CONFIGURATION SETTINGS

Movable Type's configuration file is called mt.cfg and is located in your main Movable Type directory (the directory where the .cgi scripts live). Following is a list of valid configuration options that can be used in mt.cfg, along with a description and the default setting for each option. These descriptions are also present in mt.cfg itself.

CGIPath
AdminCGIPath
Movable Type uses the CGIPath and AdminCGIPath settings to construct links back to Movable Type CGI scripts. For example, the MT tag <$MTCGIPath$> is replaced with the value of the CGIPath setting. AdminCGIPath is used to construct links to mt.cgi, and CGIPath is used to construct links to all other CGI scripts.
AdminCGIPath is optional. If you do not provide a value for it, it will default to the value of CGIPath. You may wish to use it if you want to place your mt.cgi in a separate directory than the other CGI scripts, or if you wish to use an SSL-enabled URL for your mt.cgi usage.

Default value: none

Examples:
```
CGIPath http://www.your-site.com/path/to/mt/
AdminCGIPath https://www.your-site.com/path/to/mt/
```
DataSource
The filesystem path to the db directory, where your MT database files are stored, if you're using the Berkeley DB data storage option.
Default value: ./db

Example:
```
DataSource ./db
```
StaticWebPath
If you place all of your MT files in a cgi-bin directory, you will need to situate the static files (docs, images, styles.css) elsewhere, so that the webserver will not try to execute them. The Troubleshooting section of the manual has more information.
Default value: none

Example:
```
StaticWebPath /path/to/static-files/
```
TemplatePath
The filesystem path to the tmpl directory, which contains the front-end templates used by the Movable Type application.
Default value: ./tmpl

Example:
```
TemplatePath ./tmpl
```
MailTransfer
If you would rather use SMTP than sendmail, you should set the MailTransfer config setting to 'smtp' (as below). Possible values for MailTransfer are: smtp, sendmail, and debug (which just writes out mail messages to STDERR, for debugging purposes).
Default value: sendmail

Example:
```
MailTransfer smtp
```
SendMailPath
By default, Movable Type looks for sendmail in three locations: /usr/lib/sendmail, /usr/sbin/sendmail, and /usr/ucblib/sendmail. If your sendmail is in a different location, you can adjust the SendMailPath configuration setting.
Default value: any of the above

Example:
```
SendMailPath /usr/sbin/sendmail
```
SMTPServer
The address of your SMTP server, to be used along with MailTransfer smtp.
Default value: localhost

Example:
```
SMTPServer smtp.your-site.com
```
NoTempFiles
By default, when writing to an output file (for example, one of your index or archive pages), Movable Type will first write the data to a temp file, then rename that temp file. In the case that the process writing the data dies unexpectedly, this prevents the pages on your site from being erased. If you do not like this behavior (because it requires you to set directory permissions too liberally, for example), you can use NoTempFiles to turn it off.
Default value: 0

Example:
```
NoTempFiles 1
```
WeblogsPingURL
The URL used to send the XML-RPC weblogs.com ping.
Default value: http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

Example:
```
WeblogsPingURL http://some.alternate.weblogs.com.server/path/
```
BlogsPingURL
The URL used to send the XML-RPC blo.gs ping.
Default value: http://ping.blo.gs/

Example:
```
BlogsPingURL http://some.alternate.blo.gs.server/path/
```
MTPingURL
The URL used to send the XML-RPC ping to movabletype.org (if you have a Recently Updated Key).
Default value: http://www.movabletype.org/update/

Example:
```
MTPingURL http://some.alternate.movabletype.org.server/path/
```
CGIMaxUpload
When uploading files through Movable Type's upload mechanism, a ceiling is put on the size of the files that can be uploaded to prevent denial-of-service attacks.
Default value: 1000000 (1MB)

Example:
```
CGIMaxUpload 500_000
```
DBUmask
HTMLUmask
UploadUmask
DirUmask
When creating files and directories, Movable Type uses umask settings to control the permissions set on the files. If you are running under cgiwrap or suexec, you should use a value of 0022 for all of these settings.
Default values: 0111 (DBUmask, HTMLUmask, UploadUmask), 0000 (DirUmask)

Example:
```
DBUmask 0022
```
HTMLPerms
UploadPerms
In addition to controlling permissions via umask settings, you can also use the HTMLPerms and UploadPerms settings to control the default permissions for files created by the system (either as output files or uploaded files). The only real use of this is to turn on the executable bit of files created by the system--for example, if MT is generating PHP files that need to have the executable bit turned on, you could set HTMLPerms to 0777.
Default value: 0666

