Movable Type Installation Instructions


NAME

mtinstall - Movable Type Installation/Upgrading


SYNOPSIS

This document describes the process of installing the Movable Type system on your machine, or upgrading to a newer version of Movable Type.


REQUIREMENTS

Movable Type requires the following:


UPGRADING

If you have already installed a previous version of Movable Type (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.31, 1.4, or 2.0), you do not need to perform a complete installation. Instead, follow these steps:

  1. Download the upgrade distribution file (rather than the full distribution).

  2. Unpack the .tar.gz archive.

  3. Open an FTP connection to your webserver, and open the directory where you installed Movable Type.

  4. Upload all of the files and directories in the archive to your webserver, replacing any older copies of the files.

    Make sure that you upload all of the files in ASCII mode, except for the images, which should be uploaded in binary.

    NOTE: if you have made changes to any of the files that you are replacing, you will need to mark the files that have changed, and make the same changes to the new versions. This only applies if the changes you made have not been incorporated into the new Movable Type release in some form, of course. If you are unsure whether you need to redo a change you have made to one of the Movable Type files, ask your question on the Support Forum (http://www.movabletype.org/support/ib3/ikonboard.cgi).

    NOTE: if your MT application is stored in your cgi-bin, and thus if your images, documentation, and stylesheet are stored outside of the cgi-bin, be sure to upload images, docs, and styles.css to the correct location.

  5. Ensure that the permissions of each of the CGI scripts (all files ending in the extension .cgi) are set to 755.

    This means that the owner should have read, write, and execute permissions, and that group and other should have read and execute permissions (but not write permissions).

  6. If you are upgrading from version 2.0:
    1. Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt-upgrade21.cgi on your site. For example, if your site is http://www.your-site.com/, and you uploaded the Movable Type files into the /mt directory, you'd type http://www.your-site.com/mt/mt-upgrade21.cgi.

      mt-upgrade21.cgi is a Perl script that will upgrade your existing databases to the structure used for version 2.1. The change between 2.0 and 2.1 is a very small one, but it is important for speed improvements in 2.1.

      If successful, mt-upgrade21.cgi will report its success. If unsuccessful, it will report the error that occurred.

      VERY IMPORTANT SECURITY NOTE:

      Afer running mt-upgrade21.cgi, you should remove mt-upgrade21.cgi from directory where you installed Movable Type.

    If you are upgrading from version 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.31, or 1.4:

    1. You are advised to create a backup of your db directory (and the files inside of it) before running the upgrade script (Step 7), just to be careful; to do this, you can simply download the db directory to your own computer, in binary mode.

      As an additional precaution, you should export the entries from your blogs in the MT system; in the case that something goes wrong while upgrading, you will then have your entries and comments in importable form.

    2. Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt-upgrade.cgi on your site. For example, if your site is http://www.your-site.com/, and you uploaded the Movable Type files into the /mt directory, you'd type http://www.your-site.com/mt/mt-upgrade.cgi.

      mt-upgrade.cgi is a Perl script that will upgrade your existing databases to add the new columns and mappings used in version 2.0 of Movable Type. If you get a 500 Internal Server Error when running this script, check that you set the permissions to 755, and that you uploaded the file in ASCII mode.

      If successful, mt-upgrade.cgi will report its success. If unsuccessful, it will report the error that occurred.

      VERY IMPORTANT SECURITY NOTE:

      Afer running mt-upgrade.cgi, you should remove mt-upgrade.cgi from the directory where you installed Movable Type. Failure to remove mt-upgrade.cgi could enable someone else to rerun the upgrade script, causing havoc in your Movable Type installation. FAILURE TO DELETE mt-upgrade.cgi INTRODUCES A MAJOR SECURITY RISK. So you should delete it now.

  7. As of version 1.3, you can now control line and paragraph breaks separately for comments and entries; in other words, you can set Convert breaks for comments, but not for entries, if you would like. NOTE that if you wish to convert line and paragraph breaks in comments in version 1.3, you need to edit the configuration for each of your blogs, and check the Convert line and paragraph breaks in comments box.

  8. As of version 1.4, Movable Type requires at least version 0.8 of the File::Spec Perl module. If you do not have at least version 0.8, you will get this error after upgrading:
    Can't locate object method "splitpath" via package "File::Spec"
    at lib/MT.pm line 209.
    

    If you are not certain whether your server has a sufficiently new version of File::Spec, you should run mt-check.cgi again (see CHECKING FOR REQUIRED AND OPTIONAL MODULES, below); if your server needs a newer version of File::Spec, follow the instructions here.

