1 WEBCIT for the Citadel System
4 Copyright (C) 1996-2006 by the authors. Portions written by:
15 This program is open source software released under the terms of the GNU
16 General Public License, version 2. Please read COPYING.txt for more
17 licensing information.
19 WebCit bundles the Prototype JavaScript Framework, writen by Sam
20 Stephenson [http://prototype.conio.net]. These components are licensed to
21 you under the terms of an MIT-style license.
23 WebCit bundles the script.aculo.us JavaScript library, written by
24 Thomas Fuchs [http://script.aculo.us, http://mir.aculo.us]. These
25 components are licensed to you under the terms of an MIT-style license.
27 WebCit bundles the TinyMCE text editor, written by Moxiecode Systems AB
28 (http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/tinymce/docs/credits.html). This component
29 is licensed to you under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
32 WebCit bundles the Nifty Corners library, written by Alessandro Fulciniti
33 [http://cerca.html.it/cgi-bin/cerca.cgi?q=nifty+corners]. This component
34 is licensed to you under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
37 The Citadel logo was designed by Lisa Aurigemma.
43 Citadel is a sophisticated groupware and BBS package which allows multiple
44 users to simultaneously access the system using a variety of user interfaces.
45 This package (WebCit) is a "middleware" package which presents an HTML/HTTP
46 user interface to the Citadel system.
48 What this means in practice is that after you've installed WebCit, users can
49 access all functions of your system using any web browser. Since this may be
50 the first Citadel experience for many new users, the screens have been designed
51 to be attractive and easy to navigate.
57 Unline some web-based packages, WebCit contains its own standalone HTTP
58 engine. As a result, you can get it running quickly without all that tedious
59 mucking about with Apache configuration files and directories. WebCit is not
60 intended to replace your Apache server, however -- it *only* provides a front
61 end to Citadel. If you do not have another web server running, you may run
62 WebCit on port 80; however, in the more likely situation that you have Apache
63 or some other web server listening on port 80, you must run WebCit on another
64 port. The default is port 2000.
66 To compile from source, enter the usual commands:
67 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/webcit [or whatever directory you prefer]
71 Package/Ports Maintainers: to make webcit fit smart into LHFS-ified systems
72 read on at the end of this file, Advanced configure options.
74 Then to initialize it:
78 After running setup, you just point your web browser to whatever port you
81 http://your.host.name:2000
85 The included "setup" program is basically just an installation helper that
86 asks a series of questions and then adds the appropriate line to inittab to
87 start WebCit. For most installations, this will do just fine. If you have
88 special circumstances, or if you'd prefer to configure WebCit manually, you
89 may skip the setup program. Instead, open /etc/inittab and add an entry
92 wc:2345:respawn:/usr/local/webcit/webserver
95 Several command-line options are also available. Here's the usage for
96 the "webserver" program:
98 webserver [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-t tracefile]
99 [-c] [-f] [remotehost [remoteport]]
103 webserver [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-t tracefile]
104 [-c] [-f] uds /your/citadel/directory
108 -> ip_addr: the IP address on which you wish your WebCit server to run.
109 You can leave this out, in which case WebCit will listen on all
110 available network interfaces. Normally this will be the case, but if
111 you are running multiple Citadel systems on one host, it can be useful.
113 -> http_port: the TCP port on which you wish your WebCit server to run. If
114 you are installing WebCit on a dedicated server, you can use the
115 standard port 80. Otherwise, if port 80 is already occupied by some
116 other web service (probably Apache), then you'll need to select a
117 different port. If you do not specify a port number, WebCit will attempt
120 -> tracefile: where you want WebCit to log to. This can be a file, a
121 virtual console, or /dev/null to suppress logging altogether.
123 -> The "-c" option causes WebCit to output an extra cookie containing the
124 identity of the WebCit server. The cookie will look like this:
125 Set-cookie: wcserver=your.host.name
126 This is useful if you have a cluster of WebCit servers sitting behind a
127 load balancer, and the load balancer has the ability to use cookies to
128 keep track of which server to send HTTP requests to.
130 -> The "-s" option causes WebCit to present an HTTPS (SSL-encrypted) web
131 service. If you want to do both HTTP and HTTPS, you can simply run two
132 instances of WebCit on two different ports.
134 -> The "-f" option tells WebCit that it is allowed to follow the
135 "X-Forwarded-For:" HTTP headers which may be added if your WebCit service
136 is sitting behind a front end proxy. This will allow users in your "Who
137 is online?" list to appear as connecting from their actual host address
138 instead of the address of the proxy. In addition, the
139 "X-Forwarded-Host:" header from the front end proxy will also be honored,
140 which will help to make automatically generated absolute URL's (for
141 things like GroupDAV and mailing list subscriptions) correct.
143 -> remotehost: the name or IP address of the host on which your Citadel
144 server is running. The default is "localhost".
146 -> remoteport: the port number on which your Citadel server is running.
147 The default is port 504, the IANA-designated standard port for Citadel.
149 -> "uds" is a keyword which tells WebCit that you wish to connect to a
150 Citadel server running on the same computer, rather than using a TCP/IP
151 socket. /your/citadel/directory should be set to the actual name of the
152 directory in which you have Citadel installed
153 (such as /usr/local/citadel). If you run Citadel and WebCit on the same
154 computer, this is recommended, as it will run much faster.
