Version 17, last updated by Xander Jansen at Jan 31 UTC
Installation notes for 1-5 development code
Availability
As of July 1st 2011 'nightly' builds of the development branch of FileSender 1.5 are available in the various unstable repositories. Note that the 1.5 code is not stable yet and can and will change rapidly. Also not every little detail is working and/or tested yet. Do not use the 1.5 builds on a production server. Basic functionality however should work and we appreciate all input on the development builds, most notably about compatibility with the various browsers (both HTLM5 and non-HTML5) and using MySQL as backend database.
Installation and configuration of FileSender 1.5 can be done by following the relevant documentation for version 1.0.x. Exceptions and additions are listed below.
Download
The latest code for 1.5 is always available from the Subversion repository. You can create a local working copy with:
svn co http://subversion.assembla.com/svn/file_sender/filesender/branches/filesender-1.5
Regularly updated Debian and RPM packages are available in the unstable Debian and RPM package repositories.
Regularly updated .tar.gz and .zip distribution files are available from http://repository.filesender.org/unstable/ See Installation - Linux Source for general installation instructions.
Requirements
Client side
1.5 uses the HTLM5 FileAPI for large uploads which means that Gears is not needed anymore. For large uploads you'll need a modern browser which can use the HTML5 FileAPI, for example FireFox 4+ and Google Chrome. For 'older' browsers (including IE9 and Safari 5.1) without support for the HTML5 File API uploads are limited to 2 GB and still require Adobe Flash.
Server side
FileSender 1.5 does work with PHP 5.2.x but on some platforms 5.3 might be required due to secondary dependencies.
Filesender 1.5 introduces a database abstraction layer to be able to use either PostgreSQL or MySQL based on PDO (available on most default PHP installs).
Upgrading from 1.0.x
Database changes
- With 1.5 it is now required to adjust the files table in the database if the database was created with a FileSender version before 1.0.1. Please execute the following if not already done when upgrading to 1.0.1:
#sudo -u postgres psql filesender
ALTER TABLE files ALTER fileip6address TYPE character varying(45);
\q
- The fileauthuserid column in the files table now has a size of 500, consistent with the corresponding column in the logs table and to allow for SAML attributes with very large values. When upgrading from a previous version execute:
#sudo -u postgres psql filesender
ALTER TABLE files ALTER fileauthuserid TYPE character varying(500);
\q
Configuration of database parameters
Configuration of the database connection parameters in config.php has changed to a database-type independent method. The old PostgreSQL-specific pg_* settings are now obsolete and must be replaced with their new equivalents (db_*) including a specification of the database type:
$config["db_type"] = "pgsql";// pgsql or mysql
$config['db_host'] = 'localhost';
$config['db_database'] = 'filesender';
$config['db_port'] = '5432';
// database username and password
$config['db_username'] = 'filesender';
$config['db_password'] = 'yoursecretpassword';
To accomodate more elaborate PDO database settings a DSN style database setting can be configured which will override the db_* settings:
//Optional DSN format overides db_ settings
//$config['dsn'] = "pgsql:host=localhost;dbname=filesender";
//$config['dsn'] = 'pgsql:host=localhost;dbname=filesender';
//$config['dsn'] = 'sqlite:/usr/share/filesender/db/filesender.sqlite';
//$config['dsn_driver_options'] = array();
// dsn requires username and password in $config['db_username'] and $config['db_password']
$config['dsn']
description: the 'URL' pointing to the FileSender database
default: none
Using MySQL as backend database
** Volunteers needed for testing and documenting **
Currently all documentation and the RPM and Debian packages are based on using PostgreSQL as database backend. With 1.5 it is possible though to use MySQL. A sample SQL-script to create the database is provided in scripts/mysql_filesender_db.sql
Important changes in config.php
Changed configuration settings
- The display format of dates has been changed to use the PHP-format (instead of the previously used Flex format). The old format was DD-MM-YYYY which when used in 1.5 will give you something like 'WedWed-SepSep-2011201120112011' . Please change this in your config.php when using/updating a config.php from 1.0.x or 1.5 svn versions dated before August 24th 2011. New default is:
$config['datedisplayformat'] = "d-m-Y";
- AuP textual settings (defaults) have been moved to the language specific files.
//$config["AuP_label"] = "I accept the terms and conditions of this service"; // moved AUP to language files
//$config["AuP_terms"] = "AuP Terms and conditions"; // moved AUP to language files
Gears to HTML5 transition
- Setting for maximum filesize
The max_gears_upload_size config setting is now obsolete and has been replaced with:
$config['max_html5_upload_size']
- URL for information on HTML5
The gearsURL setting has been replaced with a new HTML5URL setting:
$config['HTML5URL'] = 'http://html5test.com/';
About, Help and AuP text
As of revision:858 the semantics of aboutURL and helpURL in the config.php have changed. They can now point to a *page* resulting in a new page being opened in a new tab, or they can be empty, resulting in a popup. The new defaults as of 1.5 are the empty value ("") Note that the popups are "not popups as per opening a popup window but modal inline popups that have nothing to do with popup blockers.". The popup is populated from the language file, using _HELP_TEXT and _ABOUT_TEXT. You can have a localised override in your config directory. The default install comes with a localised example EN_AU.php in the config directory. If you wish to have a Norwegian help, about and AuP terms you'd make a language file "NO_no.php" with the relevant language tags.
Relevant config.php directives:
$config['aboutURL'] = "";
$config['helpURL'] = "";
Relevant settings in language files:
$lang["_HELP_TEXT"]
$lang["_ABOUT_TEXT"]
$lang["_AUPTERMS"]
temp directory
as of revision:871 the temp directory is no longer used for FileSender specific actions. This means the config directive $config["site_temp_filestore"]; is no longer used. If you have configured PHP to use the previously configured site_temp_filestore you can keep that directory and it will still be used for Flash uploads. The setting and use of that directory is now however only defined in the site-wide PHP settings. It is still advised to keep that directory on the same disk partition as the FileSender filestore.
New configuration settings in config.php
- $config["displayerrors"] = false; // Display debug errors on screen (true/false)- $config["upload_chunk_size"] = '2000000';
New Mail template macros
{htmlfileoriginalname} : HTML version of {fileoriginalname}
{filemessage_start} and {filemessage_end} : markers for begin and end of the (optional) personal message
Language definitions
[To be done]
OS specific notes
none
Packaging notes
The 1.5.0-xxx packages will update any previous (package) install of FileSender, including 1.0.x stable and testing packages.
When upgrading the previously unstable 1.0.x-yyyymmddhhmm versions any empty directory created by the older version will be removed. If you're using the experimental Mail Bounce Handling you'll need to manually recreate and symlink the maildrop tree.
- Debian .deb
The unstable and testing repositories have SimpleSAMLphp 1.8.x packages. As of version 1.7.0 the Debian SimpleSAMLphp packaging switched the default baseurl from 'simplesaml/' to 'simplesamlphp/' to adhere to standard Debian policies. This change is also refelected in the FileSender packages in testing and unstable. This might break upgrades from previous versions that were installed with SimpleSAMLphp version 1.6.3. Please check the relevant settings in /etc/simplesamlphp/config.php, /etc/filesender/config.php and your webserver config (Alias statements).