The installation guide is included with the source code, in the docs folder. The file INSTALL has a helpful overview of what you'll need to do.

If you haven't read it yet, check out the System Requirements.

The Installation FAQ also lists several walkthroughs of the installation process.

Here's the current INSTALL file, which provides an overview of the process:

INSTALL -- How to install Socialtext Open

Copyright (C) 2004-2006 by Socialtext, Inc.

== Overview ==

Thanks for downloading Socialtext Open. Socialtext Open has a huge
number of capabilities, so installation may take some time. We
trust you'll find it worth the effort.

Here's the high-level overview to installing Socialtext Open, with
pointers to more detailed information.

• Install apache-perl

 apache-perl is the name of the Debian package that contains
 Apache1 with mod_perl support. We've kept that nomenclature.
 See docs/INSTALL.apache-perl for instructions on how to build
 your own from source if your distribution does not include such
 a package.

• Install Apache2 if you're going to use the dual-Apache proxy setup.

 In Debian, the package to install is apache2-mpm-prefork. Other
 distributions may have others. It's important that it include
 the internal Apache proxy server modules built for it.

• Install, configure and start PostgreSQL

 See docs/INSTALL.postgres for details

• Install the CPAN dependencies and optional programs

 See docs/INSTALL.dependencies for details, or you can let the
 configuration step do it for you.

• Configure, build and install Socialtext

 See "How to: Configure Socialtext" later in this document.

• Upgrade your Socialtext 1.x database to 2.x, if appropriate.

 See UPGRADE if necessary.

• Create your Socialtext users

 See "How to: Create your Socialtext users" later in this document

• Start Socialtext

 See "How to: Start Socialtext" later in this document

• Understand the support programs

 See "Support programs" later in this document

== How to: Configure Socialtext ==

Socialtext Open is a Perl web application that makes heavy use of mod_perl
and CPAN. Some 150+ CPAN modules are required, some of which don't have
prebuilt packages for your OS (or the prebuilt packages are too old).

Installation starts with running a simple program, "configure":

 ./configure

When you run it, you're presented with a list of settings that the files
are built with:

 $ ./configure
 Configuration Settings:
 BINDIR = /usr/local/bin
 CACHEDIR = /var/cache/socialtext
 CONFDIR = /etc/socialtext
 etc...

You can modify these settings by using either environment variables or command
line switches to configure. For example:

 $ ./configure --webroot=/var/www/myst
 or
 $ WEBROOT=/var/www/myst ./configure

Use ./configure --help for help or ./configure --varlist for a list
of variables you can set. Please check the configuration variables
carefully.

Sometimes configure can't determine your fully-qualified hostname.
If your server is called myserver, and you're in the domain
mydomain.com, your HOSTNAME may just be HOSTNAME=myserver, which
may not resolve correctly for others outside of mydomain.com. You'll
want to force the hostname to myserver.mydomain.com, like so:

 $ ./configure --hostname=myserver.mydomain.com

Once the Makefile has been created, you can then build, test and
install. Run make to build the software:

 $ make
 ... # much building

Then you can optionally run make test to test the build. You'll
need to have a special testing database set up for the tests to
work with. See docs/INSTALL.postgres for details.

 $ make test
 ... # much testing

Finally, install Socialtext Open.

 $ sudo make install
 ... # much installing

You have now installed the software parts of Socialtext Open,
although it has not yet started at this point.

== How to: Create your Socialtext users ==

After you've installed Socialtext, you'll have to create at least
one user and one workspace. From the command line, as the Apache
user, you use the st-admin command-line tool.

In these examples, we assume the environment variable APACHE_USER
has the name that Apache 1 will be running under, probably "www-data".
First, create a user for yourself:

 sudo -u $APACHE_USER \
 st-admin create-user \
 --email mymail@example.com \
 --password secretpublic \
 --first-name Pete \
 --last-name Shelley

Then add yourself to the help workspace as a workspace admin. The
"help" workspace is the only one that exists at first.

 sudo -u $APACHE_USER \
 st-admin add-workspace-admin \
 --email mymail@example.com \
 --workspace help

== How to: Start Socialtext ==

Now you are ready to start Socialtext. Make sure that you're not
running an instance of Apache already. If you are, your Socialtext
instance of Apache will quietly fail.