  9. That's it! Movable Type is now upgraded, and you can start using the new version.


INSTALLING THE MOVABLE TYPE APPLICATION CODE

  1. Ensure that you meet all of the requirements as stated above.

  2. The files mt.cgi, mt-comments.cgi, mt-add-notify.cgi, mt-load.cgi, mt-check.cgi, mt-xmlrpc.cgi, and mt-send-entry.cgi are Perl scripts. The first line of each of these files must contain the path to Perl on your webserver; typically this is #!/usr/bin/perl. You may need to change this if Perl is at a different location on your webserver, such as /usr/local/bin/perl. If you do need to change the setting, take care not to remove the -w at the end of the first line in each file; this setting turns on warnings in Perl, and it is important that it be left on.

    To determine the location of Perl on your webserver, take a look at the support pages for your hosting service. Alternatively, if you have a shell (command line) account, and are familiar using it, you can log in to that account that type:

    $ whereis perl
    

    This will give you the location(s) of Perl on your system.

  3. Find the file mt.cfg in the Movable Type folder that you downloaded, then open that file in a text editor. You will be editing several lines in this file in the steps below, so you will need to keep your editor open.

  4. Open your FTP program, and open an FTP connection to your webserver. Do not upload any files yet.

  5. Choose where on your webserver you would like to install Movable Type. This is the location that you will use (from your web browser) when using the Movable Type system.

    NOTE: If you will be installing Movable Type into your cgi-bin directory, here are some tips.

    TIP: If your webserver has either cgiwrap or suexec, you may want to read the tips on using cgiwrap or suexec. If you don't know what this means, don't worry about it.

  6. In the mt.cfg file that you opened in Step 3, change the line starting with CGIPath to point to the URL where you chose to install Movable Type in Step 5. For example, if you are installing Movable Type at http://www.your-site.com/movabletype/, you would change the CGIPath line to
    CGIPath http://www.your-site.com/movabletype/
    

    NOTE: make sure that your URL contains a forward slash (/) at the end!

  7. Choose where on your webserver you would like to store your Movable Type database files.

    NOTE: it is advisable from a security standpoint to create the database directory outside of your web-accessible directories. This prevents web browsers from seeing any of your database content. For example, many hosted accounts have a home directory that is not web-accessible, then a public_html directory that is the root of your web-accessible area.

  8. In your FTP program, open the directory you chose in Step 7.

    Create a new directory called db. Set the permissions (CHMOD) of this directory db to 777 (what does this mean?).

  9. In the text editor where you are editing mt.cfg, change the line
    DataSource ./db
    

    to instead read

    DataSource /FULL/PATH/TO/DB
    

    where /FULL/PATH/TO/DB is replaced by the full filesystem path to the db directory you just created. For example, if you create the directory at /home/melody/db, the above line would read

    DataSource /home/melody/db
    

    Then save the mt.cfg file, and exit the text editor.

  10. In your FTP program, open the directory where you chose to install Movable Type in Step 5.

    Create a new directory for the Movable Types files, if necessary; then open that directory.

  11. Upload all of the files in the Movable Type directory to your webserver.

    NOTE: be careful when doing this, as certain files must be uploaded in ASCII mode, whereas others must be uploaded in binary mode. If you get it wrong, the scripts WILL NOT WORK.

    Upload these files/folders in ASCII mode: docs, lib, mt.cfg, styles.css, tmpl, and all of the CGI scripts (mt.cgi, etc.).

    Upload these files/folders in Binary mode: images.

  12. Set the permissions (CHMOD) of the files mt.cgi, mt-comments.cgi, mt-add-notify.cgi, mt-check.cgi, mt-load.cgi, mt-xmlrpc.cgi, and mt-send-entry.cgi to 755 (what does this mean?).

  13. Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt-load.cgi on your site. For example, if your site is http://www.your-site.com/, and you uploaded the Movable Type files into the /mt directory, you'd type http://www.your-site.com/mt/mt-load.cgi.

    mt-load.cgi is a Perl script that loads initialization data into the Movable Type databases: an initial author, a blog, and some starter templates. If you get a 500 Internal Server Error when running this script, first check that you set the permissions to 755 (see above for what this means), and that you uploaded the file in ASCII mode. If these suggestions don't help, refer to Troubleshooting.

