Installation

Installation can only be carried out in an empty folder. The example is given here for a migration to otolithe2.

Installing CodeIgniter and PPCI

In the top level folder :

composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter otolithe2  
cd otolithe2
composer require equinton/ppci

Configuring PPCI support

Various files supplied by CodeIgniter must be adapted for PPCI support.

In the application folder, at the root, run the script :

vendor/equinton/ppci/install/install.sh

The script will :

  • copy the files needed to run the application into the various folders:
    • parameters in app/Config
    • libraries in app/Libraries (default classes)
    • the display folder in public, and loading the necessary Javascript classes via npm.
  • create the writable/temp folder, and give www-data write access to all writable files
  • generate the .env file, including the default instantiation parameters
  • create the private/public keys used for cryptographic operations.

Initial setup

.env file

Edit the .env file, at the root of the application, and fill in the following entries:

CI_ENVIRONMENT = development
app.baseURL = 'https://myapp.mysociety.com'

database.default.DBDriver = Postgre
database.default.DBPrefix =
database.default.port = 5432
database.default.charset = utf8
database.default.hostname = localhost
database.default.database = dbname
database.default.username = login
database.default.password = password
database.default.searchpath = public,app,gacl

app/Config/App file

This is the file containing the application’s default parameters. It is a PHP class, whose following variables can be modified:

$dbversion = ‘1.0’; // database version
$GACL_aco = ‘app’; // application code for rights management
$version = ‘v1.0.0’; // Software version. This must correspond to one of the versions created in Github or Gitlab
$versionDate = ‘01/01/2024’; //Version date
$APP_help_address =‘’; //link to ticket creation or help page
$copyright = ‘’; //Copyright of the application
$APPLI_release = []; //Table used to query either Github or a Gitlab server to obtain information about the latest version released

Creating the database

Connect to your Postgresql server with psql, then create your database:

create user applogin inherit login password ‘appPassword’;
create database app owner applogin;
\c app applogin
\i vendor/equinton/ppci/install/create.sql

The script will create two schemas: app for the application tables, and gacl for rights management.

Two tables will be created in the app schema, which are needed for Ppci to work.

The first connection to the application uses the login admin, password password.