Movable Type Installation Instructions

NAME

mtinstall - Installing Movable Type

SYNOPSIS

This document describes the process of installing the Movable Type system on your machine.

REQUIREMENTS

Movable Type requires the following:

INSTALLING MOVABLE TYPE

Downloading

The distribution can be downloaded from the Movable Type web site at http://www.movabletype.org/download.shtml.

There are two versions of the Movable Type distribution available for download: one is bundled with all of the external libraries that you will need to run the system, whereas the other contains just the Movable Type system itself. If you know that your hosting provider has all of the modules already installed, download the ``lite'' version without the external libraries. Otherwise, the ``full'' version with external libraries included will make installation easier, because you will not have to worry about installing external libraries.

After downloading, the file that you downloaded is aved in .tar.gz format; this is a compressed bundle containing the files in the Movable Type distribution. Unpack this archive.

(Need help unpacking archives?).

Finding Perl on your Server

The following files are Perl scripts: mt-add-notify.cgi, mt-check.cgi, mt-comments.cgi, mt-load.cgi, mt-send-entry.cgi, mt-tb.cgi, and mt-search.cgi. The first line of each of these files must contain the path to Perl on your webserver; typically this is #!/usr/bin/perl. You may need to change this if Perl is at a different location on your webserver, such as /usr/local/bin/perl. If you do need to change the setting, take care not to remove the -w at the end of the first line in each file; this setting turns on warnings in Perl, and it is important that it be left on.

To determine the location of Perl on your webserver, take a look at the support pages for your hosting service. Alternatively, if you have a shell (command line) account, and are familiar using it, you can log in to that account that type:

$ whereis perl

This will give you the location(s) of Perl on your system.

Note: despite its extension, mt-db-pass.cgi is not a normal Perl script, so it should not contain the path to Perl.

Installation Directories

Configuration

  1. Open mt.cfg
    Find the file mt.cfg in the Movable Type folder that you downloaded, then open that file in a text editor.

  2. Configure Movable Type URL.
    Change the line starting with CGIPath to point to the URL where you chose to install Movable Type in Installation Directories.

    For example, if you are installing Movable Type at http://www.your-site.com/movabletype/, you would change the CGIPath line to

    CGIPath http://www.your-site.com/movabletype/

    NOTE: make sure that your URL contains a forward slash (/) at the end!

  3. Configure Database options (for MySQL).
    If you are not using Movable Type's MySQL support, skip this step.

    In the text editor where you are editing mt.cfg, add these lines:

    ObjectDriver DBI::mysql
Database database_name
DBUser database_user

    where database_name is the name of the MySQL database where you wish to store your data, and database_user is the username used to connect to the database. If your MySQL server is on a different host, you can use DBHost to specify the hostname:

    DBHost database_host

    If your MySQL server is on the localhost, but the socket is not in a standard location, you can set the path to the socket using DBSocket:

    DBSocket /path/to/mysql.sock

    Note: the database that you specify must already exist--Movable Type cannot create it automatically!

  4. Configure path to Database directory (for Berkeley DB).
    If you are not using Movable Type's Berkeley DB support, skip this step.

    In the text editor where you are editing mt.cfg, change the line

    DataSource ./db

    to instead read

    DataSource /FULL/PATH/TO/DB

    where /FULL/PATH/TO/DB is replaced by the full filesystem path to the db directory you just created. For example, if you create the directory at /home/melody/db, the above line would read

    DataSource /home/melody/db

  5. Configure path to Static files.
    If you are not installing into the cgi-bin, skip this step.

    You need to set the StaticWebPath value in your mt.cfg file to the URL corresponding to the directory that you chose for your static files (images, docs, and styles.css). For example, if you chose to locate your static files at the root of your web-accesible area, you would add this line to mt.cfg:

    StaticWebPath /mt-static/

  6. Enable security features.
    If your server does not have cgiwrap or suexec, skip this step.

    To enable the heightened security that cgiwrap and suexec provide, add the following lines to your mt.cfg file:

    DBUmask 0022
HTMLUmask 0022
UploadUmask 0022
DirUmask 0022

  7. Save and exit mt.cfg.
    Then save the mt.cfg file, and exit the text editor.

  8. Set your MySQL password.
    If you are not using Movable Type's MySQL support, skip this step.

    For security purposes, your MySQL password should not simply be placed in mt.cfg. Instead, you must set it in the file called mt-db-pass.cgi.

    Open mt-db-pass.cgi in a text editor. On this line:

    database_password

    Replace database_password with the password used to connect to your MySQL database.

    Then save the mt-db-pass.cgi file, and exit the text editor.

Uploading Files

  1. Connect to your webserver
    Open your FTP program and open an FTP connection to your web server.

  2. Upload the application
    In your FTP program, if the directory where you chose to install Movable Type does not exist, create it. Then open that directory.

