Installation

Before you can run the installer you first need to place Openads on the server. First you must extract the files from the downloaded file and copy the files to a directory on the web server. If you are using a Windows system you can use a tool like WinZip to expand the tar.gz or .zip file. On a Linux or Unix based web server you can use the tar command to expand the tar.gz file:

tar xvfz Openads-2.0.xx.tar.gz

Now that the files are placed on the web server, you need to make sure the web server can change the file config.inc.php which holds the basic configuration settings. If you are using a Windows web server check the properties of the file and make sure the read-only flag is not set. If you are using a Linux or Unix web server you can alter the write permissions with the chmod command from the command prompt:

chmod a+w config.inc.php

If you do not have command line access to your web server then your ftp client should be able to change file permissions.

In step one you copied the necessary files to the web server. Now that the files are in place, you must run the installer. To start the installer, open a web browser and point it to the directory in which Openads is copied. For example, if you copied the contents of the .zip or .tar.gz file to the adserver subdirectory of your main website, you should point your web browser to http://www.mywebsite.com/adserver. If this doesn't start the installer automatically, then your web server isn't configured to allow PHP files to be used as a directory index. If this is the case you can try to start the installer by running the index.php file in the admin directory manually by pointing the web browser to: http://www.mywebsite.com/adserver/admin/index.php.

This is the first thing you should see after pointing your web browser to the location where Openads is copied. If you do not see this screen, you should check if PHP is functioning correctly on your server. You can do this by placing a small text file called phpinfo.php in the same directory as Openads. The contents of the file should be <?php phpinfo(); ?>. If you call this file from your browser you should see an overview of the PHP configuration. If you see an empty page your server probably doesn't support PHP.

If you see a similar error message during the installation of Openads, your server is not capable of running Openads without making some changes to your server. A brief explanation of the changes that must be made is given below. The exact procedure on how to make these changes is beyond the scope of this manual and is regarded as common knowledge to the administrator of the server.

Openads will also check whether the files you uploaded to the server are corrupt, changed or damaged. If Openads encounters any problems a warning appears containing advice on what you need to do prevent any problems. If you intentionally modified some files before the installation you can simply ignore these warnings and proceed with the installation.

Openads requires PHP 4.0.3 or higher to function correctly. If the version of PHP installed on your web server is not compatible with Openads 2.0, you can upgrade to PHP 4.0.3 or higher. If you need to upgrade we recommend that you upgrade to the latest release of PHP 4.

PHP uses extensions to provide the ability to connect to external databases. The extension that is needed to connect to a MySQL database is not available on the version of PHP that is installed on your web server. Before you can continue you must enable this extension. For more information please check the PHP manual.

The ability to execute PERL-compatible regular expressions is also provided by an extension (see the previous error). This extension is not available on the version of PHP that is installed on your web server. You must enable this extension before you can continue.

If you want to continue the installation of Openads you first need to make sure this setting is turned on in your PHP configuration file. Also do not forget to restart the webserver after changing this setting. For more information, please check the PHP manual.

If you want to continue the installation of Openads you first need to make sure this setting is turned off in your PHP configuration file. Also do not forget to restart the webserver after changing this setting. For more information, please check the PHP manual.

If you want to continue the installation of Openads you first need to make sure this setting is turned on in your PHP5 configuration file. Also do not forget to restart the webserver after changing this setting. For more information, please check the PHP manual.

If the config.inc.php file isn't writeable Openads can't store the configuration. You can change the file permissions on a Unix/Linux server using the chmod command or by using your FTP client. More information on how to unlock the config.inc.php file is given on the first page of this chapter.

Openads has detected a corrupt or modified file. If you did not deliberately modify this file yourself you are advised to upload the file to the server again. If you did deliberately modify this file you can safely ignore this warning.

Openads has detected a file that is not supposed to be used with the version of Openads you are trying to install. Perhaps this is a left-over from an old installation. Please try to re-upload the file to the server, before you continue.

Openads couldn't find one specific file. Please upload the missing file to the server before you continue.

Once all install conditions are met, the installer will ask you to set up the administrator account. You must provide the full name of the administrator, the company name and the e-mail address of the administrator. These settings will be used by Openads in reports that are sent by e-mail. You must also choose the default language which will be used in Openads. The language you select here is used during the rest of the installation and for the administrator account. This setting is also used as the default language for all advertisers and publishers, but if needed it is possible to manually select a different language for individual advertisers and publishers.

The next step is to set up a username and password for the administrator. You must enter the password twice to check against mis-typing. You use this username and password from now on to log in to the administrator interface.

In order to function correctly Openads needs to know where it is located on the web server. The installer will try to auto-detect the right location, but if this isn't correct, please supply the right location in the url prefix field (but don't use a trailing slash).

Openads uses a MySQL database to store all of its data. On this page you enter the basic information on how to contact the database, which should include the hostname of the database server, the username and password to connect to the database and the name of the database itself.

Usually all table names used by Openads have the phpAds_ prefix, so they don't conflict with other tables used by other scripts. Unless you want to use multiple installations of Openads on the same server you can use the default value of the table prefix setting.

MySQL supports multiple table types. Each type of table has unique properties and some can speed up Openads considerably. MyISAM is the default table type and is available in all installations of MySQL. Other table types may not be available on your server. If you choose a table type which isn't supported by your database server, you will be notified after you click the Proceed button.

This warning could mean three different things:

Firstly, it is possible the installer could not determine if the hostname of the database server you specified exists and couldn't connect to it. This could be because you made a typo, or because the server currently isn't available. Please check the settings you entered and if these are correct, please make sure the database is up and running.

The second reason why this message is shown is that the database you specified is not yet created on the database server. Openads can't create the database for you, it needs to exist already before you can install the application.

The third reason is that the username or password you specified might not be correct.

The user you specified is a valid MySQL user and Openads was able to connect to the database with the user you specified, but when trying to create a table MySQL reported the user wasn't allowed to. Before you continue you need to make sure the user has enough privileges to alter existing tables and create new tables. If you are not sure on how to do this, please contact the administrator of the database server.

The table prefix is used to create the name of the tables which need to be created and you used a character which isn't allowed. Make sure you use only the following characters: a - z and _ (underscore).

After the installation is complete you can fully configure Openads from the administrator interface. More information about all the settings can be found in the Configuration section.