You may have heard of Habari, you may not have. It’s yet another blogging software, written from the ground up to take advantage of all the latest technologies available. For this reason it’s not supported everywhere and probably is why you haven’t heard of it yet.

I think this software could replace WordPress if done correctly, it will just take some time to get a little more robust, but the guts of it is definately there.

We recently installed Habari on one of our sites, and written this quick tutorial on how to get it going on your Ubuntu server using Apache.

We assume you’ve already got Mysql, PHP, SQLite and Apache installed on your server. If not, find some Howto’s on that because we’re not discussing it here.

So, first install some pre-requisite software:

# apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev  
# pecl install pdo pdo_mysql pdo_sqlite  
# apt-get install sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev php5-sqlite3  
# apt-get install php5-dev subversion

Now edit your php.ini

# nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

add this to the bottom of the file:

extension=pdo.so  
extension=pdo_sqlite.so

Now restart apache

# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now create your Apache Virtual Host as per usual for your site.

Now enter your sites directory

# cd /home/username/public_html/sitename.com/htdocs/

Create the .htaccess file

# nano .htaccess

Enter something similar to the following for the contents of the htaccess file you just created.

#HABARI START  
RewriteEngine On  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteRule . index.php [PT]  
#HABARI END

#HABARI SQLITE START  
<Files "YOURSQLLITEDATABASENAME.db">  
Order deny,allow  
deny from all  
</Files>  
#HABARI SQLITE END

Now download the Habari SVN

# svn checkout <http://svn.habariproject.org/habari/trunk/htdocs> .

We are using the MPM-ITK module with Apache. This means that all our sites are running per user, instead of as a global user. This is much more secure for multiple user or site environments. It’s very easy to get going in Ubuntu. Just do this.

# apt-get install apache2-mpm-itk

Then add this to whichever vhost you’re containing Habari

<IfModule mpm_itk_module>  
AssignUserId username groupname  
</IfModule>

This means we don’t have to setup crazy permissions for the Habari installer to function. If you don’t want to install MPM-ITK then you can simply follow the Habari Installation Instructions.

Now, to complete the install visit your site through

http://www.yourhabarisite.com/

The settings we used are the following:

Locale:
Set as “En-US”

Database Setup:
Database Type: sqlite
Data File: yourdomain.com.db
Table Prefix: habari__

Site Configuration:
Site Name: Site Name
Username: admin
Password: Your Password
Password: Your Password Repeated
Admin Email: contact@yourdomain.com

Plugins We left Enabled:
– Core Dash Modules
– Habari Media Silo
– Pingback
– Spam Checker
– Undelete

*NOTE*

We did have an error during installation when using SQLITE3. We had to modify the default Habari database schema to remove the “IF NOT EXIST” lines. Not sure why this was needed as apparently this support was added in Sqlite 3.3 and Ubuntu comes with 3.4 but whatever, very simple fix for the problem.

*NOTE*

Once this is done you should be complete the setup of Habari and can go ahead and install some Plugins or Themes.

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial, let us know if you have any other interesting Habari tips or tricks.

Comments

Comment by Ashley on 2009-11-17 04:18:40 -0500

Nicely explained. But who would like to ger off from WordPress. Needless to say it is the powerful blogging platform.

Comment by Matt G on 2009-11-17 05:53:26 -0500

Options are always a good thing 🙂