1 WEBCIT for the Citadel System
4 Copyright (C) 1996-2004 by the authors. Portions written by:
12 This program is free software released under the terms of the GNU General
13 Public License. Please read COPYING.txt for more licensing information.
19 Citadel is a sophisticated BBS and groupware package which allows multiple
20 users to simultaneously access the system using a variety of user interfaces.
21 This package (WebCit) is a "middleware" package which presents an HTML/HTTP
22 user interface to the Citadel system.
24 What this means in practice is that after you've installed WebCit, users can
25 access all functions of your system using any web browser. Since this may be
26 the first Citadel experience for many new users, the screens have been designed
27 to be attractive and easy to navigate.
33 Unline some web-based packages, WebCit contains its own standalone HTTP
34 engine. As a result, you can get it running quickly without all that tedious
35 mucking about with Apache configuration files and directories. WebCit is not
36 intended to replace your Apache server, however -- it *only* provides a front
37 end to Citadel. If you do not have another web server running, you may run
38 WebCit on port 80; however, in the more likely situation that you have Apache
39 or some other web server listening on port 80, you must run WebCit on another
40 port. The default is port 2000.
42 To compile from source, enter the usual commands:
43 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/webcit [or whatever directory you prefer]
47 Then to initialize it:
51 After running setup, you just point your web browser to whatever port you
54 http://your.host.name:2000
58 The included "setup" program is basically just an installation helper that
59 asks a series of questions and then adds the appropriate line to inittab to
60 start WebCit. For most installations, this will do just fine. If you have
61 special circumstances, or if you'd prefer to configure WebCit manually, you
62 may skip the setup program. Instead, open /etc/inittab and add an entry
65 wc:2345:respawn:/usr/local/webcit/webserver
68 Several command-line options are also available. Here's the usage for
69 the "webserver" program:
71 webserver [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-t tracefile]
72 [-c] [remotehost [remoteport]]
76 webserver [-i ip_addr] [-p http_port] [-s] [-t tracefile]
77 [-c] uds /your/citadel/directory
81 -> ip_addr: the IP address on which you wish your WebCit server to run.
82 You can leave this out, in which case WebCit will listen on all
83 available network interfaces. Normally this will be the case, but if
84 you are running multiple Citadel systems on one host, it can be useful.
86 -> http_port: the TCP port on which you wish your WebCit server to run.
87 This can be any port number at all; there is no standard. Naturally,
88 you'll want to create a link to this port on your system's regular web
89 pages (presumably on an Apache server running on port 80). Or, if you
90 are installing WebCit on a dedicated server, then you might choose to
91 use port 80 after all.
93 -> tracefile: where you want WebCit to log to. This can be a file, a
94 virtual console, or /dev/null to suppress logging altogether.
96 -> The "-c" option causes WebCit to output an extra cookie containing the
97 identity of the WebCit server. The cookie will look like this:
98 Set-cookie: wcserver=your.host.name
99 This is useful if you have a cluster of WebCit servers sitting behind a
100 load balancer, and the load balancer has the ability to use cookies to
101 keep track of which server to send HTTP requests to.
103 -> The "-s" option causes WebCit to present an HTTPS (SSL-encrypted) web
104 service. If you want to do both HTTP and HTTPS, you can simply run two
105 instances of WebCit on two different ports.
107 -> remotehost: the name or IP address of the host on which your Citadel
108 server is running. The default is "localhost".
110 -> remoteport: the port number on which your Citadel server is running.
111 The default is port 504, the IANA-designated standard port for Citadel.
113 -> "uds" is a keyword which tells WebCit that you wish to connect to a
114 Citadel server running on the same computer, rather than using a TCP/IP
115 socket. /your/citadel/directory should be set to the actual name of the
116 directory in which you have Citadel installed
117 (such as /usr/local/citadel). If you run Citadel and WebCit on the same
118 computer, this is recommended, as it will run much faster.
124 WebCit contains a small amount of graphics (buttons, etc.) which are kept
125 in its "static" subdirectory. All site-specific graphics, however, are
126 fetched from the Citadel server.
128 The "images" directory on a Citadel system contains these graphics. The
129 ones which you may be interested in are:
131 -> background.gif: a background texture displayed under all web pages
132 -> hello.gif: your system's logo. It is displayed along with the logon
133 banner, and on the top left corner of each page.
135 If you would like to deploy a "favicon.ico" graphic, please put it in
136 the static/ directory. WebCit will properly serve it from there.
142 WebCit contains support for calendaring and scheduling. In order to use it
143 you must have libical v0.24 (or newer) on your system. You must also be
144 running a Citadel server with calendaring support. The calendar service will
145 be automatically configured and installed if your host system supports it.
147 WebCit also provides Kolab-compatible free/busy data for calendar clients.
148 Unlike the Kolab server, however, there is no need for each user to "publish"
149 free/busy data -- it is generated on-the-fly from the server-side calendar
150 of the user being queried. Note: in order to support Kolab clients, you must
151 have WebCit running in HTTPS mode on port 443, because that is what Kolab
152 clients will be expecting.
155 HTTPS (encryption) SUPPORT
156 --------------------------
158 WebCit now supports HTTPS for encrypted connections. When a secure server
159 port is specified via the "-s" flag, an HTTPS service is enabled.
161 The service will look in the "keys" directory for the following files:
163 citadel.key (your server's private key)
164 citadel.csr (a certificate signing request)
165 citadel.cer (your server's public certificate)
167 If any of these files are not found, WebCit will first attempt to link to the
168 SSL files in the Citadel service's directory (if Citadel is running on the
169 same host as WebCit), and if that does not succeed, it will automatically
170 generate a key and certificate.
172 It is up to you to decide whether to use an automatically generated,
173 self-signed certificate, or purchase a certificate signed by a well known
180 That's all you need to know to get started. If you have any questions or
181 comments, please visit UNCENSORED! BBS, the home of Citadel, at
182 uncensored.citadel.org.