Installing, then and now: the files, the database, the virtual host
Chapter 1 of the book Learning eZ Publish opens with the work every installation needs: get the files, make a database, point the web server at the files, set up image conversion and a regular job, and learn where the settings live. The steps still exist. Most of them are one command today. This page walks the book's order and says what to do now.
Warning
.htaccess slows down every request. When .htaccess files are enabled (AllowOverride anything but None), let alone
used, Apache looks for them and reads and evaluates them on every request, in every directory of the path, and
page loading times go up drastically (measured). The only real fix is to switch the feature off for
the virtual host: AllowOverride None in the HTTPS virtual host, and the rules in the virtual host's own
configuration as mod_rewrite rules. That is far faster in production speed tests and well worth the time it takes
to optimize a production configuration. Switch over right away: copy the rules of the
example HTTPS virtual host into your virtual host (with the static cache, also
staticcache_offload.conf), set AllowOverride None, run apachectl configtest, reload Apache and
test the site. The same rules for other servers: nginx, LiteSpeed,
Caddy, IIS, Velocity (built in); where virtual host rules go in a control
panel: Plesk, cPanel, DirectAdmin, ISPConfig.
On LiteSpeed or OpenLiteSpeed, the server's own page cache can also answer anonymous visitors and crawlers without PHP: Page caching with LiteSpeed and OpenLiteSpeed.
Unpacking the installation
The book downloaded an archive of about 4 MB, expanded it to about 20 MB and transferred the folders to the web server. Exponential has three ways to get the same files (see Getting started):
- a Git clone of the kernel, with the extensions as clones (the way to build a website you maintain),
composer create-project se7enxweb/exponential,- and, for single add-ons later, packages installed with
ezpm.
After either of the first two, the folders the book listed are all there:
| Book | Exponential 6 |
|---|---|
design | design/: the default templates and styles. Your own go in an extension's design/ folder, not here. |
index.php | index.php: every page request still enters here. |
kernel, lib | kernel/, lib/: the code. Do not edit them; see kernel overrides, the last resort. |
runcronjobs.php | runcronjobs.php: still the script a regular job runs (Cronjobs). |
settings | settings/: defaults, plus override/ and siteaccess/ for yours. |
var | var/: uploaded files, caches and logs. The web server's user must be able to write here. |
New in Exponential: extension/ (add-ons), console (the command line front end, ./console list) and vendor/
(Composer packages).
Initializing the database
The book created a MySQL database and a user that may use only that database, with CREATE DATABASE and GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES, and recommended that user rather than a powerful one, because the password is kept in a settings file
in plain text. That advice is unchanged. Two things are new:
- You need no database server to start: the default is SQLite in a file. MySQL or MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB and
Oracle are choices of
exp:install --db=and of the setup wizard (Databases). - In
GRANT, MySQL 8 and MariaDB no longer acceptIDENTIFIED BYinside it; create the user first withCREATE USER, thenGRANT. The installation book shows the statements.
The virtual host and rewriting
The book explains why a virtual host with mod_rewrite is the right setup: all requests go to index.php, URLs
such as /node/view/253 become readable addresses like /contact, and only that one script is reachable. The two
rewrite lines of the book (everything that is not a script, image or style file goes to index.php) are what the
shipped .htaccess does today, in a longer and safer form. With Apache, use the shipped .htaccess or put its rules
in the host's configuration. To try a site without any web server, Exponential brings its own, Velocity
(Serving the site).
Running the site in a subfolder, which the book allows, is not recommended any more: the siteaccess and URL alias logic is built for a site at the root of a host name.
Image settings: ImageMagick and GD
Images are converted on the server: the original you upload becomes the sizes your templates ask for (the image
aliases). The book names two converters, ImageMagick (a separate program, the more powerful) and GD (a library
inside PHP, a fallback). Both are still there, in settings/image.ini. The difference now: GD is first in the list
(it works inside PHP and starts no program), and ImageMagick is the fallback for formats GD cannot read, such as
TIFF or PDF, and for filters only it has. To prefer ImageMagick again, override the list in
settings/override/image.ini.append.php:
[ImageConverterSettings]
ImageConverters[]
ImageConverters[]=ImageMagick
ImageConverters[]=GDThe book's old note about GD before version 2 (poor scaling) is history: every GD in a PHP that runs Exponential is
version 2 or later. The setup wizard turns ImageMagick off by itself when it finds no convert program.
Cron jobs
The book asks for a job every 15 minutes that runs runcronjobs.php, for workflows, notifications and other
periodic work. Same today. The book's line passed -C to PHP; it is not needed, and the options that matter are -q (quiet) and -s <siteaccess>. The cron table of
After installing, 10.3 is the current one, with a separate
line for each part (frequent, the default, infrequent, cache_cleanup). Without the job the site works, but
workflows that wait for the job and notifications by e-mail do not.
Configuration files
The book's explanation is still exactly right: settings live in .ini files; the defaults are in settings/; the
folders settings/siteaccess/<name>/ and settings/override/ change them; the order is override, then
siteaccess, then the defaults (the first value found for a setting wins, from the top). Extensions add layers the
book's example did not need: an active extension in ActiveExtensions[] sits between override and siteaccess, so its
value beats the siteaccess's
(Configuring, section 2). The files a builder
touches most are as in the book: site.ini, override.ini, image.ini, and i18n.ini for languages. The file
name should end in .ini.append.php. The reason the book gives is still the reason: if a web server ever served the
file, it would run as PHP, and the settings are written as PHP comments, so nothing is shown.
Where it changed: you rarely need to edit those files by hand. ./console exp:ini changes a setting with a backup
and shows the difference (Changing settings with exp:ini),
and the administration has a settings page (Settings in the admin).
The details of the order are in Settings scopes and their order.
Next
The setup wizard, then and now.
Source and license
Adapted from chapter 1, "Installing eZ publish", of Learning eZ publish: Building Content Management Solutions by Paul Borgermans, Tony Wood, Paul Forsyth, Martin Bauer, Björn Dieding and Ben Pirt (additional material by Bruce Morrison), second edition, 2024, Book-Learning-eZPublish. Copyright (c) 2004-2024 7x and Graham Brookins. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.3 or any later version, with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts (the license). Changes: shortened and rearranged; every step, path and setting checked against Exponential 6 and updated; the product is named Exponential.