Movable Type 4 Setup on Ubuntu

I am in the process of consolidating my blogs to a single system, and in doing so, am switching to Movable Type. This blog will eventually move, but the initial impetus was for some other blogs that were running on WordPress where I was having some problems (and spent way too much time trying to fix that - one of the key things I don't want to be doing with my blog system). But, in relation, I found the setup instructions for Movable Type a bit lacking, especially in relation to using multiple blogs, and how this works in terms of Apache and MT setup.

I also want to say a bit thanks to Duncan for showing me his Apache config, and some brief discussion of multiple blogs with MT. The MT docs were really lacking here as said, but Duncan's knowledge made it clear this was pretty easy and a nice way to go. Thanks Duncan, and check out his blog and site, and of course all his great pics on Flickr.

I am using a single installation of Movable Type, supporting multiple blogs, with each blog having their own domain name, and that blog (or really the MT content) living at the root of that domain name (this last part isn't required/essentially for this tutorial, you can easily tweak the Apache config).

So, with that, given that it actually turns out to be relatively simple to set up once you know a few key bits, I figured I'd pass along what I did...

First, I created my standard Ubuntu slice at Slicehost. I host everything with them these days, and as such, I have a base system image that I've built for myself. It's built with their standard Ubuntu 7.10 choice, and then I make tweaks to the SSH setup, add a few bits I need, etc. But, I believe you could simply take pretty much a standard Ubuntu server install and use that. Please let me know if this guide doesn't work for you in that case.

Preparations

In preparation for the move, while my existing blogs were running, I exported their data from WordPress using WordPress' Export feature, which produces a WXR file. Save that to my local machine.

I also made sure I had my domain names secured, and the DNS for them setup. In particular, one thing to note is that Movable Type is sort of a two part system. You have the MT web application, which is a publishing application, but is not what someone hits when visiting your blog(s). MT publishes your blog out as static content (or that's the default option anyway). So, I setup an "mt" subdomain on one of my domains where I will access MT (more on that below).

Apache and Perl Install

Apache 2 and mod_perl were not on my system by default, so I needed to install those. This amounts to:

sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-perl2 libapache2-mod-perl2-doc

The above will not only install it, but configure mod_perl for use in Apache, and you can now run Perl based web apps (MT is developed in Perl). Also, depending on how you want to do email, you may need to install Perl's Mail::Sendmail (if using SMTP; if you use sendmail, then you can choose that when setting up MT):

sudo perl -MCPAN -e "install Mail::Sendmail"

Create a Database

I created a database for MT using MySQL. I also setup a specific MySQL user, password, and assigned them rights to that database. You'll need this info later when setting up/configuring MT.

I have been using Navicat for nearly all my DB management. It works really well given it can do SSH tunneling as I don't open the MySQL port on my servers, etc. It is a commercial app, but as a developer who works with DB's often, has proven to be my tool of choice (I've tried many others, and this is the one that's worked best for me).

Apache Configuration

I have a relatively minimal Apache configuration file. The bulk of it is done with a file that sets up my virtual hosts (several domains point to a single machine). The setup for MT has a few critical pieces:

• Setting a ScriptAlias for the "mt" directory, so mod_perl knows to execute .cgi files there.


• Setting an Alias for the "mt-static" directory, which is MT's static content, and which you'll want to be referenced from all your blogs. You can also do this with a symlink, but I've done it with an Apache alias below so that I don't have to worry about a given blog's static content getting wiped out and breaking this (if the static content gets wiped out, you can just republish in MT to restore it, so I prefer to keep that purely maintained by MT).


• Setup the proper options/settings for the MT directory.

Thus, my configuration for my virtual hosts looks like the following (fake domain names used), notes following:

NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost *>
        ServerAdmin chris@example.com
        ServerName mt.example.net
        DocumentRoot /var/www/mt

        Alias /mt-static /var/www/mt/mt-static
        <Directory /var/www/mt/mt-static>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>

        ScriptAlias / /var/www/mt/
        <Directory /var/www/mt>
                AllowOverride None
                Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *>
        ServerAdmin chris@example.com
        ServerName example.com
        ServerAlias example.com www. example.com
        DocumentRoot /var/www/example

        Alias /mt-static /var/www/mt/mt-static
        <Directory /var/www/mt/mt-static>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>
        Redirect /mt.cgi http://mt.example.net/mt.cgi
</VirtualHost>

The first VirtualHost block sets up where I'll access MT, thus at http://mt.example.com. There you will see both the Alias for mt-static, and also the ScriptAlias for mt. These are critical.

The second Virtual Host block defines one of the actual blogs, which will be accessible at http://example.com or http://www.example.com. For additional blogs, you would add another of these blocks per domain name. The key bits here are the DocumentRoot and the Alias for mt-static. The DocumentRoot is where you will have MT publish your static blog content. Make sure that directory is writable by Apache/MT.

Finally, the Redirect sets things up so that when you are logged in and visit your blog, and see the various links for "Edit this content" that those will actually work (they point to mt.cgi, so this redirects them to whatever domain is serving mt).

Setup Movable Type

Next, visit http://mt.example.com/mt.cgi in your browser to begin setting up and configurating Movable Type. It will ask you about your database, and a few other bits, and then prompt you to create the first blog. Make sure the blog URL and directory match what you setup in your Apache configuration above. Beyond this you will need to refer to Movable Type docs for questions. But, you should essentially have a blog running, and will just need to Publish it to have MT write the static files into the directory you've defined.

The last step for me was to import my blog content from my prior WordPress setup, using the WXR dump I created at the beginning of all this. One key note here. When you go into MT's Import page - choose the blog you want to import to (even if you only have one) first. Only then when you pick WXR (if appropriate) for your import will it give you the proper fields for the info it needs for the WXR import. Otherwise it'll set your import type back to MovableType, and claim it has read in your import file fine (but you'll of course have no content).

I'm still tweaking my templates and doing a few bits to the sites I'm moving over, so I'm off to continue on that. Hope this helps someone.