INSTALL.md

How to install Castopod

Castopod was thought to be easy to install. Whether using dedicated or shared hosting, you can install it on most PHP-MySQL compatible web servers.

• Install instructions
  • (optional) Manual configuration
• Web Server Requirements
  • PHP v7.2 or higher
  • MySQL compatible database
  • (Optional) Other recommendations
• Security concerns

Install instructions

0. Create a MySQL database for Castopod with a user having access and modification privileges (for more info, see Web Server Requirements).
1. Download and unzip the Castopod package onto the web server if you haven’t already.
   • ⚠️ Set the web server document root to the public/ sub-folder.
2. Run the Castopod install script by going to the install wizard page (https://your_domain_name.com/cp-install) in your favorite web browser.
3. Follow the instructions on your screen.

All done, start podcasting!

(optional) Manual configuration

Before uploading Castopod files to your web server:

1. Rename the .env.example file to .env and update the default values with your own.
2. Upload the Castopod files with .env
3. Go to /cp-install to finish the install process.

Web Server Requirements

PHP v7.2 or higher

PHP version 7.2 or higher is required, with the following extensions installed:

• intl
• libcurl if you plan to use the HTTP\CURLRequest library
• mbstring

Additionally, make sure that the following extensions are enabled in your PHP:

• json (enabled by default - don't turn it off)
• xml (enabled by default - don't turn it off)
• mysqlnd

MySQL compatible database

We recommend using MariaDB

You will need the server hostname, database name, username and password to complete the installation process. If you do not have these, please contact your server administrator.

Privileges

User must have at least these privileges on the database for Castopod to work: ALTER, DELETE, EXECUTE, INDEX, INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE.

(Optional) Other recommendations

• Redis for better cache performances.
• CDN for better performances.
• e-mail gateway for lost passwords.

Security concerns

Castopod is built on top of Codeigniter, a PHP framework that encourages good security practices.

To maximize your instance safety and prevent any malicious attack, we recommend you update all your Castopod files permissions (after installation to avoid any permission error):

• writable/ folder must be readable and writable.
• public/media/ folder must be readable and writable.
• any other file must be set to readonly.

For instance, if you are using Apache or NGINX with Ubuntu you may do the following:

sudo chown -R root:root /path/to/castopod
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/castopod/writable
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/castopod/public/media