Programming Marathon

Julio Batista Silva

Last updated on Jan 4, 2012 3 min read Programming, Tutorial

Boca Installation

Updated on July 19, 2013

Install dependencies

julio@acer ~> sudo pacman -S php php-pgsql php-mcrypt php-gd postgresql

Uncomment the following lines in /etc/php/php.ini

extension=pdo_pgsql.so
extension=pgsql.so
extension=zip.so

Edit the PostgreSQL configuration:

listen_addresses = 'localhost'
(* = all)

Set the encoding of new databases to UTF-8

This step is unnecessary, but without it, you will have to type ENCODING = 'UTF8' every time you want to create a UTF8 database.

julio@acer ~> psql
psql (9.1.2)
Type "help" for help.

julio=# UPDATE pg_database SET datistemplate = FALSE WHERE datname = 'template1';
UPDATE 1
julio=# DROP DATABASE template1;
DROP DATABASE
julio=# CREATE DATABASE template1 WITH TEMPLATE = template0 ENCODING = 'UNICODE';
CREATE DATABASE
julio=# UPDATE pg_database SET datistemplate = TRUE WHERE datname = 'template1';
UPDATE 1

Restart PostgreSQL:

julio@acer ~> sudo systemctl restart postgresql

Download a recent version of Boca: ime.usp.br/~cassio/boca

Unzip the file and move the folder to the server

[root@acer Downloads]# tar xvfz boca-1.4.2.tgz
[root@acer Downloads]# mv boca-1.4.2 /srv/http/boca

Edit Apache settings:

julio@acer ~> sudo vim /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

#BOCA
<Directory /srv/http/boca>
       AllowOverride Options AuthConfig Limit
       Order Allow,Deny
       Allow from all
       AddDefaultCharset utf-8
</Directory>
<Directory /srv/http/boca/private>
       AllowOverride None
       Deny from all
</Directory>
<Directory /srv/http/boca/doc>
       AllowOverride None
       Deny from all
</Directory>
<Directory /srv/http/boca/tools>
       AllowOverride None
       Deny from all
</Directory>

Create the user “boca”, able to create databases:

julio@acer ~> psql
julio=# CREATE USER boca WITH PASSWORD 'OUKLsjVs2GLby79' createdb;

As root, edit the file /srv/http/boca/private/conf.php

<?php
function globalconf() {
    $conf["dbencoding"]="UTF8";
    $conf["dbclientenc"]="UTF8";
    $conf["dblocal"]="false";
    $conf["dbhost"]="localhost";
    $conf["dbport"]="5432";
    $conf["dbname"]="bocadb";
    $conf["dbuser"]="boca";
    $conf["dbpass"]="senha";
    $conf["dbsuperuser"]="senha";
    $conf["dbsuperpass"]="senha";
    $conf["basepass"]="142857";
    $conf["key"]="GG5ALEATORIOjJprR6ex";
    $conf["ip"]='local';
    return $conf;
}
?>

To generate a random key and the boca password, you can use the following command:

julio@acer ~> echo `tr -dc _A-Z-a-z-0-9 < /dev/urandom | head -c25`

Or another random password generator like pwgen, makepasswd, apg, or KeePassX.

As root, run the following command inside the private folder:

[root@acer private]# php createdb.php
This will erase all the data in your bocadb database.
***** YOU WILL LOSE WHATEVER YOU HAVE THERE!!! *****
Type YES and press return to continue or anything else will abort it: YES

dropping database
PHP Warning:  date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. (…)
creating database
creating tables
creating initial fake contest

Here it gave a Fatal error: Call to undefined function define_syslog_variables() and I simply commented out the corresponding line in globals.php.

Go to http://localhost/boca/src/index.php. The login screen should appear, the username is system and there is no password. Create a password in Options

If it complains that the file conf.php is not readable, run chmod +x private.

NOTE: The website also has a script available that performs automatic installation (downloads updates, creates users, changes the grub, and autoconfigures Boca) but it has a lot of specific things for Ubuntu. If you are using this distribution, download the script HERE.

Installing on a server without root password

Well, Boca ran very well on my computer and is even accessible from the internet, but using my notebook as a server with the connection speed here at home is not very stable. Since I am paying for this server, I decided to install Boca right here.

The process is identical up to step 10, but step 11 needs to be executed as root and I do not have the root password, as the server is shared. The solution is to copy the database that the script created on my computer to the server:

julio@acer ~> pg_dump -C -Fp -f dump.sql -U postgres bocadb
julio@acer ~> scp dump.sql juliobor@juliob.org:~
julio@acer ~> ssh juliobor@juliob.org
juliobor@box780 ~ $ psql -U juliobor_boca -f dump.sql

Programming Marathon

Boca Installation

Installing on a server without root password

Links

Julio Batista Silva

Data Engineer