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 One or more icons are from Milosz Wlazlo [http://miloszwl.deviantart.com]
35 whose license explicitly allows inclusion in open source projects on the
36 condition of this attribution.
38 The Citadel logo was designed by Lisa Aurigemma.
44 Citadel is a sophisticated groupware platform which allows multiple
45 users to simultaneously access the system using a variety of user interfaces.
46 This package (WebCit) is a "middleware" package which presents an HTML/HTTP
47 user interface to the Citadel system.
49 What this means in practice is that after you've installed WebCit, users can
50 access all functions of your system using any web browser. Since this may be
51 the first Citadel experience for many new users, the screens have been designed
52 to be attractive and easy to navigate.
58 Unline some web-based packages, WebCit contains its own standalone HTTP
59 engine. As a result, you can get it running quickly without all that tedious
60 mucking about with Apache configuration files and directories. WebCit is not
61 intended to be a general-purpose web server, however -- it *only* provides a
62 front end to Citadel. If you do not have another web server running, you may
63 run WebCit on port 80; however, if you have Apache or some other web server
64 listening on port 80, you must run WebCit on another port. If you do not
65 specify a port number, WebCit will bind to port 2000.
67 To compile from source, enter the usual commands:
68 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/webcit [or whatever directory you prefer]
72 Package/Ports Maintainers: to make webcit fit smart into LHFS-ified systems
73 read on at the end of this file, Advanced configure options.
75 Then to initialize it:
79 After running setup, you just point your web browser to whatever port you
84 (or if you specified some other port, such as 2000 in this example...)
86 http://your.host.name:2000
90 The included "setup" program is basically just an installation helper that
91 asks a series of questions and then adds the appropriate line to inittab to
92 start WebCit. For most installations, this will do just fine. If you have
93 special circumstances, or if you'd prefer to configure WebCit manually, you
94 may skip the setup program. Instead, open /etc/inittab and add an entry
97 wc:2345:respawn:/usr/local/webcit/webcit
100 Several command-line options are also available. Here's the usage for
101 the "webcit" program:
103 webcit [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-S cipher_suite] [-t tracefile]
104 [-c] [-f] [remotehost [remoteport]]
108 webcit [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-S cipher_suite] [-t tracefile]
109 [-c] [-f] uds /your/citadel/directory
113 -> ip_addr: the IP address on which you wish your WebCit server to run.
114 You can leave this out, in which case WebCit will listen on all
115 available network interfaces. Normally this will be the case, but if
116 you are running multiple Citadel systems on one host, it can be useful.
117 You can also use this option to run Apache and WebCit on different IP
118 addresses instead of different ports, if you have them available.
120 -> http_port: the TCP port on which you wish your WebCit server to run. If
121 you are installing WebCit on a dedicated server, you can use the
122 standard port 80. Otherwise, if port 80 is already occupied by some
123 other web service (probably Apache), then you'll need to select a
124 different port. If you do not specify a port number, WebCit will attempt
127 -> tracefile: where you want WebCit to log to. This can be a file, a
128 virtual console, or /dev/null to suppress logging altogether.
130 -> The "-c" option causes WebCit to output an extra cookie containing the
131 identity of the WebCit server. The cookie will look like this:
132 Set-cookie: wcserver=your.host.name
133 This is useful if you have a cluster of WebCit servers sitting behind a
134 load balancer, and the load balancer has the ability to use cookies to
135 keep track of which server to send HTTP requests to.
137 -> The "-s" option causes WebCit to present an HTTPS (SSL-encrypted) web
138 service. If you want to do both HTTP and HTTPS, you can simply run two
139 instances of WebCit on two different ports.
141 -> The "-S" option also enables HTTPS, but must be followed by a list of
142 cipher suites you wish to enable. Please see http://openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html
143 for a list of cipher strings.
145 -> The "-f" option tells WebCit that it is allowed to follow the
146 "X-Forwarded-For:" HTTP headers which may be added if your WebCit service
147 is sitting behind a front end proxy. This will allow users in your "Who
148 is online?" list to appear as connecting from their actual host address
149 instead of the address of the proxy. In addition, the
150 "X-Forwarded-Host:" header from the front end proxy will also be honored,
151 which will help to make automatically generated absolute URL's (for
152 things like GroupDAV and mailing list subscriptions) correct.
154 -> remotehost: the name or IP address of the host on which your Citadel
155 server is running. The default is "localhost".
157 -> remoteport: the port number on which your Citadel server is running.
158 The default is port 504, the IANA-designated standard port for Citadel.
160 -> "uds" is a keyword which tells WebCit that you wish to connect to a
161 Citadel server running on the same computer, rather than using a TCP/IP
162 socket. /your/citadel/directory should be set to the actual name of the
163 directory in which you have Citadel installed
164 (such as /usr/local/citadel). If you run Citadel and WebCit on the same
165 computer, this is recommended, as it will run much faster.
171 WebCit contains graphics, templates, JavaScript code, etc. which are kept
172 in its "static" subdirectory. All site-specific graphics, however, are
173 fetched from the Citadel server.
