12 October 2009, 10:36

Hi, I'm Sergio and I'm trying to install mahara in my computer with has ubuntu 9.04 and I don't know why I get the following error:

the error received was:
postgres7 error: [-1: Database connection failed] in CONNECT(localhost, 'root', '****', mahara)

My config.php is:

$cfg->dbtype   = 'postgres8';
$cfg->dbhost   = 'localhost';
$cfg->dbport   = null;
$cfg->dbname   = 'mahara';
$cfg->dbuser   = 'root';
$cfg->dbpass   = 'sergio';

$cfg->dbprefix = 'mahara';

$cfg->dataroot = '/home/sergio/public_html';

$cfg->wwwroot = 'http://localhost/mahara/';

Help me please.... thank you

12 October 2009, 15:50

Hi - I imagine that's because you haven't configured postgres to allow those user details to connect.

See http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/auth-pg-hba-conf.html for information about the pg_hba.conf file and what you need to change (this file is normally at /etc/postgresql/[version]/main/pg_hba.conf).

I very much doubt you want to connect as 'root' . 

13 October 2009, 7:13

Thank you very much for your help, finally I was able to install mahara in my localhost, although I still have a problem when I try to register a new user (http://localhost/htdocs/register.php)  I receive the following message: "Sorry, your registration attempt was unsuccessful. This is our fault, not yours. Please try again later."

I think  thats mahara is trying to send an email to a user so he can confir therefor I might need to configure smtp, is that correct? how can I do it? and How can I loggin as an administrator?

Thank you very much, as you might realize I'm new with this.....

Hope you can help me out, regards

Sergio

13 October 2009, 21:04

Yes, that message is because Mahara was unable to send e-mail from your server.

At this point, you need to look in the apache error log for your Mahara, and see what messages are in there. There should be something about the email failing that would be interesting to see, as it might have clues as to what is misconfigured.

Also, your local email sending program's logs are another source of information, although these can be harder to find. If you're on Debian/Ubuntu and they're using exim to send mail, then the logs are in /var/log/exim4/mainlog - you can view these with "sudo".

One of the most common issues is actually that the noreply address for your Mahara doesn't exist - you'd have to set it to one that actually exists for the mail to be sent properly. It's recorded in the config table in the database - you'd have to change it in there.

Hope that helps! 

16 October 2009, 6:49

Nigel:

Thank you very much for all your support, I would like to ask you one more question, what email server do you recommend me to install in ubuntu so mahara can send emails so the user can confirm?

Once more time thank you

Sergio

16 October 2009, 8:37

IMHO postfix is a good choice. Easy enough to configure and fast and secure enough to forget about it once you have it running :-)

Saludos,
Iñaki.

16 October 2009, 9:34

18 October 2009, 9:29

Iñaki:

Thank you very much, I have already installed postfix, but I can't send emails out of my local network, therefore I can not add user in mahara because I think they need to confirm their subscription ( mahara sends a link in order to do it)

I'm very new with ubuntu and server administration, how can I send emails using postfix to hotmail, gamail, yahoo etc?.

Muchas gracias por el apoyo.

Saludos

21 October 2009, 10:30

Open up a text console, become the root user by using sudo and execute the following command:

       dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low postfix

When asked, choose: ' Internet Site' as the configuration option.

Then type the full host name of your mahara server: e.g., mahara.mydomain.com

Next set the root email recipient address: e.g., [email protected]

Then accept the rest of the proposed values as they are.

Make sure the DNS settings are correctly configured in your Mahara server, as Postfix relays on the DNS service to route email to its destination.

Saludos,
Iñaki.

20 October 2009, 22:43