Setup your own StatusNet

So, you are curious about/interested in StatusNet, and want to setup one for yourself? Here is how you can do that.

For private/open social communities

StatusNet is used by several social communities (see ListOfServers), but their setup experiences have not been added to this page. Feel free to add your experiences!

For companies

This section describes how you can set up StatusNet, if you want to use it as an internal communication platform within your company.

Installation

Download StatusNet and follow the Installation procedure (and seriously, it really is worth reading the complete README file).

Configuration

After the installation procedure StatusNet is configured in a default way. But likely you want to change this configuration. Most of the configuration options are also available through the Admin panel of the web client.

Some candidates:

• Site:
  • Default timezone
  • Default language
• Design:
  • Site logo
• Access:
  • Private
  • Invitation only

You might want to have a look at the chapter about 'Configuration options' in the README.

Enabling plugins

After the installation procedure StatusNet is configured using only a few plugins. But likely you want to enable some plugins (see also list of plugins).

For a list of plugins that are enabled by default, see lib/default.php, section 'plugins'.

To enable a plugin (the Autocomplete plugin, for example), just add a line to config.php:

addPlugin('Autocomplete');

Or, if the plugin requires config parameters:

addPlugin('HelloWorld', array('Greeting' => 'ciao', 'worldName' => 'planet earth'));

You can have a look at the 'plugins' directory, for a list of available plugins.

I think the following plugins are especially worth looking at:

• If your company is small, you probably just want everybody to follow everybody (instead of having users to follow others manually)

addPlugin('FollowEveryone');

• StatusNet is a server (hosting/managing the notices) and a web client (for viewing the notices). If your users will use the web client intensively instead of a standalone client (see list of apps), then you might want to apply some improvements on the UI:

addPlugin('Autocomplete');
addPlugin('TabFocus');

• And likely you want another UI improvement: Realtime updates (for example when you view the public timeline, and a new notice comes in, you want to see a notification about '1 new message'). To use this, you need to enable the Realtime plugin, plus a plugin that 'wraps' a realtime application (currently Meteor is the most popular). First install the application such as Meteor, and then add the following to your config: (and change the parameters if necessary)

addPlugin('Meteor', array(
    'webserver' => 'your.webserver_of_meteor.net',
    'webport' => 4670,
    'channelbase' => 'statusnet',
    'controlserver' => 'your.controlserver_of_meteor.net',
    'controlport' => '4671'
));
addPlugin('Realtime');

Announce + Invite!

When your StatusNet is ready, you can start inviting colleagues! You might start with early adaptors or colleagues with Twitter/Facebook experience.

People who don't have microblogging experience yet, can be helped with a Take a tour page.