    Upload all of the files in the Movable Type distribution to your webserver.

    If you are installing into the cgi-bin: you should upload images, docs, and styles.css into the location you chose for your static files.

    NOTE: be careful when doing this, as certain files must be uploaded in ASCII mode, whereas others must be uploaded in binary mode. If you get it wrong, the scripts WILL NOT WORK.

    Upload these files/folders in ASCII mode: docs, lib, extlib, mt.cfg, styles.css, tmpl, schemas, search_templates, and all of the CGI scripts (mt.cgi, etc.).

    Upload these files/folders in Binary mode: images.

  3. Set permissions
    Set the permissions of all of the CGI scripts (files whose names end in .cgi) to 755.

    Permissions set to 755 means that all users on the system have Read and Execute permissions; only the owner should have Write permissions.

    If your FTP client uses a graphical display for setting permissions, that display will look something like this:

    If you are setting permissions through a Unix shell, simply use the command

    $ chmod 755 mt*.cgi

  4. Create your Movable Type database directory
    If you are not using Movable Type's Berkeley DB support, skip this step.

    Open the directory you chose for the location of your Movable Type database.

    Create a new directory called db.

    If you are not running Movable Type under cgiwrap or suexec, set the permissions (CHMOD) of this directory db to 777.

    Permissions set to 777 means that all users on the system have Read, Write, and Execute permissions.

    If your FTP client uses a graphical display for setting permissions, that display will look something like this:

    If you are setting permissions through a Unix shell, simply use the command

    $ chmod 777 db

  5. Create your blog directories
    Create the directory where you blog files will be stored. This is the directory that you chose for the location of your blog directories.

    If you are not running Movable Type under cgiwrap or suexec, set the permissions of the directories you just created to 777 (see above for what this means).

Checking for Perl Modules

Movable Type requires the presence of several standard Perl modules, separate from the Movable Type code itself. If you downloaded the ``full'' version of the Movable Type distribution, it came with all of the necessary modules, except for DB_File, DBD::mysql, and Image::Magick (these modules can not be distributed with Movable Type because they require compilation). To determine whether these modules are installed on your server--and to install them, if they are not already installed--follow the steps below.

For the function of several optional features, Movable Type needs some optional Perl modules. These optional modules will be listed in Step 1 (below) under the heading CHECKING FOR OPTIONAL MODULES; if your webserver does not have an optional module, its purpose will be explained in relation to the Movable Type feature for which it is required. If you decide that you want to use these features, you will need to install these modules, as well; however, if you do not wish to use these features, you can ignore the missing modules.

Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt-check.cgi on your site. For example, if your site is http://www.your-site.com/, and you uploaded the Movable Type files into the /mt directory, you'd type http://www.your-site.com/mt/mt-check.cgi.

mt-check.cgi is a Perl script that checks whether the required modules are installed on your server. If you get a 500 Internal Server Error when running this script, first check that you set the permissions to 755 (see above for what this means), and that you uploaded the file in ASCII mode. If these suggestions don't help, refer to Troubleshooting.

If the script runs successfully, it will say CHECKING FOR REQUIRED MODULES and so on. If the script reports that your server has all of the required modules installed, you can skip to Initializing the System.

If you need to install any required modules, or if you wish to require some of the optional modules, install them now, using the following instructions:

Initializing the System

Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt-load.cgi on your site. For example, if your site is http://www.your-site.com/, and you uploaded the Movable Type files into the /mt directory, you'd type http://www.your-site.com/mt/mt-load.cgi.

mt-load.cgi is a Perl script that loads initialization data into the Movable Type databases: an initial author, a blog, and some starter templates. If you get a 500 Internal Server Error when running this script, first check that you set the permissions to 755 (see above for what this means), and that you uploaded the file in ASCII mode. If these suggestions don't help, refer to Troubleshooting.

If successful, mt-load.cgi will report its success. If unsuccessful, it will report the error that occurred; look in Troubleshooting for instructions on how to fix the error.

VERY IMPORTANT SECURITY NOTE:

Afer running mt-load.cgi successfully, you should remove mt-load.cgi from the directory where you installed Movable Type. Failure to remove mt-load.cgi could enable someone else to create a blog in your Movable Type installation, and possibly gain access to your data. FAILURE TO DELETE mt-load.cgi INTRODUCES A MAJOR SECURITY RISK. So you should delete it now.

RUNNING MOVABLE TYPE

Now that you have installed the system, you are ready to start using it.

  1. Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt.cgi on your site. mt.cgi is the main Movable Type application. For example, if your site is http://www.your-site.com/, and you installed the Movable Type application into the /mt directory, you'd type http://www.your-site.com/mt/mt.cgi to access Movable Type.

