The Short Version

The basic steps for installing Slash and its components are:

  1. Prepare the ground. Create system users, make home directories for software, and set file and directory permissions appropriately.

  2. Prepare the database. Install the database software, create a database user account for the site, and create and populate the basic Slash tables. The distribution includes canned SQL scripts to make this easy. This chapter assumes you’re using a MySQL database. Other software will be similar, but please refer to its documentation and the current version of INSTALL for any known caveats.

  3. Install Perl, Apache, and mod_perl . Although many Unix-like operating systems come with Perl already installed, building Apache with mod_perl requires the Perl source.

  4. Install the Perl modules that Slash requires. This is also easy, thanks to Andreas König and his marvelous CPAN module, which can find and install Perl modules. (The CPAN, or Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, is a repository of reusable Perl components.) Slash includes a CPAN Bundle file, which lists the modules to be installed.

  5. Make and install Slash. Thanks to the makefile provided with recent Slash releases, this part is so easy a typing poodle could do it. (Be sure to get video if this actually happens.)

  6. Run install-slashsite to configure each individual Slash site on a machine. This Perl script asks for the server name and the name of the virtual database user. It automagically updates the Apache configuration file ...

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