    If successful, mt-load.cgi will report its success. If unsuccessful, it will report the error that occurred; look in Troubleshooting for instructions on how to fix the error.

    VERY IMPORTANT SECURITY NOTE:

    Afer running mt-load.cgi successfully, you should remove mt-load.cgi from the directory where you installed Movable Type. Failure to remove mt-load.cgi could enable someone else to create a blog in your Movable Type installation, and possibly gain access to your data. FAILURE TO DELETE mt-load.cgi INTRODUCES A MAJOR SECURITY RISK. So you should delete it now.


CHECKING FOR REQUIRED AND OPTIONAL MODULES

Movable Type requires the presence of several standard Perl modules, separate from the Movable Type code itself. It is very possible that your server already has these required modules; if it does not, installing the modules is fairly simple. To determine whether these modules are installed on your server--and to install them, if they are not already installed--follow the steps below.

For the function of several optional features, Movable Type needs some optional Perl modules. These optional modules will be listed in Step 1 (below) under the heading CHECKING FOR OPTIONAL MODULES; if your webserver does not have an optional module, its purpose will be explained in relation to the Movable Type feature for which it is required. If you decide that you want to use these features, you will need to install these modules, as well; however, if you do not wish to use these features, you can ignore the missing modules.

  1. Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt-check.cgi on your site. For example, if your site is http://www.your-site.com/, and you uploaded the Movable Type files into the /mt directory, you'd type http://www.your-site.com/mt/mt-check.cgi.

    mt-check.cgi is a Perl script that checks whether the required modules are installed on your server. If you get a 500 Internal Server Error when running this script, first check that you set the permissions to 755 (see above for what this means), and that you uploaded the file in ASCII mode. If these suggestions don't help, refer to Troubleshooting.

    If the script runs successfully, it will say CHECKING FOR REQUIRED MODULES and so on. If the script reports that your server has all of the required modules installed, you can skip to SETTING UP YOUR BLOG DIRECTORIES. Otherwise, continue with step 2.

  2. Connect to your FTP server, and open the directory into which you installed Movable Type. Create a new directory called extlib. Open that directory.

Now, follow the instructions below for each of the modules that you need to install.

If you need to install HTML::Template

  1. Download the file at this URL:
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-HTML-Template.tar.gz
    

  2. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  3. In the extlib directory (see Step 2), create a new directory called HTML; open that directory; upload the file Template.pm from the cpan-HTML-Template archive into the new HTML directory. In other words, after uploading, Template.pm should be located at extlib/HTML/Template.pm.

    Ignore the rest of the files in the archive.

If you need to install Image::Size

  1. Download the file at this URL:
    http://www.movabletype.org/downloads/Image/Size.pm
    

  2. In the extlib directory on your webserver, create a new directory called Image, and open that directory.

  3. Upload the file Size.pm that you downloaded above into the new Image directory.

  4. After uploading, Size.pm should be located at extlib/Image/Size.pm.

If you need to install File::Spec

  1. Download the file at this URL:
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-File-Spec.tar.gz
    

  2. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  3. In the extlib directory on your webserver, create a new directory called File, and open that directory.

  4. Upload the file Spec.pm into the new File directory.

  5. Upload the directory Spec into the new File directory.

  6. After uploading, Spec.pm should be located at extlib/File/Spec.pm, and Spec should be located at extlib/File/Spec/.

If you need to install DB_File

If you are installing Movable Type on a Win32 machine on which you have administrative access, you can run the Perl Package Manager (PPM) to install DB_File. Select Run... from the Start Menu, then type ppm as the program to run. Once in PPM, you will get a prompt (ppm>), at which you should type install DB_File:

ppm> install DB_File

If you are installing Movable Type on a Linux/Unix machine, you should ask your server administrator to install DB_File for you.

If you need to install CGI::Cookie

  1. Download the file at this URL:
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-CGI.tar.gz
    

  2. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  3. Upload the file CGI.pm and the directory CGI into the extlib directory.

  4. After uploading, CGI.pm should be located at extlib/CGI.pm, and CGI/ should be located at extlib/CGI/.

If you need to install LWP::UserAgent

  1. Download the following files:
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-LWP.tar.gz
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-URI.tar.gz
    

  2. Unpack the .tar.gz archives (Need help unpacking archives?).

  3. In the cpan-LWP directory, there is a directory called lib. Open it, and upload the file LWP.pm into your extlib directory (in ASCII mode). Then, also in ASCII mode, upload the directories LWP, HTTP, Net, and WWW into extlib.