160 WebCit contains graphics, templates, JavaScript code, etc. which are kept
161 in its "static" subdirectory. All site-specific graphics, however, are
162 fetched from the Citadel server.
164 The "images" directory on a Citadel system contains these graphics. The
165 ones which you may be interested in are:
167 -> background.gif: a background texture displayed under all web pages
168 -> hello.gif: your system's logo. It is displayed along with the logon
169 banner, and on the top left corner of each page.
171 If you would like to deploy a "favicon.ico" graphic, please put it in
172 the static/ directory. WebCit will properly serve it from there.
178 WebCit contains support for calendaring and scheduling. In order to use it
179 you must have libical v0.26 (or newer) on your system. You must also be
180 running a Citadel server with calendaring support. The calendar service will
181 be automatically configured and installed if your host system supports it.
183 WebCit also provides iCalendar format free/busy data for calendar clients.
184 Unlike with some other servers, there is no need for each user to "publish"
185 free/busy data -- it is generated on-the-fly from the server-side calendar
186 of the user being queried.
189 HTTPS (encryption) SUPPORT
190 --------------------------
192 WebCit now supports HTTPS for encrypted connections. When a secure server
193 port is specified via the "-s" flag, an HTTPS service is enabled.
195 The service will look in the "keys" directory for the following files:
197 citadel.key (your server's private key)
198 citadel.csr (a certificate signing request)
199 citadel.cer (your server's public certificate)
201 If any of these files are not found, WebCit will first attempt to link to the
202 SSL files in the Citadel service's directory (if Citadel is running on the
203 same host as WebCit), and if that does not succeed, it will automatically
204 generate a key and certificate.
206 It is up to you to decide whether to use an automatically generated,
207 self-signed certificate, or purchase a certificate signed by a well known
211 INTEGRATING INTO APACHE
212 -----------------------
214 It is best to run WebCit natively on its own HTTP port. If, however, you wish
215 to have WebCit run as part of an Apache web server installation (for example,
216 you only have one IP address and you need to stay on port 80 or 443 in order to
217 maintain compatibility with corporate firewall policy), you can do this with
218 the "mod_proxy" Apache module.
220 The preferred way to do this is to configure a NameVirtualHost for your WebCit
221 installation (for example, http://webcit.example.com) and then proxy that
222 virtual host through to WebCit. The alternative way, which does work but is not
223 quite as robust, is to "mount" the WebCit paths as directory aliases to your
226 Here is how to configure the NameVirtualHost method:
228 <VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
229 #here some of your config stuff like logging, serveradmin...
230 NameVirtualHost www.mydomain.com
234 ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:2000/
235 ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:2000/
236 # The following line is optional. It allows WebCit's static content
237 # such as images to be served directly by Apache.
238 alias /static /var/lib/citadel/www/static
241 Here is how to configure the "subdirectory" method:
243 <VirtualHost mydomain.com:443>
244 #here some of your config stuff like logging, serveradmin...
245 NameVirtualHost www.mydomain.com
255 <location /who_inner_html>
259 ProxyPass /webcit/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/webcit/
260 ProxyPassReverse /webcit/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/webcit/
261 ProxyPass /listsub/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/listsub/
262 ProxyPassReverse /listsub/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/listsub/
263 ProxyPass /groupdav/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/groupdav/
264 ProxyPassReverse /groupdav/ http://127.0.0.1:2000/groupdav/
265 ProxyPass /who_inner_html http://127.0.0.1:2000/who_inner_html
266 ProxyPassReverse /who_inner_html http://127.0.0.1:2000/who_inner_html
267 # The following line is optional. It allows WebCit's static content
268 # such as images to be served directly by Apache.
269 alias /static /var/lib/citadel/www/static
273 ADVANCED CONFIGURE OPTIONS
274 --------------------------
276 If you are building packages and prefer not to have WebCit reside entirely in
277 a single directory, there are several compile-time options available.
279 --with-staticdir defines where webcit should locate and search its templates and images. If you
280 want to go with a different installation location then the point at which it is accessed at runtime,
281 you can use --with-staticrundir. This option is meant to ease your needs if you're going
282 to install the static files as 'examples' in a location like /usr/share/doc/webcit/examples,
283 and enable the user to copy them over to another dir (like /var/lib/citadel/www), where
284 they're accessed at runtime. (The debian instatll scripts provided with this package
285 do this to preserve user changes to the template system, see debian/citadel-webcit.postinstall)
287 Also, there are possibilities to load the TinyMCE editor into a system-wide location. WebCit
288 uses this standard component to compose its messages for messages and postings. Several WebCit installations
289 that may differ in design but use the same TinyMCE (which is the default that WebCit ships with)
290 (set --with-editordir for that, it defaults to the dir the templates go)
296 That's all you need to know to get started. If you have any questions or
297 comments, please visit UNCENSORED! BBS, the home of Citadel, at
298 http://uncensored.citadel.org - and go to the "Citadel Support" room.