Requirements for Installing FastFrame

The following prerequisites are REQUIRED for FastFrame to function properly.

FastFrame and its applications are developed under the Apache webserver, which we recommend. Apache is available from http://httpd.apache.org/

NOTE: To insure file security you need to enable .htaccess files for the directory in which you installed FastFrame. This can be done by putting the following in your httpd.conf:

<Directory /path/to/FastFrame>
  AllowOverride All
</Directory>

PHP is the interpreted language in which FastFrame is written. You can obtain PHP at http://www.php.net/

Follow the instructions in the PHP package to build PHP for your system. If you use Apache, be sure to build PHP as a library with the –with-apache or –with-apxs options to ./configure, and not as a standalone executable.

The following PHP options are REQUIRED by FastFrame (listed with their own prerequisites and configure options). In many cases, the required libraries and tools can be obtained as packages from your operating system vendor.

• Gettext support. (–with-gettext)
  Gettext is the GNU Translation Project’s localization library. FastFrame uses gettext to provide local translations of text displayed by applications. Information on obtaining the gettext package is available at http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/gettext.html
• MySQL support. (–with-mysql)
  MySQL is the databse that the FastFrame applications run on. It can be otained at http://www.mysql.com/

PEAR is short for “PHP Extension and Application Repository”. The goal of PEAR is to provide a means of distributing reusable code. FastFrame relies heavily on PEAR in order to avoid rewriting the wheel and benefit from the high-quality code available with PEAR. For more information, see http://pear.php.net/

These PEAR modules are REQUIRED to be installed for complete FastFrame functionality:

• File
  To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install File

• HTML_QuickForm
  You must have version 3.1.1 or greater. HTML_QuickForm depends on HTML_Common.
  To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install HTML_Common 
  pear install HTML_QuickForm

• Net_UserAgent_Detect
  To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install Net_UserAgent_Detect 

• Mail and Mail_mime
  These are needed if you want to enable the email capabilities for any of the applications. To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install Mail
  pear install Mail_mime

These PEAR modules are RECOMMENDED to be installed for complete FastFrame functionality:

• Validate
  This is needed for running the profile and checkout applications. To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install Validate

• DB_NestedSet
  This is needed for running the checkout application. To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install DB_NestedSet

• DB_ldap
  This is needed if you want the phonelist to pull its data from an ldap server. To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install DB_ldap

• HTML_BBCodeParser
  This is needed if you are installing the alum_website_app or portal_app. To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install HTML_BBCodeParser

• HTTP_Request
  This is needed if you want to authenticate against an external website. phonelist to pull its data from an ldap server. To install, you must enter the following at the command prompt:

  pear install  HTTP_Request

This method of installing PEAR modules requires that your PHP has been compiled as a static binary. If you installed PHP as a webserver module, recompile PHP without the module option (for Apache, without BOTH –with-apache and –with-apxs) and do a make install.

Note that recent versions of PHP (4.3.0+) build both a SAPI module (Apache, CGI, etc.) and a command-line (CLI) binary at the same time. Check if you have a php binary in /usr/local/bin (/usr/bin if if you installed from an operating system package) before recompiling.

if you receive the error “Could not read cmd args”, you should run the pear script this way: php -d register_argc_argv=1 _PEAR_ install _URL_

_PEAR_ is the complete path of the pear script installed by PHP during installation (e.g. /usr/local/bin/pear). Make sure the ‘pear’ script appears in your path. The default installation path for pear is ‘/usr/local/bin/pear’.

_URL_ is the URL, listed above, which you wish to download from.

For more detailed directions on installing PEAR modules, see the PEAR documentation at http://pear.php.net/manual/