Prepare your Environment

To run without Docker it is necessary to ensure that the environment is configured in a way that will run Xibo. There are several things to take into consideration, such as where to put the files, which web server to run, etc.

This documentation cannot cover every possible environment consideration, but it does address some common issues in the following sections.

Placing CMS Files

Secure by design, the CMS has a folder structure which intends for only the web folder to be in a location served by the web server. This means the web server/hosting must allow files to be placed outside the web location.

There are several strategies for achieving this (this is not an exhaustive list):

1. Modify the DocumentRoot

If your document root is /var/www, copy the CMS into that folder and then modify the document root to be /var/www/web.

2. Use a symlink

If your document root is /var/www , copy the CMS into a different folder (for example /home/user/xibo-cms ) and then create a link between /home/user/xibo-cms/web and /var/www/web . Change the ownership of /home/user/xibo-cms/web to www-data (or the user your web server runs under).

3. Use a Virtual Host

A virtual host may be used:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/web"
    ServerName www.example.com

    # Other directives here
    AllowOverride All
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</VirtualHost>

Any Virtual Host configuration that points to the /web folder of the release archive and enables the .htaccess file is sufficient.

4. Use an Alias

The CMS can be run under an alias - this is an example for Apache:

Alias /xibo "/home/user/xibo-cms/web"

<Directory "/home/user/xibo-cms/web">
    AllowOverride All
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</Directory>

URL Rewriting

The CMS should be run on a web server that supports URL rewriting. If this is not possible you will need to access the application by specifying index.php in the URL.

Apache

A .htaccess file has been provided in web/.htaccess . This file assumes that the CMS is being served from the web server document root or from a virtual host.

Rewrite Rules with an Alias

If an alias is required then the .htaccess file will need to be modified to include a RewriteBase directive that matches the alias.

For example, if the alias is /xibo the .htaccess should have: RewriteBase /xibo .

nginx

A sample nginx config is provided below:

location / {
    try_files $uri /index.php?$args;
}

location /api/authorize {
    try_files $uri /api/authorize/index.php?args;
}

location /api {
    try_files $uri /api/index.php?$args;
}

location /install {
    try_files $uri /install/index.php?$args;
}

location /maint {
    try_files $uri /maint/index.php?$args;
}

location /maintenance {
    try_files $uri /index.php?$args;
}

IIS

IIS includes a function to convert from .htaccess which creates the correct configuration for IIS. However, the error message Error IIS MAP RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}] may be received.

This rule is incompatible with IIS and can be removed.

After import, the following content will be inserted into the web.config file.

<system.webServer>
    <rewrite>
        <rules>
            <rule name="Imported Rule 1" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^" ignoreCase="false" />
                <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{URL}" pattern="^.*/authorize/.*$" ignoreCase="false" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="api/authorize/index.php" appendQueryString="true" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="Imported Rule 2" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^" ignoreCase="false" />
                <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{URL}" pattern="^.*/api/.*$" ignoreCase="false" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="api/index.php" appendQueryString="true" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="Imported Rule 3" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^" ignoreCase="false" />
                <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{URL}" pattern="^.*/install/.*$" ignoreCase="false" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="install/index.php" appendQueryString="true" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="Imported Rule 4" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^" ignoreCase="false" />
                <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{URL}" pattern="^.*/maint/.*$" ignoreCase="false" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="maint/index.php" appendQueryString="true" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="Imported Rule 5" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^" ignoreCase="false" />
                <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" ignoreCase="false" negate="true" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="index.php" appendQueryString="true" />
            </rule>
        </rules>
    </rewrite>
</system.webServer>

ZeroMQ

ZeroMQ is a low level library used by Xibo to manage push messaging between the CMS and Players. The ZeroMQ PHP bindings are required for this to function. XMR will not run without ZeroMQ installed.

Installation of the ZeroMQ bindings can be complicated - we’ve included an example of installation on Ubuntu 14.04. We recommend using our Docker container for easy installation.

Install the ZeroMQ core and PHP bindings from PPA

Installation via apt-get .

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/zeromq
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexharrington/php-zmq
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php5-zmq

Install the ZeroMQ PHP bindings manually

If you can’t install from the PPA directly, then you can do the following to install the zmq extension.

Installation via PECL .

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/zeromq
sudo apt-get install libzmq3 libzmq3-dev libzmq3-dbg pkg-config php5-dev build-essential php-pear
sudo pecl install zmq-beta

Add the extension=zmq.so directive to your php.ini file and restart your web server.