  4. From the cpan-URI directory, upload the folder called URI and the file called URI.pm into extlib in ASCII mode.

  5. After uploading, your extlib directory should contain at least the following files and directories:
    extlib/LWP.pm
    extlib/LWP/
    extlib/HTTP/
    extlib/Net/
    extlib/WWW/
    extlib/URI.pm
    extlib/URI/
    

If you need to install SOAP::Lite

  1. Download the following file:
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-SOAP-Lite.tar.gz
    

  2. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  3. In the cpan-SOAP-Lite directory, there is a directory called lib. Open it, and upload the directories SOAP, XML, and XMLRPC into your extlib directory (in ASCII mode).

  4. After uploading, your extlib directory should contain at least the following files and directories:
    extlib/SOAP/
    extlib/XML/
    extlib/XMLRPC/
    

If you need to install File::Temp

  1. Download the file at this URL:
    http://www.movabletype.org/cpan/cpan-File-Temp.tar.gz
    

  2. Unpack the .tar.gz archive (Need help unpacking archives?).

  3. In the extlib directory on your webserver, create a new directory called File (unless a File directory already exists), and open that directory.

  4. Upload the file Temp.pm into the new File directory.

  5. After uploading, Temp.pm should be located at extlib/File/Temp.pm.

If you need to install Image::Magick

Installing Image::Magick requires compilation of the ImageMagick library, as well as installation of the Perl module that talks to this library. If you wish to have this module installed on your server, you will need to ask your system administrator to install it for you. Note that if you do not have Image::Magick, Movable Type will still work without a hitch--installation of Image::Magick is optional, and is needed only for creating thumbnails of uploaded images.


SETTING UP YOUR BLOG DIRECTORIES

The following steps will need to be repeated every time you create a new blog/journal in Movable Type. These steps set up the necessary permissions on your blog directories to allow Movable Type to access them.

  1. You need to set up a directory where your weblog will be stored. In the case that this directory does not yet exist, create it; this directory does not have to be the same as that where you uploaded the files above (although it can be).

  2. Set the permissions (CHMOD) of your weblog directory to 777. (See above for what this means.)

  3. If you wish to store your archives in a separate directory than your main weblog (perhaps in a subdirectory of your main weblog), create that directory now, unless it already exists.

  4. Set the permissions (CHMOD) of your archives directory to 777. (See above for what this means.)


RUNNING MOVABLE TYPE

  1. Open your web browser and point it at the URL for mt.cgi on your site. mt.cgi is the main Movable Type application. For example, if your site is http://www.your-site.com/, and you installed the Movable Type application into the /mt directory, you'd type http://www.your-site.com/mt/mt.cgi to access Movable Type.

    You should see the Movable Type login prompt. If you do not, check your permissions, and check that you uploaded the CGI scripts using ASCII mode. If neither of these helps, take a look at Troubleshooting.

  2. Log in with the author name Melody and the password Nelson.

  3. The first thing you should do is change your author name and password. To do so, click Edit your profile, then change the author name and password there.

  4. The next thing to do is to configure your first blog. A blog called First Blog already exists in the system; this blog will help to give you a head start in setting up your first blog in Movable Type. First Blog comes with some pre-made templates; of course you can edit these templates, or delete them, or do whatever you like with them. But they are a good starting point, and will give you a sense of familiarity with the Movable Type template tags and structure.

    To configure the blog for your own purposes, click on the link to First Blog under Your existing blogs, then click on the link to Edit Blog Configuration. Change the name of the blog to whatever you wish to call your blog, and enter a description.

    Then, fill in the path and URL information (Local Site Path, Site URL, Local Archive Path, and Archive URL). Values for Local Site Path and Site URL are provided by default, to give you a sense of what the paths should look like; when setting the values of Local Site Path and Local Archive Path, it is best to use absolute paths (paths beginning with a /), rather than relative paths. Note that all four of these fields must be filled in. You should already have created the directories for your blog (above, in Setting up your blog directories). Fill in the local paths (site and archive) with the full paths to those directories. Then enter the appropriate URLs, corresponding to those directories.

    Edit any other configuration settings for your blog; when you are done, press SAVE.

  5. That's it! You're now ready to start posting entries to your blog, editing templates, and so on.


ADDITIONAL NOTES

Problems with f2s

WARNING: problems have been reported when running Movable Type on f2s accounts. These problems have been disk-space-related; specifically, if your f2s account is low on disk space, you should be careful when running Movable Type, because running out of disk space while the database is being updated could corrupt your data. This error is almost always fixable, but it is certainly an annoyance. Note that this problem is not necessarily unique to either Movable Type or f2s; when applications run out of disk space while trying to update files, problems will often occur.

