. It is responsible for all the database operations. The web application contains the ui not knowing anything about the database layout. Second, one SeedDMS installation can be used for various customer instances by sharing a common source. Starting with version 3.2.0 a full text search engine has been added. This requires the zend framework and another pear package SeedDMS_Lucene-<version>.tar.gz which can be downloaded from the SeedDMS web page. Version 4.0.0 show preview images of documents which requires SeedDMS_Preview-<version>.tar.gz. Finally, SeedDMS has got a web based installation, which takes care of most of the installation process.

Before you proceed you have to decide how to install SeedDMS:

with multiple instances
as a single instance

Both have its pros and cons, but

setting up a single instance is easier if you have no shell access to the web server
the installation script is only tested for single instances

Installation for multiple instances shares the same source by many instances but requires to create links which is not in any case possible on your web server.

Some preparation

A common source of problems in the past have been the additional software packages needed by SeedDMS. Those are the PEAR packages Log, Mail and HTTP_WebDAV_Server as well as the Zend_Framework. If you have full access to the server running a Linux distribution it is recommended to install those with your package manager if they are provided by your Linux distribution. If you cannot install it this way then choose a directory (preferable not below your web document root), unpack the software into it and extend the php include path with your newly created directory. Extending the php include can be either done by modifying php.ini or adding a line like

php_value include_path '/home/mypath:.:/usr/share/php'

to your apache configuration or setting the extraPath configuration variable of SeedDMS.

For historical reasons the path to the SeedDMS_Core and SeedDMS_Lucene package can still be set in the configuration, which is not recommend anymore. Just leave those parameters empty.

On Linux/Unix your web server should be run with the environment variable LANG set to your system default. If LANG=C, then the original filename of an uploaded document will not be preserved if the filename contains non ascii characters.

Turn off magic_quotes_gpc in your php.ini, if you are using a php version below 5.4.

Using the installation tool

Unpack seeddms-.tar.gz below the document root of your web server. Install SeedDMS_Preview-<version>.tar.gz and SeedDMS_Core-<version>.tar.gz either as a regular pear package or set up a file system structure like pear did somewhere on you server. For the full text search engine support, you will also need to install SeedDMS_Lucene-<version>.tar.gz.

For the following instructions we will assume a structure like above and seeddms- being accessible through http://localhost/seeddms/

Point you web browser towards http://hostname/seeddms/install/
Follow the instructions on the page and create a file ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL in the conf directory.
Create a data directory with the thre sub directories staging, cache and lucene. Make sure the data directory is either not below your document root or is protected with a .htaccess file against web access. The data directory needs to be writable by the web server.
Clicking on 'Start installation' will show a form with all necessary settings for a basic installation.
After saving your settings succesfully you are ready to log in as admin and continue customizing your installation with the 'Admin Tools'

Detailed installation instructions (single instance)

You need a working web server with MySQL/PHP5 support and the files SeedDMS-<version>.tar.gz, SeedDMS_Preview-<version>.tar.gz and SeedDMS_Core-<version>.tgz. For the full text search engine support, you will also need to unpack SeedDMS_Lucene-<version>.tgz.

Unpack all the files in a public web server folder. If you're working on a host machine your provider will tell you where to upload the files. If possible, do not unpack the pear packages SeedDMS_Core-<version>.tgz, SeedDMS_Preview-<version>.tgz and SeedDMS_Lucene-<version>.tgz below the document root of your web server. Choose a temporary folder, as the files will be moved in a second.

Create a directory e.g. pear in the same directory where you unpacked seeddms and create a sub directory SeedDMS. Move the content except for the tests directory of all SeedDMS pear packages into that directory. Please note that pear/SeedDMS may not (and for security reasons should not) be below your document root.

You will end up with a directory structure like the following

seeddms- pear SeedDMS Core.php Core Lucene.php Lucene Preview Preview.php

Since they are pear packages they can also be installed with

pear install SeedDMS_Core-.tgz pear install SeedDMS_Lucene-.tgz pear install SeedDMS_Preview-.tgz
The PEAR packages Log and Mail are also needed. They can be downloaded from http://pear.php.net/package/Log and http://pear.php.net/package/Mail. Either install it as a pear package or place it under your new directory 'pear'

pear Log Log.php Mail Mail.php
The package HTTP_WebDAV_Server is also needed. It can be downloaded from http://pear.php.net/package/HTTP_WebDAV_Server. Either install it as a pear package or place it under your new directory 'pear'

pear HTTP WebDAV Server Server.php

If you run PHP in CGI mode, you also need to place a .htaccess file in the webdav directory with the following content.