    You should see the Movable Type login prompt. If you do not, check your permissions, and check that you uploaded the CGI scripts using ASCII mode. If neither of these helps, take a look at Troubleshooting.

  2. Log in with the author name Melody and the password Nelson.

  3. The first thing you should do is change your author name and password. To do so, click Edit your profile, then change the author name and password there.

  4. The next thing to do is to configure your first blog. A blog called First Blog already exists in the system; this blog will help to give you a head start in setting up your first blog in Movable Type. First Blog comes with some pre-made templates; of course you can edit these templates, or delete them, or do whatever you like with them. But they are a good starting point, and will give you a sense of familiarity with the Movable Type template tags and structure.

    To configure the blog for your own purposes, click on the link to First Blog under Your existing blogs, then click on the link to Edit Blog Configuration. Change the name of the blog to whatever you wish to call your blog, and enter a description.

    Then, fill in the path and URL information (Local Site Path, Site URL, Local Archive Path, and Archive URL). Values for Local Site Path and Site URL are provided by default, to give you a sense of what the paths should look like; when setting the values of Local Site Path and Local Archive Path, it is best to use absolute paths (paths beginning with a /), rather than relative paths. Note that all four of these fields must be filled in. You should already have created the directories for your blog (above, in Create your blog directories). Fill in the local paths (site and archive) with the full paths to those directories. Then enter the appropriate URLs, corresponding to those directories.

    Edit any other configuration settings for your blog; when you are done, press SAVE.

  5. That's it! You're now ready to start posting entries to your blog, editing templates, and so on.

REQUIRED/OPTIONAL MODULE INSTALLATION STEPS

You only need to install modules not already installed on your system. Run mt-check.cgi (Checking for Perl Modules) to determine what modules you need.

If you need to install HTML::Template

  1. Connect to your FTP server, and open the directory into which you installed Movable Type.

    If a directory called extlib does not exist, create it. Then open that directory.

  2. Download the file at this URL: 
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-HTML-Template.tar.gz

  3. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  4. In the extlib directory (see Step 2), create a new directory called HTML; open that directory; upload the file Template.pm from the cpan-HTML-Template archive into the new HTML directory. In other words, after uploading, Template.pm should be located at extlib/HTML/Template.pm.

    Ignore the rest of the files in the archive.

If you need to install Image::Size

  1. Connect to your FTP server, and open the directory into which you installed Movable Type.

    If a directory called extlib does not exist, create it. Then open that directory.

  2. Download the file at this URL: 
    http://www.movabletype.org/downloads/Image/Size.pm

  3. In the extlib directory on your webserver, create a new directory called Image, and open that directory.

  4. Upload the file Size.pm that you downloaded above into the new Image directory.

  5. After uploading, Size.pm should be located at extlib/Image/Size.pm.

If you need to install File::Spec

  1. Connect to your FTP server, and open the directory into which you installed Movable Type.

    If a directory called extlib does not exist, create it. Then open that directory.

  2. Download the file at this URL: 
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-File-Spec.tar.gz

  3. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  4. In the extlib directory on your webserver, create a new directory called File, and open that directory.

  5. Upload the file Spec.pm into the new File directory.

  6. Upload the directory Spec into the new File directory.

  7. After uploading, Spec.pm should be located at extlib/File/Spec.pm, and Spec should be located at extlib/File/Spec/.

If you need to install DB_File

If you are installing Movable Type on a Win32 machine on which you have administrative access, you can run the Perl Package Manager (PPM) to install DB_File. Select Run... from the Start Menu, then type ppm as the program to run. Once in PPM, you will get a prompt (ppm>), at which you should type install DB_File:

ppm> install DB_File

If you are installing Movable Type on a Linux/Unix machine, you should ask your server administrator to install DB_File for you.

If you need to install DBD::mysql

If your server does not have DBD::mysql, you should first consider using Movable Type's Berkeley DB support (the default).

Otherwise, you will need to contact your hosting provider and ask them to install DBD::mysql and the DBI module. Note that your account will need access to a MySQL database, apart from the existence of these modules, in order for you to use Movable Type's MySQL support.

If you need to install CGI::Cookie

  1. Connect to your FTP server, and open the directory into which you installed Movable Type.

    If a directory called extlib does not exist, create it. Then open that directory.

  2. Download the file at this URL: 
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-CGI.tar.gz

  3. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  4. Upload the file CGI.pm and the directory CGI into the extlib directory.

  5. After uploading, CGI.pm should be located at extlib/CGI.pm, and CGI/ should be located at extlib/CGI/.

If you need to install LWP::UserAgent

  1. Connect to your FTP server, and open the directory into which you installed Movable Type.

    If a directory called extlib does not exist, create it. Then open that directory.

