First step of installation - the diagnose and the warnings?

[JonasBang]

I am just installing Serendipity for the first time, and in the first diagnose I get these recommendations :

mbstring extension No [?]
iconv extension No [?]
Imagemagick binary Not found [?]
register_globals OFF ON [?]
magic_quotes_gpc OFF ON [?]
allow_url_fopen ON OFF [?]
post_max_size 10M 8M [?]
upload_max_filesize 10M 2M [?]
Execute Imagemagick binary Not found [?]

What does they each mean ?

Is it possible to change them to the recommended value, or could it be my web provider who decide these settings ?

Which functionalities of Serendipity will not work if I'm not able to change these settings ?

Br,
Jonas

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

A missing mbstring and iconv extension means, that you will not be able to use any charset translation features from/to UTF-8 to other languages. If you only use an english blog solely with non-UTF-8 contents (RSS feeds etc.) that should work. However, at least iconv is default with PHP5 installations so you might think about asking your provider if he can install it.

It's not really required, but very much suggested in multilingual environments.

Imagemagick is image manipulation tools. If your Server has GDLib support (which it usually has) you don't need imagemagick.

Register-Globals is a PHP setting about security (See php.net for details) that at least serendipity does not require to be on. Having that set to 'Off' inreases server security.

magic_quotes_gpc are also not required by s9y. If they are turned on, your server adds slashes to any user submitted data, that s9y first needs to strip again. That means if the setting is ON serendipity will run slightly slower because of the required transformations to variables.

Allow_url_fopen means that your server allows to open remote network connections. If its turned off, you cannot use serendipity to fetch images or RSS feeds from foreign sites, and you might not be able to use the SPARTACUS remote plugin repository feature.

post_max_size indicates how large files can be that you can upload (media files, images).

Is it possible to change them to the recommended value, or could it be my web provider who decide these settings ?

Usually only your web provider can change those through httpd.conf or php.ini settings.

HTH,
Garvin

[JonasBang]

A missing mbstring and iconv extension means, that you will not be able to use any charset translation features from/to UTF-8 to other languages. If you only use an english blog solely with non-UTF-8 contents (RSS feeds etc.) that should work. However, at least iconv is default with PHP5 installations so you might think about asking your provider if he can install it.

It's not really required, but very much suggested in multilingual environments.

Ahh ok, because one of my next questions is, how to get the calendar and archive to use danish translations for months and days, but, as I understand you, that is not possible unless I get 'mbstring' and 'iconv' installed on the server by my service provider, correct ??

Br,
Jonas

By the way, maybe a sticky in the forum Installation which explains all the server parameters would be an idea.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Ahh ok, because one of my next questions is, how to get the calendar and archive to use danish translations for months and days, but, as I understand you, that is not possible unless I get 'mbstring' and 'iconv' installed on the server by my service provider, correct ??

This would be a seperate issue. Output of proper date formats depends on your provider having the proper "Locale" system installed. For danish, that is one of those locales:

'da_DK.ISO8859-1, da_DK.ISO-8859-1, danish, da, da_DK'

Or, if you're using UTF-8 for serendipity, these locales:;

'da_DK.UTF8, da_DK.UTF-8, danish, da, da_DK'

You might need to ask your webserver provider to install those missing locales, if the danish output does not appear when selecting danish language in Serendipity.

You only need iconv/mbstring, if for example you want to import a UTF-8 RSS feed into your ISO-8859-1 environment (or vice versa).

By the way, maybe a sticky in the forum Installation which explains all the server parameters would be an idea.

Well - we would need a full and proper exaplanation for that, before. You can look them all up on www.php.net, IMHO this place is much more fit for documenting that, because the options mentioned are not specfic to Serendipity, but for the PHP installation.

Best regards,
Garvin

[JonasBang]

What the f*** ?? Now the calendar is showing danish ... but, I did not change anything, it just works now.

I did send a mail to my web service about which locale they support, but they never replied ... maybe they have now installed one that is supported in Serendipity ... hmmmm ...

Anyway, it works ... next big step: Import approx. 2000 entries ...

/Jonas