1 WEBCIT for the Citadel System
3 Copyright (C) 1996-2010 by the authors. Portions written by:
17 This program is open source software released under the terms of the GNU
18 General Public License, version 3. Please read COPYING.txt for more
19 licensing information.
21 WebCit bundles the Prototype JavaScript Framework, writen by Sam
22 Stephenson [http://prototype.conio.net]. These components are licensed to
23 you under the terms of an MIT-style license.
25 WebCit bundles the script.aculo.us JavaScript library, written by
26 Thomas Fuchs [http://script.aculo.us, http://mir.aculo.us]. These
27 components are licensed to you under the terms of an MIT-style license.
29 WebCit bundles the TinyMCE text editor, written by Moxiecode Systems AB
30 (http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/tinymce/docs/credits.html). This component
31 is licensed to you under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
34 WebCit bundles the Nifty Corners library, written by Alessandro Fulciniti
35 [http://cerca.html.it/cgi-bin/cerca.cgi?q=nifty+corners]. This component
36 is licensed to you under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
38 One or more icons are from Milosz Wlazlo [http://miloszwl.deviantart.com]
39 whose license explicitly allows inclusion in open source projects on the
40 condition of this attribution.
42 The Citadel logo was designed by Lisa Aurigemma.
48 Citadel is a sophisticated groupware platform which allows multiple
49 users to simultaneously access the system using a variety of user interfaces.
50 This package (WebCit) is a "middleware" package which presents an HTML/HTTP
51 user interface to the Citadel system.
53 What this means in practice is that after you've installed WebCit, users can
54 access all functions of your system using any web browser. Since this may be
55 the first Citadel experience for many new users, the screens have been designed
56 to be attractive and easy to navigate.
62 Unline some web-based packages, WebCit contains its own standalone HTTP
63 engine. As a result, you can get it running quickly without all that tedious
64 mucking about with Apache configuration files and directories. WebCit is not
65 intended to be a general-purpose web server, however -- it *only* provides a
66 front end to Citadel. If you do not have another web server running, you may
67 run WebCit on port 80; however, if you have Apache or some other web server
68 listening on port 80, you must run WebCit on another port. If you do not
69 specify a port number, WebCit will bind to port 2000.
71 To compile from source, enter the usual commands:
72 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/webcit [or whatever directory you prefer]
76 Package/Ports Maintainers: to make webcit fit smart into LHFS-ified systems
77 read on at the end of this file, Advanced configure options.
79 Then to initialize it:
83 After running setup, you just point your web browser to whatever port you
88 (or if you specified some other port, such as 2000 in this example...)
90 http://your.host.name:2000
94 The included "setup" program is basically just an installation helper that
95 asks a series of questions and then adds the appropriate line to inittab to
96 start WebCit. For most installations, this will do just fine. If you have
97 special circumstances, or if you'd prefer to configure WebCit manually, you
98 may skip the setup program. Instead, open /etc/inittab and add an entry
101 wc:2345:respawn:/usr/local/webcit/webcit
104 Several command-line options are also available. Here's the usage for
105 the "webcit" program:
107 webcit [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-S cipher_suite] [-t tracefile]
108 [-c] [-f] [remotehost [remoteport]]
112 webcit [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-S cipher_suite] [-t tracefile]
113 [-c] [-f] uds /your/citadel/directory
117 -> ip_addr: the IP address on which you wish your WebCit server to run.
118 You can leave this out, in which case WebCit will listen on all
119 available network interfaces. Normally this will be the case, but if
120 you are running multiple Citadel systems on one host, it can be useful.
121 You can also use this option to run Apache and WebCit on different IP
122 addresses instead of different ports, if you have them available.
124 -> http_port: the TCP port on which you wish your WebCit server to run. If
125 you are installing WebCit on a dedicated server, you can use the
126 standard port 80. Otherwise, if port 80 is already occupied by some
127 other web service (probably Apache), then you'll need to select a
128 different port. If you do not specify a port number, WebCit will attempt
131 -> tracefile: where you want WebCit to log to. This can be a file, a
132 virtual console, or /dev/null to suppress logging altogether.
134 -> The "-c" option causes WebCit to output an extra cookie containing the
135 identity of the WebCit server. The cookie will look like this:
136 Set-cookie: wcserver=your.host.name
137 This is useful if you have a cluster of WebCit servers sitting behind a
138 load balancer, and the load balancer has the ability to use cookies to
139 keep track of which server to send HTTP requests to.
141 -> The "-s" option causes WebCit to present an HTTPS (SSL-encrypted) web
142 service. If you want to do both HTTP and HTTPS, you can simply run two
143 instances of WebCit on two different ports.
145 -> The "-S" option also enables HTTPS, but must be followed by a list of
146 cipher suites you wish to enable. Please see http://openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html
147 for a list of cipher strings.
149 -> The "-f" option tells WebCit that it is allowed to follow the
150 "X-Forwarded-For:" HTTP headers which may be added if your WebCit service
151 is sitting behind a front end proxy. This will allow users in your "Who
152 is online?" list to appear as connecting from their actual host address
153 instead of the address of the proxy. In addition, the
154 "X-Forwarded-Host:" header from the front end proxy will also be honored,
155 which will help to make automatically generated absolute URL's (for
156 things like GroupDAV and mailing list subscriptions) correct.
158 -> remotehost: the name or IP address of the host on which your Citadel
159 server is running. The default is "localhost".
161 -> remoteport: the port number on which your Citadel server is running.
