Dgroups

By Mike Gifford

December 22, 2006

I've spent the last week getting the production version of dgroups up and running for Bellanet and thought I'd report a little bit on possible roadblocks that can be encountered. 1) Make sure the server is properly configured and running: Apache PHP(5 is preferred)

  • php_imap MUST be compiled in order for og2mlm to work
  • Make sure the memory limit is >= 24mb in php.ini

MySQL

  • Need access to drupal db as well as access to sympa db (set in settings.php)

Sympa

  • Make a sample group and test whether it sends AND receives messages!
  • wsdl must be available e.g. sandwich.bellanet.org/sympa/wsdl for soap to work
  • trusted_applications.conf must be set properly.

trusted_applications.conf example --------------------------------- name og2mlm md5password acbd18db4c.......4fccc4a4d8 proxy_for_variables USER_EMAIL In this example, username og2mlm is allowed access to sympa soap using the password '....'. ('acbd18db4c.......4fccc4a4d8' is the md5 hash of '....') pop3

  • A dedicated pop3 email account is necessary for og2mlm to receive emails from sympa. Something like og_dropbox@yoursite.com would suffice.

2) Install drupal I used drupal-4.7.4 3) Download and install the following modules:Installed modules:

  • basicevent
  • comment
  • event
  • fileshare
    • Requires write access to the files dir
  • flexinode
  • front_page
  • help
  • i18n/_blocks/_menu
    • admin/block/i18n to add an i18n block
    • To fix the primary links in different languages, go to admin/menu and add items to the proper "Primary Links" menus. You may need to create a new menu if you have added a new language. If you added a new language, you will also need to configure admin/block "Primary Links" to have this menu relate to the proper language.
    • After installing i18n module, warnings appear on each page

      • * warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #2 is not an array in /var/www/html/dm_47/includes/theme.inc on line 252. * warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in /var/www/html/dm_47/includes/theme.inc on line 255.

    • Set warnings off... This is an i18n/drupal issue. Do this in php.ini (or htaccess if possible)
  • locale
  • menu
  • og/_calendar/_hierarchy/_translate
  • og2mlm/_message/_sympa/_basic
    • make sure php_imap is enabled on server!
    • need permission to sympa db
    • restarted sympa after apache + mysql
    • Make sure you have proper settings for email retrieval and sympa soap integration
  • page
  • path
    • clean urls in .htaccess?
    • AllowOverride needed for .htaccess rewriting?
  • pathauto
  • roleassign
    • add 'creator' and 'head_creator' roles
  • search
  • site_map
  • taxonomy
  • throttle
  • tinymce
  • trace
  • tracker
  • translation
  • upload
  • views/_rss/_ui

4) Install the dgroups &| telecentre themes

  • The dgroups theme will look a little weird until you've added the proper user login/search header block

5) Configure the modules/menus/blocks/settingsCheck the module readme files for more info.

  • Set all the settings for og2mlm and og2mlm_sympa before creating new organic groups.

--- The Following Added 2007/01/08 --- Troubleshooting SympaSympa and soap were difficult to configure properly, the following are some things to watch out for:

  • Make sure the wsdl file is accessible. At the bottom of the file you'll find:
    soap:address location="http://sandwich.bellanet.org/sympasoap"/
    This location is set with the soap_url parameter in sympa.conf. Make sure it points fully to your sympasoap location.
  • At the moment there is a delay after a group has been created before posts can be made to the corresponding list. It likely has something to do with aliases in Sympa. This is an issue known to IDRC.

Suggested Additional Configuration (serverside) for IDRC

  • httpd.conf

    • alias sandwich.bellanet.org properly to /dm_47
    • review http://drupal.org/node/15365 to get clean urls working (recommended) <-- Set in drupal admin/settings (general)
  • php.ini
    • Turn off php notices/warnings (to avoid having the the i18n warnings appear in administration)
  • cron
    • set up crontab on a sandwich.bellanet.org user account. To check for new messages every 2 minutes you can use the following:
      0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48,50,52,54,56,58 * * * * wget -O - -q http://sandwich.bellanet.org/cron.php