Start the Socialtext Apache and the ceqlotron:

 $ sudo /etc/init.d/st-apache start
 # Starts Apache 1.3 + mod_perl using the Socialtext configuration.
 $ sudo /etc/init.d/ceqlotron start
 # Starts the Change Queue daemon, which processes wiki events.

At this point, you can point your browser to your domain:

 http://myserver.mydomain.com/

Log in with the user and password you set when you created your
Socialtext user. You'll have full administrative privileges, and
can create workspaces at will under the "Settings" menu.

Most likely you will spend most of your time struggling to get Socialtext's
dependencies installed. The dependencies come in two flavours: CPAN
dependencies and external system dependencies, which are both described below.

=== Support programs ===

Socialtext Open includes some utility programs for administering
your Socialtext installation, users and workspaces, as well as the
ceqlotron. All Socialtext administration tools start with "st-",
and all ceqlotron-related tools start with "ceq-".

All programs support the --help command. You can also say "man
programname" to get more information.

• st-admin -- The CLI interface to user and administration tasks.

This is what you can use to create and delete users, workspaces,
categories and so on.

• st-config -- Allows you to update configuration settings for

Socialtext without having to manually edit configuration files.

• ceq-stat -- Gives the status of the ceqlotron's queue.

• ceq-read -- Lists all the events in the ceqlotron's queue.

• ceq-rm -- Removes events from the ceqlotron's queue

Also included with the Socialtext Open distribution is the dev-bin/
directory, containing a number of utilities that we use at Socialtext,
but are not installed with "make install". You probably won't use
them during your day-to-day administration of your installation,
but we thought they might be of interest to open source developers.
Be careful here, as some utilities may be dangerous to your data,
or may even be out of date. They are meant only for developers,
and are not supported.

== Getting help ==

If you have problems installing Socialtext Open, please visit one
of these online resources.

http://www.socialtext.net/stoss/
 The home wiki workspace for all open source related to Socialtext,
 including the Socialtext Open product you've just downloaded.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/socialtext
 SourceForge is the host of the downloads, bug tracker and (soon)
 source code repository for Socialtext Open.

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=170460
 The requests/bugs tracking system on SourceForge.

If all else fails, or you have other questions about Socialtext Open,
you can also contact liz.henry at socialtext.com.

== Improvements and bug reports ==

We're always looking to improve documentation. If you've got
suggestions, problems, frustrations, please make a note of them at
https://www.socialtext.net/stoss/index.cgi?install_docs_improvements.

== Other INSTALL docs you may find useful

This document is the main overview for installing Socialtext Open.
There is also an entire set of docs/INSTALL.* documents that may
also be helpful.

• docs/GLOSSARY

 A glossary of terms in Socialtext Open

• docs/INSTALL.apache-perl

 How to install Apache 1 + mod_perl

• docs/INSTALL.apt-get

 Instructions for using the Socialtext apt repository

• docs/INSTALL.ceqlotron

 How to install Socialtext's ceqlotron

• docs/INSTALL.dependencies

 Installing Socialtext's dependencies

• docs/INSTALL.dual-apache

 How to use a dual-Apache proxying setup

• docs/INSTALL.email

 How to install email support for Socialtext Open

• docs/INSTALL.fedora

 Fedora Core-specific notes for Socialtext Open

• docs/INSTALL.freebsd

 FreeBSD-specific notes for Socialtext Open

• docs/INSTALL.postgres

 How to install PostgreSQL for Socialtext

• docs/INSTALL.st-dev

 How to set up a Socialtext development environment

• docs/INSTALL.suse

 SUSE-specific notes for Socialtext Open

• docs/INSTALL.troubleshooting

 Troubleshooting installation

• docs/INSTALL.yum

 Installing dependencies with Yum