Installation

Max Harness installs from a single ZIP file. The archive already contains the PHP dependencies and the built CSS and JavaScript, so you do not need a terminal, Composer or npm.

Requirements

• PHP 8.4 (8.3 also works) with these extensions: pdo_mysql, mbstring, openssl, curl, fileinfo, tokenizer, xml, dom, ctype, json. The zip, intl and bcmath extensions are recommended.
• MariaDB 10.6 or newer. Version 12 is recommended. MySQL 8 also works.
• Nginx or Apache with the site root pointed at the public folder.
• HTTPS. Sign-in cookies, installable web app support and Google or GitHub sign-in all depend on it.

Install on CloudPanel

1. In CloudPanel choose Sites, then Add Site, then Create a PHP Site. Pick the Laravel application template and PHP 8.4. The template sets the site root to public for you.
2. Open the site, go to Databases and add a database and a database user. Keep the name, user and password at hand.
3. Go to SSL/TLS and issue a Let's Encrypt certificate.
4. Open File Manager, go into htdocs/your-domain and delete any placeholder files. Upload the Max Harness ZIP and extract it there. After extracting, the folder should contain app, public, vendor and the other application folders directly, not inside another folder.
5. Visit your domain. The installer opens automatically.

Run the installer

The installer has one screen.

1. Server check. Every required item must show as passing. If a folder is not writable, fix the ownership in the File Manager so the site user owns the files.
2. Database. Enter the host (usually 127.0.0.1), port 3306, and the database name, user and password you created.
3. Website. Set the site name and the full address, including https://.
4. Administrator account. This is the first user and the only one with access to the admin panel until you promote someone else.

Press Install. The installer creates the tables, loads the starter documentation and legal page templates, writes the configuration file and then locks itself. Opening /install afterwards returns a 404 page.

Streaming replies behind Nginx

Replies stream to the browser as they are generated. Max Harness sends the X-Accel-Buffering: no header, which tells Nginx not to buffer the response, so the default CloudPanel configuration works without changes. If you run another proxy or a CDN in front of the site, make sure it does not buffer responses with the content type text/event-stream, and that its read timeout is at least 300 seconds.

After installing

• Sign in and connect your first provider.
• Open the admin panel from the menu at the bottom of the sidebar. Set up outgoing email so password resets work. See Administration.
• Read and adapt the privacy policy and terms pages before inviting other people.

Installing on other hosts

Any host that meets the requirements works. Point the web root at public, make sure storage and bootstrap/cache are writable by the web server user and open the site in a browser. On Apache, the included public/.htaccess handles URL rewriting.

If the installer reports that it cannot write its configuration, the web server user does not have write access to the application folder. Grant it, reload the page and the installer continues.