GroupServer 11.08 — Banana Split Eaten in a Comfortable Silence

Authors:Michael JasonSmith; Richard Waid; Dan Randow
Contact:Michael JasonSmith <mpj17@onlinegroups.net>
Date:2011-08-31
Organization:GroupServer.org
Copyright:This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License by OnlineGroups.Net.

Introduction

The main update that is present in the Banana release of GroupServer is a Facebook signup system. You can get Banana Split immediately.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Steven Clift for his support for the Facebook signup system.

Facebook Signup

Previously, new members had to provide all their profile information during signup. Now new members have the option of logging into Facebook to retrieve the profile information. Signing up using Facebook is beneficial in two ways.

  1. The email address of the new member does not have to be verified, as Facebook has already verified the address. This reduces the number of steps required for sign-up from three to two.
  2. Much of the profile information does not have to be added, as it is copied in from Facebook.

The new member has a choice to use the older signup system that just uses email, or the new Facebook signup. The latter option is automatically available after the administrator has setup Facebook signup.

Setup

You must acquire two values from Facebook to enable Facebook Signup.

Application ID Value
This is the identifier for your Facebook application.
Application Secret Value
This is the secret key that is passed from your site to Facebook.

To get these values you will need to register your site as an application with Facebook. Do this by visiting <https://developers.facebook.com/> and following the instructions. Facebook will then supply you with an App ID and App Secret. Once you have these you can carry out the following tasks.

  1. Log into the PostgreSQL database used GroupServer by using the following command:

    $ psql -Upgsql_user pgsql_dbname
    

    Note that pgsql_user and pgsql_dbname are the database user and database name that were set during installation. Both can be found in the instance.cfg file in the installation directory of GroupServer.

  2. Run the following SQL to add the App ID and App Secret to the options table:

    INSERT INTO option
    VALUES (
      'gs.profile.signup.facebook',
      'app_id',
      NULL,
      NULL,
      App ID
    );
    
    INSERT INTO option
    VALUES (
      'gs.profile.signup.facebook',
      'app_secret',
      NULL,
      NULL,
      App Secret
    );
    

    Note the App ID and App Secret in the above SQL are the values provided by Facebook. Both values will need to be in quotes.

Once the data is in the options table the Sign Up page will automatically show the option to sign up using Facebook.

Get Banana Split

To get Banana Split go to the Downloads page for GroupServer and follow the GroupServer Installation documentation. Those who already have a functioning installation can update an existing GroupServer system.

Update an Existing GroupServer System

To update an existing GroupServer system to Banana Split carry out the following steps.

  1. Download the Banana Split tar-ball from the GroupServer download page.

  2. Uncompress the tar-ball.

  3. Copy the file groupserver-11.08/versions.cfg to your existing GroupServer installation.

  4. Copy the file groupserver-11.08/buildout.cfg to your existing GroupServer installation.

  5. In your existing GroupServer installation run:

    $ ./bin/buildout