1and1.com provides an economical shared hosting package. And with features such as php libraries built with the imap-c libraries, a generous daily smtp relay limit, php5 and mysql support, it felt like the ideal place for me to host a SugarCRM instance.

However, receiving several errors after the install was complete made me think that perhaps I should have done more research before shelling out the money for a new hosting provider.

Then I remembered Google…

After a bit of searching I found what I needed to know in order to get SugarCRM running on 1and1 shared hosting.

1) Permissions

Certain SugarCRM directories and files are required to be owned by the same group that owns the Apache web server. If this is not the case, you will many errors at the header of the sugar pages once per session:

Warning: chmod() [function.chmod]: Permission denied in /htdocs/sugardir/include/utils/sugar_file_utils.php on line 194

Specified directory ” for zip file ‘cache/upload/langpack_ge_52a_ce.zip’ extraction does not exist. the CHMOD errors in line 196.

Changing ownership of SugarCRM directories\files to this group is only possible with root access. And on a shared host such as 1and1, you will not have root access.

The document here describes what to do if you are using Sugar on a shared host. This did not work for me. And yes, I know it is not secure.

A bit more digging around turned up this post. It describes a line in config.php that attempts to set a directory to mode 1528. The author simply changed this mode to 1520. I tried it. It worked!

array (
‘dir_mode’ => 1528, <——- Change the 1520 to 1528
‘file_mode’ => 432,
‘user’ => ”,
‘group’ => ”,
),

2) Zlib compression

After the permissions problems were resolved, I received a new set of errors:

PHP … Cannot change zlib.output_compression – headers already sent …

Again a quick search on google turned up the answer. Create a php.ini file in the hosting root directory with the following line: zlib.output_compression = On.

Now all is well with SugarCRM on 1and1

This guest post is by Kelvin Johnson, an applications Developer from Blue Island, Illinois, USA

Open a webpage with with a couple of images. For example Google images.

Copy and paste the following code in the webpage address bar in which you want to see the images fly:

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200;DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style;DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px";DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

You can slow it down by changing the 5 in setInterval(’A()’,5); to a bigger number like 50 something.

Works with FireFox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer

It can freeze on slower computers, also webpages have very large number of images may freeze.

I recently moved my other website from 1and1 Linux shared hosting to 1and1 VPSII Linux hosting package (plesk). While trying to install SugarCRM on VPSII the system check of SugarCRM installer doesn’t let me through; gives an error message at the beginning of the installation process. “The session.save_path setting in your php configuration file (php.ini) is not set or is set to a folder which did not exist. You might need to set the save_path setting in php.ini or verify that the folder sets in save_path exist”.

After hours of digging the internet for the problem, checking and rechecking everything: the solution to the error is quite simple. There is a IF LOOP syntax error in the install/installSystemCheck.php file! All you need to do is add curly braces at line number 186 after:

if (strpos ($session_save_path, “;”) !== FALSE){
and close the braces at line number 210: }}

Follow the steps below to edit the installSystemCheck.php file:
Step1: FTP access you SugarCRM folder using a FTP client (I use FileZilla).

Step2: Browse to the install folder within the SugarCRM folder.

Step3: Download installSystemCheck.php file to you local hard drive.

Step4: Open installSystemCheck.php using a text editor (I use EditPadPro).

Step5: Scroll to line number 186 and add curly braces after: if (strpos ($session_save_path, “;”) !== FALSE){

Step6: Scroll further to line number 210 and close the curly braces. See the complete code below. Braces to be added are in red.

if (strpos ($session_save_path, “;”) !== FALSE){
$session_save_path = substr ($session_save_path, strpos ($session_save_path, “;”)+1);
if(is_dir($session_save_path)){
if(is_writable($session_save_path)){
installLog(”Session Save Path is “.$session_save_path);
}else{
$save_pathStatus = “{$mod_strings['ERR_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH_NOT_WRITABLE']}“;
installLog(”ERROR:: {$mod_strings['ERR_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH_NOT_WRITABLE']}”);
$error_found = true;
$error_txt .= ‘

‘.$mod_strings['LBL_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH'].’
‘.$save_pathStatus.’
‘;
}
}else{
$save_pathStatus = “{$mod_strings['ERR_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH_NOT_SET']}“;
installLog(”ERROR:: {$mod_strings['ERR_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH_NOT_SET']}”);
$error_found = true;
$error_txt .= ‘

‘.$mod_strings['LBL_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH'].’
‘.$save_pathStatus.’
‘;
}}

Step7: Save the file and upload back to the remote SugarCRM install folder, replacing the original file.

Step8: Run the SugarCRM installer again, should run fine now! Note: Make sure the session path is making sense. E.g. the path exists etc.