How to install VIMP?

After you successfully installed the hosting for your server and the transcoding tools you're ready to install VIMP.

Two pathes/folders are important for the VIMP installation. The VIMP installation folder and the DocumentRoot you have configured in your Apache settings. DocumentRoot is always the folder "web/" that is already included in the VIMP packages you install.

In this example the paths are:

/var/www/html: The VIMP installation folder. You upload and execute the installer in this directoy.

/var/www/html/web: The DocumentRoot you have configured in your Apache settings. Files in this folder can be requested directly by a web browser.

Wherever you install VIMP, alyways make sure that Apache´s DocumentRoot is the web/ folder inside your installation folder!

 

Uploading the VIMP package

All VIMP installation packages have the following nomenclature:
vimp.framework-<version>-<edition>-installer.bin

Upload the installation package via SFTP into your VIMP installation folder, e.g. /var/www/html in the following examples. The advantage of SFTP is that we don't have to install a FTP server on the server. If your FTP client doesn't support SFTP we recommend to use the free Filezilla Client.

Logged in as root via the shell (e.g. Putty) afterwards, please change into the installation folder and set the permissions to execute the installation file:

cd /var/www/html
chmod +x vimp.framework-<version>-<edition>-installer.bin

 

Installing VIMP

The interactive installation script first checks the system requirements and asks you to enter necessary parameters. It creates all files for VIMP, sets up the database, inserts basic data into the database and adapts the file permissions.

Let's start the script:

./vimp.framework-<version>-<edition>-installer.bin

First, you're asked to enter or confirm the installation path. Default value is the current directory (find it within the square brackets [...]).

Install path [/var/www/html]:

To use the default value just press Return.

Directory "/var/www/html" is not empty.

Really use it? [Y/n]:

Because the folder already contains the installation script, it is not empty. Simply confirm the question with Return. The capital letter within the square brackets (e.g. [Y/n]) is always the default value that will be entered by only pressing <Return>. Entering n <Return> will abort the script here.

Next, the installer checks the system requirements. If you followed all instructions so far, a typical output should look like this:

Starting Installer ...
>> OK        PHP version is at least 7.0.0 (7.4.6)
>> OK        PHP version is equal or less than 7.4.x (7.4.6)
>> OK        DOM extension is installed
>> OK        XML extension is installed
>> OK        XSL extension is installed
>> OK        Tokenizer extension is installed
>> OK        Multibyte String extension is installed
>> OK        iconv extension is installed
>> OK        Posix extension is installed
>> OK        GD extension is installed
>> OK        Imagick extension is installed
>> OK        cUrl extension is installed
>> OK        mysql extension is installed
>> OK        mcrypt extension is installed
>> OK        PDO is installed
>> OK        PDO mysql driver is installed
>> INFO      PDO has some drivers installed: mysql, sqlite
>> OK        MySQL version is at least 5.0.6 (5.5.5-10.4.17-MariaDB)
>> OK        SourceGuardian extension is installed
>> OK        php.ini has short_open_tag set to off
>> OK        php.ini has magic_quotes_gpc set to off
>> OK        php.ini has register_globals set to off
>> OK        php.ini has safe_mode set to off
>> OK        php.ini has session.auto_start set to off
>> OK        php.ini has file_uploads set to on
>> OK        php.ini has allow_url_fopen set to on
>> OK        php.ini has register_argc_argv set to on
>> OK        php.ini has set memory_limit not equal to -1
>> OK        php.ini has set memory_limit greater or equal than 512M
>> OK        php.ini has set memory_limit lesser than 2G
>> OK        php.ini has set post_max_size greater or equal than 100M
>> OK        php.ini has set post_max_size lesser than 2G
>> OK        php.ini has set upload_max_filesize greater or equal than 100M
>> OK        php.ini has set upload_max_filesize lesser than 2G
>> OK        ffmpeg is installed
>> OK        ffprobe is installed
>> OK        exiftool is installed
>> INFO      Version: 4.4.0 (r27959)
>> INFO      Edition: CORPORATE
>> INFO      OS: Linux 5.4.0-42-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 10 00:24:02 UTC 2020
>> INFO      Memory: 63GB
 Continue? [Y/n]:

Only ERROR messages block the installation and would abort the installation script. Confirm, and you're asked questions about the configuration of VIMP:

>> install   Copying files ...

>> config    Server configuration
 Server user [www-data]:
 Server group [www-data]:

Accept the pre-filled values [www-data] for Debian-based distributions (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu) or enter the according distribution-specific user and group for the Apache webserver.

Note a specialty for Plesk installations: Always enter your FTP user name as server user and psacln as server group.

Let's continue with the data for your already created database:

>> config    Database configuration
 Database host [localhost]:
 Database port [3306]:
 Database name []: DATENBANKNAME
 Database user []: DATENBANKBENUTZER
 Database password []: DATENBANKPASSWORT
 

Host and port default values are already pre-filled. Enter database name, user and password in addition.

>> config    Defaults
 Default language [en]:

Possible values for the default language are tokens and names according to ISO 639-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes of the installed languages (according to file languages.yml). Default: German (de), English (en).

 Default country []:

Possible values for the default country are tokens and names according to ISO 3166-1 Alpha2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1, e.g. DE for Germany, US for the United States, GB for United Kingdom.

Maximum upload filesize [100MB]:

This value defines the maximum upload file size (can be modified in the VIMP configuration later). 

Next the paths of the transcoding tools are set up:

>> config    Transcoding tools paths
 Detect transcoding tools automatically? [Y/n]:
 mplayer path [/usr/bin/mplayer]:
 mencoder path [/usr/bin/mencoder]:
 ffmpeg path [/usr/bin/ffmpeg]:
 flvtool2 path [/usr/bin/flvtool2]:
 faststart path [/usr/bin/qt-faststart]:

In case you already installed the transcoding tools, just confirm the automatic detection. The correct paths should appear in the square brackets. Accept them by pressing Return. Of course you can enter deviating paths, e.g. if you installed a tool twice and want to use the other one.

Finally you're asked to enter several data of your video portal:

>> config    Portal configuration
 Web address []: >Your domain incl. https://<
 Portal e-mail address []: >Your email-address<
 Portal name [VIMP]: Name of your portal

>> config    Portal description
 Portal title [VIMP]: Title of your portal
 Portal description [VIMP]: Description of your portal
 Portal keywords [VIMP]: keyword1, keyword2

Now the installation starts and should end like follows:

>> config    Save configuration
root@localhost:/var/www/html#

Next the cronjob for the video conversion has to be created. Therefore open the crontab:

crontab –e

Insert the following line and save the file afterwards:

*/1 * * * * /var/www/scripts/sync_new_uploads.sh > /dev/null 2>&1 

Important: Close the line with "Return/Enter". There must be at least one more blank line below the entry.

The script is called every minute. If there are no new files available the script terminates automatically.

As of VIMP 3.6 we need an additional cron-job for the dashboard.

VIMP is now installed and ready to use! Enter the your domain into your browser to test the installation.