HOWTO Install CiviCRM running as FastCGI with Lighttpd

The main motivation is for taking this install path is that in a shared hosting environment, FastCGI gives you the ability to wrap the php interpreter in suexec while not sacrificing any performance. You pay in RAM usage, but RAM is cheap compared to recovering from a breakin.

These notes were taken while getting CiviCRM into a state where I could access it via the SOAP interface on my localhost. In particular, I did not looked close at file permissions or deal with any issues related to multiple-vhosts sharing the same install.

Software versions used while taking these notes:

FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE
mysql-server-4.1.2
lighttpd-1.4.11_1
php-5.1.4
drupal-4.6.9
civicrm-drupal-php5-1.5BETA-rev6825.tgz

Install Software

Install Lighttpd

Other than WITH_OPENSSL, most of these settings don't really matter--they just happen to be what I used.

Install Drupal

If you don't already have PHP5 installed, this will install that first. You want to be sure to configure PHP to set WITH_CGI and WITH_FASTCGI to true. WITH_DISCARD is also very useful.

Install PHP Modules

By default, FreeBSD has a "sparse" PHP install. You may need to install some of the above ports.

Install CiviCRM

Setup Database

Setup MySQL for Drupal

Obviously, change the drupal password if any untrusted machines can access your computer.

Configure Software

Configure Drupal

Configure Lighttpd

Rewrite rules copied from http://drupal.org/node/50243.

On my first attempt, I had a bunch of text like {{ {BLOCK.header.logo} }} appear on the site. According to this node http://drupal.org/node/42080, this is due to changes in PHP. To fix, open the URL http://localhost/?q=admin/themes and enable and set as default the marvin theme.

Configure CiviCRM

XXX: Need to mkdir upload directories and set permissions.

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Lighty Install

HOWTO Install CiviCRM running as FastCGI with Lighttpd

Install Software

Setup Database

Configure Software