Back to installation instructions

Version of Perl on your server

If you're not sure what version of Perl you have on your server, you can figure it out in one of three ways:

  1. Check the support documentation that your ISP (probably) provides.

  2. Ask your ISP.

  3. If you have shell access to your webserver, you can telnet into your server, then run the following command:
    $ perl -v
    

    This command will print out the version of Perl on your webserver.

Back to installation instructions

Unpacking .tar.gz Archives

Movable Type distributions, as well as the distributions for most of the required and optional Perl modules, are saved in .tar.gz format--these are Gzip-ed TAR archives. If you are on Unix, you can use gunzip and tar to unpack these archives. For example:

$ gunzip file.tar.gz
$ tar -xvf file.tar

If you are on a Macintosh, Stuffit Expander will unpack these archives. If you are on Windows, PKZip or Winzip (in classic mode) will do the job.

NOTE: if, after unzipping the Movable Type distribution archive, you find a folder without a directory structure--that is, a lot of files dumped into one folder, rather than grouped into sub-folders--then this is a problem. It usually signifies that you used Winzip's wizard mode to unzip the archives; if this is the case, make sure that you use Winzip in classic mode, as mentioned above.

Installing into the cgi-bin

If you are installing Movable Type into a cgi-bin directory, note that you will need to upload your images, docs, and styles.css files/directories into a directory outside of the cgi-bin. For example, you might create a new directory in your web-accessible area called mt-static, then upload images, docs, and styles.css into that directory.

You then need to set the StaticWebPath value in your mt.cfg file to the URL corresponding to the directory that you created. For example, if you created mt-static at the root of your web-accessible area, you would add this line to mt.cfg:

StaticWebPath /mt-static/

Back to installation instructions

Using cgiwrap or suexec

cgiwrap and suexec are special tools on the webserver that allow your CGI scripts to be executed as ``you'', rather than as the webserver. This simplifies Movable Type installation, because you no longer have to set permissions on your blog or db directories (though you still need to set the permissions on the CGI scripts themselves); it is also more secure, because your blog directories will be writeable only by you.

You will need to check with your hosting provider to determine if your server has cgiwrap or suexec installed; if it does, use the following tips when setting up Movable Type:

  1. To enable the heightened security that cgiwrap and suexec provide, you will need to add the following lines to your mt.cfg file:
    DBUmask 0022
    HTMLUmask 0022
    UploadUmask 0022
    DirUmask 0022
    

  2. When creating your db directory and your blog directories, the instructions will tell you to change the permissions on those directories to 777. You do not have to do this if you are using cgiwrap or suexec; just leave the directories at their default permissions.

  3. You will be installing the Movable Type application (CGI scripts, library modules, mt.cfg) into your cgi-bin, so you should take a look at the Installing into the cgi-bin section.

Back to installation instructions

Win32 Configuration Tips

When configuring Movable Type for use on a Win32 server, there are a couple of tips that you should keep in mind:

  1. When specifying full filesystem paths--for example, for the DataSource setting, or the TemplatePath setting (see #1, above)--some servers will require that you insert the drive letter at the front, and that you use backslashes. For example:
    DataSource d:\full\path\to\db
    

  2. The setting for the TemplatePath in mt.cfg will probably need to be changed from the default. Specifically, if you experience problems where Movable Type says that it can't find the template login.tmpl, you should set the TemplatePath setting to the full path to the tmpl directory in your Movable Type directory. For example:
    TemplatePath c:\full\path\to\mt\tmpl
    

Setting 777 Permissions

Permissions set to 777 means that all users on the system have Read, Write, and Execute permissions.

If your FTP client uses a graphical display for setting permissions, that display will look something like this:

If you are setting permissions through a Unix shell, simply use the command

$ chmod 777 <files>

Back to installation instructions

Setting 755 Permissions

Permissions set to 755 means that all users on the system have Read and Execute permissions; only the owner should have Write permissions.

If your FTP client uses a graphical display for setting permissions, that display will look something like this:

If you are setting permissions through a Unix shell, simply use the command

$ chmod 755 <files>

Back to installation instructions


Copyright © 2001, 2002 Ben Trott and Mena Trott. All Rights Reserved.