RewriteEngine on RewriteRule .* - [env=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization},last]
Create a data folder somewhere on your web server including the subdirectories staging, cache and lucene and make sure they are writable by your web server, but not accessible through the web.

For security reason the data folder should not be inside the public folders or should be protected by a .htaccess file. The folder containing the configuration (settings.xml) must be protected by an .htaccess file like the following.

> <Files ~ "^settings\.xml">
> Order allow,deny
> Deny from all
> </Files>

If you install SeedDMS for the first time continue with the database setup.

Create a new database on your web server e.g. for mysql: create database seeddms;
Create a new user for the database with all permissions on the new database e.g. for mysql: grant all privileges on seeddms.* to seeddms@localhost identified by 'secret'; (replace 'secret' with you own password)
Optionally import create_tables-innodb.sql in the new database e.g. for mysql:

cat create_tables-innodb.sql | mysql -useeddms -p seeddms This step can also be done by the install tool.
create a file ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL in the conf directory and point your browser at http://hostname/seeddms/install

Email Notification

A notification system allows users to receive an email when a document or folder is changed. This is an event-based mechanism that notifies the user as soon as the change has been made and replaces the cron mechanism originally developed. Any user that has read access to a document or folder can subscribe to be notified of changes. Users that have been assigned as reviewers or approvers for a document are automatically added to the notification system for that document.

A new page has been created for users to assist with the management of their notification subscriptions. This can be found in the "My Account" section under "Notification List".

Nearly finished

Now point your browser to http://hostname/seeddms/index.php and login with "admin" both as username and password. After having logged in you should first choose "My Account" and change the Administrator's password and email-address.

CONFIGURING MULTIPLE INSTANCES

Since version 3.0.0, SeedDMS can be set up to run several parallel instances sharing the same source but each instance has its own configuration. This is quite useful if you intend to host SeedDMS for several customers. This approach still allows to have diffenrent version of SeedDMS installed and will not force you to upgrade a customer instance, because other instances are upgraded. A customer instance consists of

a directory containing mostly links to the SeedDMS source and a configuration file
a directory containing the document content files
a database
Unpack the SeedDMS distribution

Actually there is no need to set up the database at this point but it won't hurt since you'll need one in the next step anyway. The sources of SeedDMS can be anywhere you like. The do not have to be in you www-root. If you just have access to your www-root directory, then put them there.

Setup the instance

Unpack the files as described in the quick installation.

Create a directory in your www-root or use www-root for your instance. In the second case, you will not be able to create a second instance, because each instance needs its own directory.

Go into that directory create the following links ( is the directory of your initial SeedDMS intallation).

src -> inc -> src/inc op -> src/op out -> src/out js -> src/js views -> src/views languages -> src/languages styles -> src/styles themes -> src/themes install -> src/install index.php -> src/index.php

ln -s ../seeddms- src ln -s src/inc inc ln -s src/op op ln -s src/out out ln -s src/js js ln -s src/views views ln -s src/languages languages ln -s src/styles styles ln -s src/themes themes ln -s src/install install ln -s src/index.php index.php

Create a new directory named conf and run the installation tool.

Creating the links as above has the advantage that you can easily switch to a new version and go back if it is necessary. You could even run various instances of SeedDMS using different versions.

Create a database and data store for each instance

Create a database and data store for each instance and adjust the database settings in conf/settings.xml or run the installation tool.

Point your web browser towards the index.php file in your new instance.

NOTE FOR VERSION 4.0.0

Since version 4.0.0 of SeedDMS installation has been simplified. ADOdb is no longer needed because the database access is done by PDO.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT TRANSLATIONS

As you can see SeedDMS provides a lot of languages but we are not professional translators and therefore rely on user contributions.

If your language is not present in the login panel:

copy the language/English/ folder and rename it appropriately for your language
open the file languages/your_lang/lang.inc and translate it
open the help file languages/your_lang/help.htm and translate it too

If you see some wrong or not translated messages:

open the file languages/your_lang/lang.inc
search the wrong messages and translate them

if you have some "error getting text":

search the string in the english file languages/english/lang.inc
copy to your language file languages/your_lang/lang.inc
translate it

If there is no help in your language:

Copy the English help english/help.htm file to your language folder
translate it

If you apply any changes to the language files please send them to the SeedDMS developers info@seeddms.org.

http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry has a list of all language and country codes.

LICENSING

SeedDMS is licensed unter GPLv2

Uwe Steinmann info@seeddms.org

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