  2. Download the following files: 
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-LWP.tar.gz
http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-URI.tar.gz

  3. Unpack the .tar.gz archives (Need help unpacking archives?).

  4. In the cpan-LWP directory, there is a directory called lib. Open it, and upload the file LWP.pm into your extlib directory (in ASCII mode). Then, also in ASCII mode, upload the directories LWP, HTTP, Net, and WWW into extlib.

  5. From the cpan-URI directory, upload the folder called URI and the file called URI.pm into extlib in ASCII mode.

  6. After uploading, your extlib directory should contain at least the following files and directories: 
    extlib/LWP.pm
extlib/LWP/
extlib/HTTP/
extlib/Net/
extlib/WWW/
extlib/URI.pm
extlib/URI/

If you need to install SOAP::Lite

  1. Connect to your FTP server, and open the directory into which you installed Movable Type.

    If a directory called extlib does not exist, create it. Then open that directory.

  2. Download the following file: 
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-SOAP-Lite.tar.gz

  3. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  4. In the cpan-SOAP-Lite directory, there is a directory called lib. Open it, and upload the directories SOAP, XML, and XMLRPC into your extlib directory (in ASCII mode).

  5. After uploading, your extlib directory should contain at least the following files and directories: 
    extlib/SOAP/
extlib/XML/
extlib/XMLRPC/

If you need to install File::Temp

  1. Connect to your FTP server, and open the directory into which you installed Movable Type.

    If a directory called extlib does not exist, create it. Then open that directory.

  2. Download the file at this URL: 
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-File-Temp.tar.gz

  3. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  4. In the extlib directory on your webserver, create a new directory called File (unless a File directory already exists), and open that directory.

  5. Upload the file Temp.pm into the new File directory.

  6. After uploading, Temp.pm should be located at extlib/File/Temp.pm.

If you need to install Image::Magick

Installing Image::Magick requires compilation of the ImageMagick library, as well as installation of the Perl module that talks to this library. If you wish to have this module installed on your server, you will need to ask your system administrator to install it for you. Note that if you do not have Image::Magick, Movable Type will still work without a hitch--installation of Image::Magick is optional, and is needed only for creating thumbnails of uploaded images.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Problems with f2s

WARNING: problems have been reported when running Movable Type on f2s accounts. These problems have been disk-space-related; specifically, if your f2s account is low on disk space, you should be careful when running Movable Type, because running out of disk space while the database is being updated could corrupt your data. This error is almost always fixable, but it is certainly an annoyance. Note that this problem is not necessarily unique to either Movable Type or f2s; when applications run out of disk space while trying to update files, problems will often occur.

Back to installation instructions

Version of Perl on your server

If you're not sure what version of Perl you have on your server, you can figure it out in one of three ways:

  1. Check the support documentation that your ISP (probably) provides.

  2. Ask your ISP.

  3. If you have shell access to your webserver, you can telnet into your server, then run the following command: 
    $ perl -v

    This command will print out the version of Perl on your webserver.

Back to installation instructions

Unpacking .tar.gz Archives

Movable Type distributions, as well as the distributions for most of the required and optional Perl modules, are saved in .tar.gz format--these are Gzip-ed TAR archives. If you are on Unix, you can use gunzip and tar to unpack these archives. For example:

$ gunzip file.tar.gz
$ tar -xvf file.tar

If you are on a Macintosh, Stuffit Expander will unpack these archives. If you are on Windows, PKZip or Winzip (in classic mode) will do the job.

NOTE: if, after unzipping the Movable Type distribution archive, you find a folder without a directory structure--that is, a lot of files dumped into one folder, rather than grouped into sub-folders--then you will have trouble installing Movable Type. This problem usually signifies that you used Winzip's wizard mode to unzip the archives; if this is the case, make sure that you use Winzip in classic mode, as mentioned above.

Using cgiwrap or suexec

cgiwrap and suexec are special tools on the webserver that allow your CGI scripts to be executed as ``you'', rather than as the webserver. This simplifies Movable Type installation, because you no longer have to set permissions on your blog or db directories (though you still need to set the permissions on the CGI scripts themselves); it is also more secure, because your blog directories will be writeable only by you.

You may need to check with your hosting provider to determine if your server has cgiwrap or suexec installed. Movable Type can make a guess as to whether it is supported, however. When you run mt-check.cgi, under the line reporting the version of Perl on your server, look for a line that says

(Probably) running under cgiwrap or suexec

This indicates that your server probably has cgiwrap or suexec installed.

Back to installation instructions

Win32 Configuration Tips

When configuring Movable Type for use on a Win32 server, you should keep in mind the following tip:

  1. When specifying full filesystem paths--for example, for the DataSource setting--some servers will require that you insert the drive letter at the front, and that you use backslashes. For example: 
    DataSource d:\full\path\to\db

Copyright © 2001, 2002 Ben Trott and Mena Trott. All Rights Reserved.