Example:
```
HTMLPerms 0777
```
TempDir
When processing uploaded files, if Movable Type notices that the file you uploaded already exists, it will allow you to overwrite the original file, by first asking for your confirmation. To do this, MT needs to write the uploaded data to a temporary file. That temporary file is stored in the directory specified by the TempDir setting.
Default value: /tmp

Example:
```
TempDir /tmp/
```
EntriesPerRebuild
When rebuilding individual archives, Movable Type splits up the rebuilding process into segments, where each segment consists of rebuilding N entries. The default value for N is 40, so by default, MT will rebuild 40 entries at a time, then move on to the next 40, etc. You can change that value globally here; for example, if you have a very stable server, you might wish to just get it all done with in one batch.
Default value: 40

Example:
```
EntriesPerRebuild 100
```
ImportPath
The filesystem path to the import directory, which is used when importing entries and comments into the system--import is the directory where the files to be imported are placed.
Default value: ./import

Example:
```
ImportPath ./import
```
UseNFSSafeLocking
By default Movable Type uses Perl's flock() function to lock your databases while reading and writing. On systems using NFS-mounted directories, however, Perl's flock() may fail, unless the perl executable has been built to use fnctl(2) instead of flock(2); and even then, it is not certain that the locking will truly work.
Thus, if you have problems running Movable Type on systems using NFS, you can use the UseNFSSafeLocking directive to use simpler file locking that will work over NFS.

Default value: 0 (don't use NFS-safe locking)

Example:
```
UseNFSSafeLocking 1
```
NoLocking
On some Windows systems, neither flock() nor link() are available, so you can't use the default flock() locking, nor can you use the NFS-safe locking. In such cases, you can turn on the NoLocking option. Note that you should ONLY do this if your system supports nothing else--it is a last resort, because it increases the likelihood of database corruption. However, if you are the only person using the system (for example, if this is your personal server), this should not be as much of an issue.
Default value: 0 (use locking)

Example:
```
NoLocking 1
```
NoHTMLEntities
By default Movable Type uses the Perl module HTML::Entities to encode characters into HTML entities, provided that you have this Perl module. However, in some circumstances, even if you have this module, you may not wish to use it for encoding; for example, if you are using a language that uses a different character encoding (Polish, Russian, etc). In that case, you should set the value of NoHTMLEntities to 1.
Default value: 0 (use HTML::Entities, if it's available)

Example:
```
NoHTMLEntities 1
```
PingTimeout
When sending pings--either TrackBack pings or update pings--Movable Type sets a timeout on the ping, so that it doesn't take too long and appear to freeze up the system. You can override the default setting of 15 seconds by setting a different value with the PingTimeout directive. The value is assumed to be in seconds.
Default value: 15

Example:
```
PingTimeout 5
```
ImageDriver
Specifies the image toolkit used to create thumbnails from uploaded images. By default, the ImageMagick library and Image::Magick Perl module are used; if your system does not have these, you can use the NetPBM tools instead (assuming that your system has these tools installed). Possible values for this setting are ImageMagick or NetPBM.
Default value: ImageMagick

Example:
```
ImageDriver NetPBM
```
NetPBMPath
By default, Movable Type looks for the NetPBM tools in three locations: /usr/local/netpbm/bin, /usr/local/bin, and /usr/bin. If your NetPBM tools are installed in a different location, you can adjust the NetPBMPath configuration setting. Note that this path should be the path to the directory containing the NetPBM binaries; for example, if your pnmscale binary is at /home/foo/netpbm/bin/pnmscale, you should set the value of NetPBMPath to /home/foo/netpbm/bin.
Default value: any of the above three locations

Example:
```
NetPBMPath /home/foo/netpbm/bin
```
CommentScript
TrackbackScript
SearchScript
By default, the script that Movable Type uses for comments is called mt-comments.cgi, the TrackBack script is called mt-tb.cgi, and the search engine script is called mt-search.cgi. In some situations--for example, if you are running MT under mod_perl, or if your server requires that your Perl scripts have the extension .pl--you may need different names for these scripts. You can set the names that will be used throughout the default templates and Movable Type code by changing these values.
Default value: for CommentScript, mt-comments.cgi; for TrackbackScript, mt-tb.cgi; for SearchScript, mt-search.cgi