175 The "images" directory on a Citadel system contains these graphics. The
176 ones which you may be interested in are:
178 -> background.gif: a background texture displayed under all web pages
179 -> hello.gif: your system's logo. It is displayed along with the logon
180 banner, and on the top left corner of each page.
182 If you would like to deploy a "favicon.ico" graphic, please put it in
183 the static/ directory. WebCit will properly serve it from there.
189 The default WebCit installation will create an empty directory called
190 "static.local". In this directory you may place a file called "webcit.css"
191 into the "styles" directory which, if present, is referenced *after* the
192 default stylesheet. If you know CSS and wish to customize your WebCit
193 installation, any styles you declare in static.local/styles/webcit.css
194 will override the styles found in static/styles/webcit.css -- and your
195 customizations will not be overwritten when you upgrade WebCit later.
197 You may also place other files, such as images, in static.local for
198 further customization.
204 WebCit contains support for calendaring and scheduling. In order to use it
205 you must have libical v0.26 (or newer) on your system.
207 WebCit also provides iCalendar format free/busy data for calendar clients.
208 Unlike with some other servers, there is no need for each user to "publish"
209 free/busy data -- it is generated on-the-fly from the server-side calendar
210 of the user being queried.
213 HTTPS (encryption) SUPPORT
214 --------------------------
216 WebCit now supports HTTPS for encrypted connections. When a secure server
217 port is specified via the "-s" flag, an HTTPS service is enabled.
219 The service will look in the "keys" directory for the following files:
221 citadel.key (your server's private key)
222 citadel.csr (a certificate signing request)
223 citadel.cer (your server's public certificate)
225 If any of these files are not found, WebCit will first attempt to link to the
226 SSL files in the Citadel service's directory (if Citadel is running on the
227 same host as WebCit), and if that does not succeed, it will automatically
228 generate a key and certificate.
230 It is up to you to decide whether to use an automatically generated,
231 self-signed certificate, or purchase a certificate signed by a well known
235 INTEGRATING INTO APACHE
236 -----------------------
238 It is best to run WebCit natively on its own HTTP port. If, however, you wish
239 to have WebCit run as part of an Apache web server installation (for example,
240 you only have one IP address and you need to stay on port 80 or 443 in order to
241 maintain compatibility with corporate firewall policy), you can do this with
242 the "mod_proxy" Apache module.
244 The preferred way to do this is to configure a NameVirtualHost for your WebCit
245 installation (for example, http://webcit.example.com) and then proxy that
246 virtual host through to WebCit. The alternative way, which does work but is not
247 quite as robust, is to "mount" the WebCit paths as directory aliases to your
250 Here is how to configure the NameVirtualHost method:
252 <VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
253 #here some of your config stuff like logging, serveradmin...
254 NameVirtualHost www.mydomain.com
258 ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:2000/
259 ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:2000/
260 # The following line is optional. It allows WebCit's static content
261 # such as images to be served directly by Apache.
262 alias /static /var/lib/citadel/www/static
265 Here is how to configure the "subdirectory" method:
267 <VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
268 #here some of your config stuff like logging, serveradmin...
269 NameVirtualHost www.mydomain.com
279 <location /who_inner_html>
283 ProxyPass /webcit/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/webcit/
284 ProxyPassReverse /webcit/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/webcit/
285 ProxyPass /listsub/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/listsub/
286 ProxyPassReverse /listsub/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/listsub/
287 ProxyPass /groupdav/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/groupdav/
288 ProxyPassReverse /groupdav/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/groupdav/
289 ProxyPass /who_inner_html http://127.0.0.1:2000/who_inner_html
290 ProxyPassReverse /who_inner_html http://127.0.0.1:2000/who_inner_html
291 # The following line is optional. It allows WebCit's static content
292 # such as images to be served directly by Apache.
293 alias /static /var/lib/citadel/www/static
297 ADVANCED CONFIGURE OPTIONS
298 --------------------------
300 If you are building packages and prefer not to have WebCit reside entirely in
301 a single directory, there are several compile-time options available.
303 --with-wwwdir defines where webcit should locate and search its templates and images.
304 --with-localedir defines where to put webcits locale files.
306 Also, there are possibilities to load the TinyMCE editor into a system-wide location. WebCit
307 uses this standard component to compose its messages for messages and postings. Several WebCit installations
308 that may differ in design but use the same TinyMCE (which is the default that WebCit ships with)
309 (set --with-editordir for that, it defaults to the dir the templates go)
311 Install targets have diversified to reflect these changes too:
313 locale: the webcit .mo files for gettext & locales.
314 tinymce: the editor. if your system brings one, just ommit this.
315 wwwdata: our templates.
316 setupbin: if you want to use webcits setup facility... but isn't needed in case you provide own init & config scripts.
323 That's all you need to know to get started. If you have any questions or
324 comments, please visit UNCENSORED! BBS, the home of Citadel, at
325 http://uncensored.citadel.org - and go to the "Citadel Support" room.