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 WebCit bundles the CSS3PIE library [http://css3pie.com] which is offered
39 under both the Apache license and the GNU General Public License.
41 The Citadel logo was designed by Lisa Aurigemma.
47 Citadel is a sophisticated groupware platform which allows multiple
48 users to simultaneously access the system using a variety of user interfaces.
49 This package (WebCit) is a "middleware" package which presents an HTML/HTTP
50 user interface to the Citadel system.
52 What this means in practice is that after you've installed WebCit, users can
53 access all functions of your system using any web browser. Since this may be
54 the first Citadel experience for many new users, the screens have been designed
55 to be attractive and easy to navigate.
61 Unline some web-based packages, WebCit contains its own standalone HTTP
62 engine. As a result, you can get it running quickly without all that tedious
63 mucking about with Apache configuration files and directories. WebCit is not
64 intended to be a general-purpose web server, however -- it *only* provides a
65 front end to Citadel. If you do not have another web server running, you may
66 run WebCit on port 80; however, if you have Apache or some other web server
67 listening on port 80, you must run WebCit on another port. If you do not
68 specify a port number, WebCit will bind to port 2000.
70 To compile from source, enter the usual commands:
71 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/webcit [or whatever directory you prefer]
75 Package/Ports Maintainers: to make webcit fit smart into LHFS-ified systems
76 read on at the end of this file, Advanced configure options.
78 Then to initialize it:
82 After running setup, you just point your web browser to whatever port you
87 (or if you specified some other port, such as 2000 in this example...)
89 http://your.host.name:2000
93 The included "setup" program is basically just an installation helper that
94 asks a series of questions and then adds the appropriate line to inittab to
95 start WebCit. For most installations, this will do just fine. If you have
96 special circumstances, or if you'd prefer to configure WebCit manually, you
97 may skip the setup program. Instead, open /etc/inittab and add an entry
100 wc:2345:respawn:/usr/local/webcit/webcit
103 Several command-line options are also available. Here's the usage for
104 the "webcit" program:
106 webcit [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-S cipher_suite] [-t tracefile]
107 [-c] [-f] [remotehost [remoteport]]
111 webcit [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-S cipher_suite] [-t tracefile]
112 [-c] [-f] uds /your/citadel/directory
116 -> ip_addr: the IP address on which you wish your WebCit server to run.
117 You can leave this out, in which case WebCit will listen on all
118 available network interfaces. Normally this will be the case, but if
119 you are running multiple Citadel systems on one host, it can be useful.
120 You can also use this option to run Apache and WebCit on different IP
121 addresses instead of different ports, if you have them available.
123 -> http_port: the TCP port on which you wish your WebCit server to run. If
124 you are installing WebCit on a dedicated server, you can use the
125 standard port 80. Otherwise, if port 80 is already occupied by some
126 other web service (probably Apache), then you'll need to select a
127 different port. If you do not specify a port number, WebCit will attempt
130 -> tracefile: where you want WebCit to log to. This can be a file, a
131 virtual console, or /dev/null to suppress logging altogether.
133 -> The "-c" option causes WebCit to output an extra cookie containing the
134 identity of the WebCit server. The cookie will look like this:
135 Set-cookie: wcserver=your.host.name
136 This is useful if you have a cluster of WebCit servers sitting behind a
137 load balancer, and the load balancer has the ability to use cookies to
138 keep track of which server to send HTTP requests to.
140 -> The "-s" option causes WebCit to present an HTTPS (SSL-encrypted) web
141 service. If you want to do both HTTP and HTTPS, you can simply run two
142 instances of WebCit on two different ports.
144 -> The "-S" option also enables HTTPS, but must be followed by a list of
145 cipher suites you wish to enable. Please see http://openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html
146 for a list of cipher strings.
148 -> The "-f" option tells WebCit that it is allowed to follow the
149 "X-Forwarded-For:" HTTP headers which may be added if your WebCit service
150 is sitting behind a front end proxy. This will allow users in your "Who
151 is online?" list to appear as connecting from their actual host address
152 instead of the address of the proxy. In addition, the
153 "X-Forwarded-Host:" header from the front end proxy will also be honored,
154 which will help to make automatically generated absolute URL's (for
155 things like GroupDAV and mailing list subscriptions) correct.
157 -> remotehost: the name or IP address of the host on which your Citadel
158 server is running. The default is "localhost".
160 -> remoteport: the port number on which your Citadel server is running.
161 The default is port 504, the IANA-designated standard port for Citadel.
163 -> "uds" is a keyword which tells WebCit that you wish to connect to a
164 Citadel server running on the same computer, rather than using a TCP/IP
165 socket. /your/citadel/directory should be set to the actual name of the
166 directory in which you have Citadel installed
167 (such as /usr/local/citadel). If you run Citadel and WebCit on the same
168 computer, this is recommended, as it will run much faster.
174 WebCit contains graphics, templates, JavaScript code, etc. which are kept
175 in its "static" subdirectory. All site-specific graphics, however, are
176 fetched from the Citadel server.