Example:
```
CommentScript comments
TrackbackScript trackback
SearchScript search
```
PublishCharset
By default, the character encoding sent in the HTTP headers when you are using the system corresponds to the language you have chosen as your ``Preferred Language'' in your user profile. If you would like to override that you can set PublishCharset to the character encoding to be used. Be aware, though, that this will override the setting for every user and every blog in this MT installation. An example encoding might be Shift_JIS.
Default value: encoding corresponding to Preferred Language

Example:
```
PublishCharset Shift_JIS
```
SafeMode
``Safe mode'' enables certain warnings about security and other issues, and turns off some small features and capabilities (for example, linking templates to files with .cgi and other extensions). Safe mode is on by default; you can turn it off by setting SafeMode to 0.
Default value: 1

Example:
```
SafeMode 0
```
SearchTemplatePath
The filesystem path to the search_templates directory, which is where your search templates should be located. This setting defaults to ./search_templates, which means that the search_templates directory is in the same directory as the mt.cgi file; you probably don't need to change this setting, unless you have moved your search_templates directory.
Default value: ./search_templates/

Example:
```
SearchTemplatePath /home/foo/my/search_templates/
```
DefaultTemplate
The filename of the default search template, located inside of your search_templates directory (see the SearchTemplatePath directive). If you define and use alternate templates (see below), you don't need to use the default template.
Default value: default.tmpl.

Example:
```
DefaultTemplate my-template.tmpl
```
AltTemplate
If you have multiple blogs, or if you provide several different versions of your site, you may wish to use alternate templates to provide different versions of your search results, as well. See Alternate Templates in the manual for more details. You can define as many alternate templates as you want.
By default, the following alternate template is set up:
```
AltTemplate comments comments.tmpl
```
This sets up the alternate template for the ``new comment search''.

Example:
```
AltTemplate work work.tmpl
```
ExcludeBlogs
IncludeBlogs
To restrict the blogs included in a search on your site, you can use the IncludeBlogs and ExcludeBlogs settings. IncludeBlogs lists the blogs that will be included in the search, and ExcludeBlogs lists blogs that will be excluded from the search. Do not try to use both--IncludeBlogs will override ExcludeBlogs. The default is to search all blogs. Separate blog IDs with commas.
Default value: none

Examples:
```
ExcludeBlogs 1,3,4
IncludeBlogs 2
```
RegexSearch
CaseSearch
The following settings specify the defaults for searches on your site; they can be overridden either through hidden form inputs, or in form inputs set by your users. You should probably leave these settings at the defaults and allow your users to override them. RegexSearch is a regular-expression search, and CaseSearch is a case-sensitive search.
Default value: 0 for each setting

Examples:
```
RegexSearch 1
CaseSearch 1
```
SearchCutoff
CommentSearchCutoff
The default number of days to search on a regular search (SearchCutoff) or on a new comment search (CommentSearchCutoff).
The default for SearchCutoff is to search from the beginning of your blog (all of your entries), and the default for CommentSearchCutoff is the last month of comments.

Examples:
```
SearchCutoff 7
CommentSearchCutoff 7
```
MaxResults
The maximum number of results to return in a search. If this is a straight search, the number of results is per-blog--if you set MaxResults to 5, for example, that would mean a maximum of 5 results for each blog in your system. In a new comment search, this is the maximum number of entries with new comments.
Default value: no maximum (that is, return as many results as possible)

Example:
```
MaxResults 5
```
ResultDisplay
The sort order for the search results. Using ascend will list the entries in chronological order (oldest entry at the top); using descend will list the entries in reverse chronological order (newest entry at the top).
Default value: descend

Example:
```
ResultDisplay ascend
```
ExcerptWords
The number of words in the excerpt displayed when you use the <$MTEntryExcerpt$> tag inside of your search results. This setting is distinct from the ``Number of words in excerpt'' setting in your blog configuration, because this setting is just used for excerpts in your search results.
Default value: 40

Example:
```
ExcerptWords 100
```
SearchElement
By default, a search will search only through the entries in your blog, not through the comments. A comment search is slower than an entry search, because there is more text to search through. You should probably leave this set to entries, and let your visitors override that setting if they wish to. Possible values are entries, comments, or both.
Default value: entries

Example:
```
SearchElement both
```