Setup.php

In the main directory of your Providence install there is a file called setup.php-dist. Make a copy of this file and rename it to setup.php. For your CollectiveAccess system to work, you MUST add values for your database server hostname, user name, password, database, and administrative e-email. Other options, such as timezone, may also need to be modified.

Database server host name

This is often set to ‘localhost’.

if (!defined("__CA_DB_HOST__")) {
        define("__CA_DB_HOST__", 'localhost');
}

Database login user name

if (!defined("__CA_DB_USER__")) {
        define("__CA_DB_USER__", 'your_username_here');
}

Database login password

if (!defined("__CA_DB_PASSWORD__")) {
        define("__CA_DB_PASSWORD__", 'your_password_here');
}

Database name

if (!defined("__CA_DB_DATABASE__")) {
        define("__CA_DB_DATABASE__", 'your_databasename_here');
}

System Name

This value will be used on emails, on the login screen, in browser window titles, etc.

if (!defined("__CA_APP_DISPLAY_NAME__")) {
        define("__CA_APP_DISPLAY_NAME__", "insert_name_here");
}

Administrative Email

An e-mail must be set up at this stage to send error reports for system configuration issues.

if (!defined("__CA_ADMIN_EMAIL__")) {
        define("__CA_ADMIN_EMAIL__", 'example@info.com');
}

Outgoing email

For CollectiveAccess to be able to send email notifications __CA_SMTP_SERVER__ and __CA_SMTP_PORT__ must be set. If your outgoing (SMTP) mail server requires you to authenticate, configure your login and connection details in __CA_SMTP_AUTH__, __CA_SMTP_USER__, __CA_SMTP_PASSWORD__ and __CA_SMTP_SSL__

__CA_SMTP_AUTH__ = authentication method for outgoing mail connection (set to PLAIN, LOGIN or CRAM-MD5; leave blank if no authentication is used.)
__CA_SMTP_SSL__ = SSL method to use for outgoing mail connection (set to SSL or TLS; leave blank if not authentication is used.)

Timezone Setting

Set your preferred time zone here. The default is to use US Eastern Standard Time. A list of valid time zone settings is available at http://us3.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php.

Note

When importing data, you should switch to value ‘UTC’ before import, or else dates may import incorrectly.

date_default_timezone_set('America/New_York');

Background Processing

The task queue allows users to push potentially long running processes, such as processing of large video and image files into the background and continue working. Set this to a non-zero value if you want to use the task queue. Be sure to configure the task queue processing script to run (usually via CRON) if you set this option.

if (!defined("__CA_QUEUE_ENABLED__")) {
        define("__CA_QUEUE_ENABLED__", 0);
}

Default Locale

The default locale is used in situations where no locale is specifically set by the user, prior to login or prior to setting your preferred locale in user preferences for the first time. You should set this to the locale in which your users generally work.

Note

Whatever locale you set here MUST be present in your system locale list. The default value is US/English, which exists in most configurations.

if (!defined("__CA_DEFAULT_LOCALE__")) {
        define("__CA_DEFAULT_LOCALE__", "en_US");
}

Clean URLs

If the Apache mod_rewrite module is available on your server you may set this to have Providence use “clean” urls – urls with the index.php handler omitted. Only set this if your web server includes mod_rewrite and it is enabled using the provided .htaccess file.

define("__CA_USE_CLEAN_URLS__", 0);

App Names for Multiple CollectiveAccess Systems

If you are running more than one instance of CollectiveAccess on the same server make sure each instance has its own unique __CA_APP_NAME__ setting. __CA_APP_NAME__ must include letters, numbers and underscores only - no spaces or punctuation!

if (!defined("__CA_APP_NAME__")) {
        define("__CA_APP_NAME__", "your_name_here");
}

Google Maps Key

Add your Google Maps key to use for mapping and geocoding feature (optional).

if (!defined("__CA_GOOGLE_MAPS_KEY__")) {
        define("__CA_GOOGLE_MAPS_KEY__", "");
}

Caching

The default file-based caching should work acceptably in many setups. Alternate schema may be used, including redis, sqlite, memcached or php APC. All require additional software be present on your server, and in general all will provide better performance than file-based caching.

Redis is usually the best choice, it perform well and doesn’t use tons of CPU when it fills, but is not always available on shared hostings. It’s packaged for many Linux distributions, including RedHat/CentOS and Ubuntu so it’s usually possible to get it installed on your server.

Easy alternative is SQLite, which is usually available, but performance on many platforms is not wonderful. SQLite requires the PHP PDO extension and a working install of SQLite.

Options are: ‘file’, ‘memcached’, ‘redis’, ‘apc’ and ‘sqlite’. Memcached, redis and apc require PHP extensions that are not part of the standard CollectiveAccess configuration check. If you do configure them here and your PHP installation doesn’t have the required extension you may see critical errors.

if (!defined('__CA_CACHE_BACKEND__')) {
        define('__CA_CACHE_BACKEND__', 'file');
}

Options for the caching back-ends you may wish to set include:

__CA_CACHE_FILEPATH__ = Path to on on disk location for storage of cached data
__CA_CACHE_TTL__ = Cached data time-to-live (in seconds)
__CA_MEMCACHED_HOST__ = Hostname of memcached server
__CA_MEMCACHED_PORT__ = Port of memcached server
__CA_REDIS_HOST__ = Hostname of redis server
__CA_REDIS_PORT__ = Port of redis server
__CA_REDIS_DB__ = redis database index (typically a number between 0 and 15)

Overwrite Existing Installation

Overwriting an existing installation can be useful while a site is in development. Overwriting will completely destroy the database and anything in it, allowing you to pick a new installation profile and start over. This option should be set back to false before delivering to a client.

# Note that in overwriting your database you will destroy *all* data in the database
# including any non-CollectiveAccess tables. Use this option at your own risk!
if (!defined('__CA_ALLOW_INSTALLER_TO_OVERWRITE_EXISTING_INSTALLS__')) {
        define('__CA_ALLOW_INSTALLER_TO_OVERWRITE_EXISTING_INSTALLS__', false);
}

Application Exception Error Messaging

Set to display detailed error information on-screen whenever an application exception occurs. This can be helpful for developers in situtations where detailed exception messages are useful but full debugging output is not required. For production use you should set this to false. Note that exceptions are always logged to the application log in app/log, regardless of what is set here.

if (!defined('__CA_STACKTRACE_ON_EXCEPTION__')) {
        define('__CA_STACKTRACE_ON_EXCEPTION__', false);
}

require(__DIR__."/app/helpers/post-setup.php");