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6 <title>FrontAccounting</title>
13 <div><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt"><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,102,0); FONT-STYLE: italic" >Front</span>Accounting Installation</span></strong></div>
15 <h2>Pre-requisites</h2>
18 <ul style="MARGIN-TOP: 0pt" type="disc">
21 <li>A working HTTP web server eg. <em><strong>Apache, IIS</strong></em>.
24 <li><strong><em>PHP</em></strong> installed on the web server.
27 <li>A working <strong><em>MySQL</em></strong> server - with <strong><em>innodb</em></strong> tables
28 enabled (see notes below)
31 <li><strong><em>Adobe Acrobat Reader</em></strong> - for viewing the PDF reports before printing them out. </li>
37 <h2>Important Notes</h2>
43 <li>One critical aspect of the PHP installation is the setting of <strong><em>session.auto_start</em></strong> in the php.ini file. Some rpm distributions of PHP have the default setting of <strong><em>session.auto_start = 1</em></strong>.
44 This starts a new session at the beginning of each script. However,
45 this makes it impossible to instantiate any class objects that the
46 system relies on. Classes are used extensively by this system. When
47 sessions are required they are started by the system and this setting
48 of <strong><em>session.auto_start</em></strong>
49 can and should be set to 0.
52 <li><strong><em>Innodb</em></strong> tables must be enabled in the MySQL
53 server. These tables allow database transactions which are a critical
54 component of the software. This is enabled by default in the newer versions of
55 MySQL. If you need to enable it yourself, consult the MySQL manual.
58 <li>FrontAccounting is implemented and tested with MySQL. Generally
59 it should work with other databases, but this is not supported in any
60 way at the moment. </li>
66 <h2>Copying all the project files to the correct directory</h2>
72 <li>You must obviously have downloaded the project
73 archive to be reading this file.
76 <li>All the files inside this archive should be copied to
77 a directory under the web server root directory.
80 <li>For example, create a folder called <strong>/account</strong>, and extract the archive into this folder. </li>
86 <h2>Installation Steps (automatic, recommended)</h2>
92 <li>If you have the option to create multiple databases on your host, create one, fi. <strong>frontacc</strong>,
93 otherwise write down the database name for your account. At the same time look
94 up the username and password for the database. You will need these
95 informations during the wizard install.
98 <li>Enter <strong><em>your_url/account/install</em></strong> (or whatever
99 directory you entered). This will run the install wizard, setup a drill
100 company and populating with initial data. You can later on create your own
101 real company. It is a good idea to get familiar with the system before
102 starting your own company.
103 <li>After successfully install, remove or rename your install directory for safety reasons. You don't need it any more.</li>
109 <h2>Installation Steps (manuel, for advanced users, not recommended)</h2>
122 <h3>Creating the Database<img height="16" alt="gylle"
123 hspace=0 src="themes/default/images/cal.gif" width=16 border=0> </h3>
130 <li>NOTE : As FrontAccounting is still heavily under
131 development, the database structure will ALWAYS change between releases, so
132 if you have a database that you created for a previous release of
133 FrontAccounting, it WILL NOT WORK after installing a new release. You may
134 run the script, update_db.php and select the appropriate script, f.i.
135 alter.sql (from release 1.XX to release 2.0).
138 <li>We strongly suggest using a GUI to manage your database(s) and database users. If you don
\92t have any, download <a href="http://www.phpmyadmin.net/"><strong>phpMyAdmin</strong></a>.
141 <li>Create a database with a name of your choice. The default in config_db.php is
\91<strong><em>frontacc</em></strong>
\92, but of course you can select
142 whatever name you desire.
145 <li>Populate the database you have created. There are two scripts
146 are provided to populate the database (both inside the folder /sql) :
152 <li><strong><em>en_US-demo.sql</em></strong>. This has a minimal
153 amount of demonstration data set up so that transactions can be tried to
154 see how the system works.
157 <li><strong><em>en_US-new.sql</em></strong>. This script has
158 only the basic data necessary to start a new company system off. If you
159 wish to set up your company on FrontAccounting then this is the script
167 <li>Now that the database is created you will need to
168 set up a database user to access this database. DO NOT USE THE USER
\91ROOT
\92.
169 Set up a new user and give that user full privileges over the database
171 <li>After successfully install, remove or rename your install directory <strong><em>your_url/account/install</em></strong> (or
172 whatever directory you entered) for safety reasons. You don't need it any more.</li>
181 <h3>Editing config_db.php</h3>
188 <li><strong><em>config_db.php</em></strong> contains connection
189 information for the database. These must be set to your local settings or
190 you will not be able to access FrontAccounting.
193 <li>FrontAccounting allows multiple connections, you
194 can enter as many connections as you have separate entities (most people
198 <li><strong>$db_connections</strong> is an array of connections
\96
199 for each connection :
202 <li>
\93<strong>name</strong>
\94 is the
203 name of the connection, this is the name that will be displayed to the user
206 <li>
\93<strong>host</strong>
\94 is the
207 computer IP address or name where the database is. The default is localhost
208 assuming that the web server is also the sql server.
211 <li>
\93<strong>dbuse</strong>r
\94 is
212 the user name under which the database should be accessed. NB, again, do not
213 use the user ROOT. A user with appropriate privileges must be set up.
216 <li>
\93<strong>dbpassword</strong>
\94
217 is the password for
\93dbuser
\94. You would have entered this when you created
221 <li>
\93<strong>dbname</strong>
\94 is
222 the name of the database. The provided scripts use the name OpenAccounting.
225 <li>
\93<strong>tbpref</strong>
\94 is the table prefix for
226 the tables. If you only have access to one database, you must use table
227 prefix to separate the companies. Table prefix is set by a table prefix
228 counter inside config_db.php, fi. 0_ for the first company.</li>
241 <h2> Logging In For the First Time</h2>
247 <li>Pleae ensure that the folder <strong>/company/0</strong> on the server is <strong>writable</strong>.
250 <li>Open a browser and enter the URL for the web server
251 directory where FrontAccounting is installed.
254 <li>Enter the user name: '<strong>admin</strong>'
257 <li>Enter the password: '<strong>password</strong>'
260 <li>(NB : enter without quotation marks).
265 <div>You can set up additional user accounts from the System Setup
266 tab. Be careful not to delete the demonstration user until a new user
267 has been set up. If there are no users defined the next time you try to
268 login you won't be able to. The only way then to create a user to login
269 with is to manually edit the SQL table "users" to insert a user.</div>
278 <h2>Setting Up Company Specific Data</h2>
284 <li>All the standing configuration data is defined from the Setup tab
285 and each link should be reviewed to enter appropriate data for the
286 business. Setup wizards that guide you through this process has been
287 implemented and we strongly recommend you to use this approach, see <strong><em>Installation steps (automatic, recommended)</em></strong> . </li>
293 <h2>Troubleshooting</h2>
299 <li>If FrontAccounting is installed locally, you may have the <strong><em>session save path</em></strong> not set correctly. Normally this is set in your php.ini (for Windows). The entry is called <strong><em>session.save_path</em></strong>. Make sure this is set to
300 a directory that actually exists. The default is set to /tmp, which may not be
304 <li>If you are installing FrontAccounting onto a shared
305 server, you may have to set the session save path within FrontAccounting. At
306 the top of config.php (in release 2.0 this has moved to /includes/session.inc)
307 you will find this line :
310 <li>Uncomment this line and set the path to a directory that exists
311 on your server. Make sure that you have read/write privileges on this