162 The default is port 504, the IANA-designated standard port for Citadel.
164 -> "uds" is a keyword which tells WebCit that you wish to connect to a
165 Citadel server running on the same computer, rather than using a TCP/IP
166 socket. /your/citadel/directory should be set to the actual name of the
167 directory in which you have Citadel installed
168 (such as /usr/local/citadel). If you run Citadel and WebCit on the same
169 computer, this is recommended, as it will run much faster.
175 WebCit contains graphics, templates, JavaScript code, etc. which are kept
176 in its "static" subdirectory. All site-specific graphics, however, are
177 fetched from the Citadel server.
179 The "images" directory on a Citadel system contains these graphics. The
180 ones which you may be interested in are:
182 -> background.gif: a background texture displayed under all web pages
183 -> hello.gif: your system's logo. It is displayed along with the logon
184 banner, and on the top left corner of each page.
186 If you would like to deploy a "favicon.ico" graphic, please put it in
187 the static/ directory. WebCit will properly serve it from there.
193 The default WebCit installation will create an empty directory called
194 "static.local". In this directory you may place a file called "webcit.css"
195 into the "styles" directory which, if present, is referenced *after* the
196 default stylesheet. If you know CSS and wish to customize your WebCit
197 installation, any styles you declare in static.local/styles/webcit.css
198 will override the styles found in static/styles/webcit.css -- and your
199 customizations will not be overwritten when you upgrade WebCit later.
201 You may also place other files, such as images, in static.local for
202 further customization.
208 WebCit contains support for calendaring and scheduling. In order to use it
209 you must have libical v0.26 (or newer) on your system.
211 WebCit also provides iCalendar format free/busy data for calendar clients.
212 Unlike with some other servers, there is no need for each user to "publish"
213 free/busy data -- it is generated on-the-fly from the server-side calendar
214 of the user being queried.
217 HTTPS (encryption) SUPPORT
218 --------------------------
220 WebCit now supports HTTPS for encrypted connections. When a secure server
221 port is specified via the "-s" flag, an HTTPS service is enabled.
223 The service will look in the "keys" directory for the following files:
225 citadel.key (your server's private key)
226 citadel.csr (a certificate signing request)
227 citadel.cer (your server's public certificate)
229 If any of these files are not found, WebCit will first attempt to link to the
230 SSL files in the Citadel service's directory (if Citadel is running on the
231 same host as WebCit), and if that does not succeed, it will automatically
232 generate a key and certificate.
234 It is up to you to decide whether to use an automatically generated,
235 self-signed certificate, or purchase a certificate signed by a well known
239 INTEGRATING INTO APACHE
240 -----------------------
242 It is best to run WebCit natively on its own HTTP port. If, however, you wish
243 to have WebCit run as part of an Apache web server installation (for example,
244 you only have one IP address and you need to stay on port 80 or 443 in order to
245 maintain compatibility with corporate firewall policy), you can do this with
246 the "mod_proxy" Apache module.
248 The preferred way to do this is to configure a NameVirtualHost for your WebCit
249 installation (for example, http://webcit.example.com) and then proxy that
250 virtual host through to WebCit. The alternative way, which does work but is not
251 quite as robust, is to "mount" the WebCit paths as directory aliases to your
254 Here is how to configure the NameVirtualHost method:
256 <VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
257 #here some of your config stuff like logging, serveradmin...
258 NameVirtualHost www.mydomain.com
262 ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:2000/
263 ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:2000/
264 # The following line is optional. It allows WebCit's static content
265 # such as images to be served directly by Apache.
266 alias /static /var/lib/citadel/www/static
269 Here is how to configure the "subdirectory" method:
271 <VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
272 #here some of your config stuff like logging, serveradmin...
273 NameVirtualHost www.mydomain.com
283 <location /who_inner_html>
287 ProxyPass /webcit/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/webcit/
288 ProxyPassReverse /webcit/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/webcit/
289 ProxyPass /listsub/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/listsub/
290 ProxyPassReverse /listsub/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/listsub/
291 ProxyPass /groupdav/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/groupdav/
292 ProxyPassReverse /groupdav/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/groupdav/
293 ProxyPass /who_inner_html http://127.0.0.1:2000/who_inner_html
294 ProxyPassReverse /who_inner_html http://127.0.0.1:2000/who_inner_html
295 # The following line is optional. It allows WebCit's static content
296 # such as images to be served directly by Apache.
297 alias /static /var/lib/citadel/www/static
301 ADVANCED CONFIGURE OPTIONS
302 --------------------------
304 If you are building packages and prefer not to have WebCit reside entirely in
305 a single directory, there are several compile-time options available.
307 --with-wwwdir defines where webcit should locate and search its templates and images.
308 --with-localedir defines where to put webcits locale files.
310 Also, there are possibilities to load the TinyMCE editor into a system-wide location. WebCit
311 uses this standard component to compose its messages for messages and postings. Several WebCit installations
312 that may differ in design but use the same TinyMCE (which is the default that WebCit ships with)
313 (set --with-editordir for that, it defaults to the dir the templates go)
315 Install targets have diversified to reflect these changes too:
317 locale: the webcit .mo files for gettext & locales.
318 tinymce: the editor. if your system brings one, just ommit this.
319 wwwdata: our templates.
320 setupbin: if you want to use webcits setup facility... but isn't needed in case you provide own init & config scripts.
327 That's all you need to know to get started. If you have any questions or
328 comments, please visit UNCENSORED! BBS, the home of Citadel, at
329 http://uncensored.citadel.org - and go to the "Citadel Support" room.