[[!meta title="Getting Started with scripts.mit.edu"]]
The scripts.mit.edu automatic installers allow you to get popular
software up-and-running quickly.

You can easily try out a new wiki, blog, forum, photo gallery, or
other piece of software by simply running two commands at an Athena
prompt (you must use an Athena computer to run these commands; we
recommend using a cluster workstation or
[athena.dialup.mit.edu](http://athena.dialup.mit.edu/ssh.html)):

athena% **add scripts**  
athena% **scripts-start**

(If you are confused about how to run the above commands on Athena,
e-mail scripts@mit.edu for assistance. You must have an
[Athena account](http://web.mit.edu/olh/Register/) and understand
the
[MITnet rules of use](http://web.mit.edu/olh/Welcome/rules.html) in
order to use the service.)

The quick-start installer will then present a menu and ask you to
select from the following popular software packages:

#### [Wikis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki) and [Blogs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog):

-   [MediaWiki](http://www.mediawiki.org/)
    ~[demo](http://www.wikipedia.org)~ – wiki software from the
    Wikimedia Foundation that helps users to create and edit content on
    the web. Mediawiki is especially suited for collaborative writing.

-   [WordPress](http://wordpress.org/)
    ~[demo](http://wordpress.com/)~ – a blog publishing system.

#### Photo Galleries:

-   [Gallery2](http://gallery.menalto.com/)
    ~[demo](http://gallery.menalto.com/gallery/samples)~ – enables
    simple management and publication of photographs and other digital
    media. Gallery2 features automatic thumbnails, resizing, rotation,
    and flipping. Albums can be organized hierarchically and
    individually controlled by administrators or privileged users.

#### [Forums](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forums):

-   [phpBB](http://www.phpbb.com/)
    ~[demo](http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/)~ – a high powered, fully
    scalable, and highly customizable bulletin board package. phpBB has
    a user-friendly interface, a simple and straightforward
    administration panel, and a helpful FAQ.

#### [Content Management Systems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system) (CMS’s):

-   [Joomla](http://joomla.org/) ~[demo](http://demo.joomla.org/)~
    – a content-publishing system featuring page caching, web indexing,
    RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs,
    forums, polls, calendars, website searching, and language
    internationalization.

#### [Software Issue Trackers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issue_tracking_system):

-   [Trac](http://trac.edgewall.org/)
    ~[demo](http://www.hosted-projects.com/trac/TracDemo/Demo)~ – an
    integrated wiki, ticket tracker, and source code viewer for various
    revision control systems (including
    [Subversion](http://subversion.tigris.org/) and
    [Git](http://git-scm.com/)).

#### [Web Application Frameworks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application_framework):

-   [TurboGears](http://turbogears.org/) –
    [Python](http://www.python.org/) based rapid webapp development
    framework

-   [Django](http://www.djangoproject.com/) – another
    [Python](http://www.python.org/) based rapid webapp development
    framework

-   [Ruby on Rails](http://rubyonrails.org/) –
    [Ruby](http://www.ruby-lang.org/) based rapi webapp development
    framework

#### Miscellaneous

-   [PHP iCalendar](http://phpicalendar.net/)
    ~[demo](http://phpicalendar.net/phpicalendar/)~ – calendar software
    that displays iCal files in a logical, clean manner with day, week,
    month, and year navigation. phpiCal is available in 13 languages
    and includes support for printing, searching and RSS news feeds.

(If you would like us to create an automatic installer for a
software package that is not currently on this list, you can let us
know by e-mailing scripts@mit.edu. Alternatively, you can use the
[web script service](/web) to immediately set up whatever software
you want to have installed.)

### After the Install

You should add yourself to the
[scripts-announce mailing list](https://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/scripts-announce)
if you would like to receive announcements of major service changes
and outages. This list receives only a few messages per year.

If you set up a site for your group using scripts.mit.edu and you
would like to be able to use a URL of the form  
http://YOUR\_GROUP.mit.edu/  
please visit this page on
[how to obtain a shorter URL](http://scripts.mit.edu/faq/14)

### Technical Details

For more information, see our list of
[Frequently Asked Questions](../faq/).

Each of these installers does the following:

-   signs you up for the [web script service](../web)
-   places the desired software into your web\_scripts directory
-   signs you up for the [MySQL service](http://sql.mit.edu) if
    necessary (all of the installers except the one for PHP iCalendar
    use MySQL)
-   signs you up for scripts.mit.edu [security updates](/faq/44)

The installers place your MySQL account password in a .sql/my.cnf
file in your Athena locker. You may use this password to manage
your MySQL account at the
[sql.mit.edu web interface](http://sql.mit.edu).