1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
2 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
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</h3>
129 <li>NOTE : As FrontAccounting is still heavily under
130 development, the database structure will ALWAYS change between releases, so
131 if you have a database that you created for a previous release of
132 FrontAccounting, it WILL NOT WORK after installing a new release. You may
133 run the script, update_db.php and select the appropriate script, f.i.
134 alter.sql (from release 1.XX to release 2.0).
137 <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>.
140 <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
141 whatever name you desire.
144 <li>Populate the database you have created. There are two scripts
145 are provided to populate the database (both inside the folder /sql) :
151 <li><strong><em>en_US-demo.sql</em></strong>. This has a minimal
152 amount of demonstration data set up so that transactions can be tried to
153 see how the system works.
156 <li><strong><em>en_US-new.sql</em></strong>. This script has
157 only the basic data necessary to start a new company system off. If you
158 wish to set up your company on FrontAccounting then this is the script
166 <li>Now that the database is created you will need to
167 set up a database user to access this database. DO NOT USE THE USER
\91ROOT
\92.
168 Set up a new user and give that user full privileges over the database
170 <li>After successfully install, remove or rename your install directory <strong><em>your_url/account/install</em></strong> (or
171 whatever directory you entered) for safety reasons. You don't need it any more.</li>
180 <h3>Editing config_db.php</h3>
187 <li><strong><em>config_db.php</em></strong> contains connection
188 information for the database. These must be set to your local settings or
189 you will not be able to access FrontAccounting.
192 <li>FrontAccounting allows multiple connections, you
193 can enter as many connections as you have separate entities (most people
197 <li><strong>$db_connections</strong> is an array of connections
\96
198 for each connection :
201 <li>
\93<strong>name</strong>
\94 is the
202 name of the connection, this is the name that will be displayed to the user
205 <li>
\93<strong>host</strong>
\94 is the
206 computer IP address or name where the database is. The default is localhost
207 assuming that the web server is also the sql server.
210 <li>
\93<strong>dbuse</strong>r
\94 is
211 the user name under which the database should be accessed. NB, again, do not
212 use the user ROOT. A user with appropriate privileges must be set up.
215 <li>
\93<strong>dbpassword</strong>
\94
216 is the password for
\93dbuser
\94. You would have entered this when you created
220 <li>
\93<strong>dbname</strong>
\94 is
221 the name of the database. The provided scripts use the name OpenAccounting.
224 <li>
\93<strong>tbpref</strong>
\94 is the table prefix for
225 the tables. If you only have access to one database, you must use table
226 prefix to separate the companies. Table prefix is set by a table prefix
227 counter inside config_db.php, fi. 0_ for the first company.</li>
240 <h2> Logging In For the First Time</h2>
246 <li>Pleae ensure that the folder <strong>/company/0</strong> on the server is <strong>writable</strong>.
249 <li>Open a browser and enter the URL for the web server
250 directory where FrontAccounting is installed.
253 <li>Enter the user name: '<strong>admin</strong>'
256 <li>Enter the password: '<strong>password</strong>'
259 <li>(NB : enter without quotation marks).
264 <div>You can set up additional user accounts from the System Setup
265 tab. Be careful not to delete the demonstration user until a new user
266 has been set up. If there are no users defined the next time you try to
267 login you won't be able to. The only way then to create a user to login
268 with is to manually edit the SQL table "users" to insert a user.</div>
277 <h2>Setting Up Company Specific Data</h2>
283 <li>All the standing configuration data is defined from the Setup tab
284 and each link should be reviewed to enter appropriate data for the
285 business. Setup wizards that guide you through this process has been
286 implemented and we strongly recommend you to use this approach, see <strong><em>Installation steps (automatic, recommended)</em></strong> . </li>
292 <h2>Troubleshooting</h2>
298 <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
299 a directory that actually exists. The default is set to /tmp, which may not be
303 <li>If you are installing FrontAccounting onto a shared
304 server, you may have to set the session save path within FrontAccounting. At
305 the top of config.php (in release 2.0 this has moved to /includes/session.inc)
306 you will find this line :
309 <li>Uncomment this line and set the path to a directory that exists
310 on your server. Make sure that you have read/write privileges on this