178 The "images" directory on a Citadel system contains these graphics. The
179 ones which you may be interested in are:
181 -> background.gif: a background texture displayed under all web pages
182 -> hello.gif: your system's logo. It is displayed along with the logon
183 banner, and on the top left corner of each page.
185 If you would like to deploy a "favicon.ico" graphic, please put it in
186 the static/ directory. WebCit will properly serve it from there.
192 The default WebCit installation will create an empty directory called
193 "static.local". In this directory you may place a file called "webcit.css"
194 into the "styles" directory which, if present, is referenced *after* the
195 default stylesheet. If you know CSS and wish to customize your WebCit
196 installation, any styles you declare in static.local/styles/webcit.css
197 will override the styles found in static/styles/webcit.css -- and your
198 customizations will not be overwritten when you upgrade WebCit later.
200 You may also place other files, such as images, in static.local for
201 further customization.
207 WebCit contains support for calendaring and scheduling. In order to use it
208 you must have libical v0.26 (or newer) on your system.
210 WebCit also provides iCalendar format free/busy data for calendar clients.
211 Unlike with some other servers, there is no need for each user to "publish"
212 free/busy data -- it is generated on-the-fly from the server-side calendar
213 of the user being queried.
216 HTTPS (encryption) SUPPORT
217 --------------------------
219 WebCit now supports HTTPS for encrypted connections. When a secure server
220 port is specified via the "-s" flag, an HTTPS service is enabled.
222 The service will look in the "keys" directory for the following files:
224 citadel.key (your server's private key)
225 citadel.csr (a certificate signing request)
226 citadel.cer (your server's public certificate)
228 If any of these files are not found, WebCit will first attempt to link to the
229 SSL files in the Citadel service's directory (if Citadel is running on the
230 same host as WebCit), and if that does not succeed, it will automatically
231 generate a key and certificate.
233 It is up to you to decide whether to use an automatically generated,
234 self-signed certificate, or purchase a certificate signed by a well known
238 INTEGRATING INTO APACHE
239 -----------------------
241 It is best to run WebCit natively on its own HTTP port. If, however, you wish
242 to have WebCit run as part of an Apache web server installation (for example,
243 you only have one IP address and you need to stay on port 80 or 443 in order to
244 maintain compatibility with corporate firewall policy), you can do this with
245 the "mod_proxy" Apache module.
247 The preferred way to do this is to configure a NameVirtualHost for your WebCit
248 installation (for example, http://webcit.example.com) and then proxy that
249 virtual host through to WebCit. The alternative way, which does work but is not
250 quite as robust, is to "mount" the WebCit paths as directory aliases to your
253 Here is how to configure the NameVirtualHost method:
255 <VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
256 #here some of your config stuff like logging, serveradmin...
257 NameVirtualHost www.mydomain.com
261 ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:2000/
262 ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:2000/
263 # The following line is optional. It allows WebCit's static content
264 # such as images to be served directly by Apache.
265 alias /static /var/lib/citadel/www/static
268 Here is how to configure the "subdirectory" method:
270 <VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
271 #here some of your config stuff like logging, serveradmin...
272 NameVirtualHost www.mydomain.com
282 <location /who_inner_html>
286 ProxyPass /webcit/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/webcit/
287 ProxyPassReverse /webcit/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/webcit/
288 ProxyPass /listsub/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/listsub/
289 ProxyPassReverse /listsub/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/listsub/
290 ProxyPass /groupdav/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/groupdav/
291 ProxyPassReverse /groupdav/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/groupdav/
292 ProxyPass /who_inner_html http://127.0.0.1:2000/who_inner_html
293 ProxyPassReverse /who_inner_html http://127.0.0.1:2000/who_inner_html
294 # The following line is optional. It allows WebCit's static content
295 # such as images to be served directly by Apache.
296 alias /static /var/lib/citadel/www/static
300 ADVANCED CONFIGURE OPTIONS
301 --------------------------
303 If you are building packages and prefer not to have WebCit reside entirely in
304 a single directory, there are several compile-time options available.
306 --with-wwwdir defines where webcit should locate and search its templates and images.
307 --with-localedir defines where to put webcits locale files.
309 Also, there are possibilities to load the TinyMCE editor into a system-wide location. WebCit
310 uses this standard component to compose its messages for messages and postings. Several WebCit installations
311 that may differ in design but use the same TinyMCE (which is the default that WebCit ships with)
312 (set --with-editordir for that, it defaults to the dir the templates go)
314 Install targets have diversified to reflect these changes too:
316 locale: the webcit .mo files for gettext & locales.
317 tinymce: the editor. if your system brings one, just ommit this.
318 wwwdata: our templates.
319 setupbin: if you want to use webcits setup facility... but isn't needed in case you provide own init & config scripts.
326 That's all you need to know to get started. If you have any questions or
327 comments, please visit UNCENSORED! BBS, the home of Citadel, at
328 http://uncensored.citadel.org - and go to the "Citadel Support" room.