While going though the setup process for zenphoto, I encountered a few issues, which I will attempt to detail below.

1. File System Character Encoding
   1.a. Is set to both ISO8859-1 AND UTF-8, yet setup complains that neither or the other is set.

2. .htaccess creation.
   2.a. No information is provided to have the setup script properly create the file. I manually created it, but setup.php still complains because it is empty. What basic rules should be present in this .htaccess? (The entire archive was untar'd, nothing was changed at this point.

3. robots.txt
   3.a. I had to touch this file as well, it is empty though, what sample data should be present for this to function correctly?

4. locate
   4.a. seems to be the only correctly permissioned directory.

5. $HOME/www/$DOMAIN/gallery/zenphoto/albums exists with the correct permissions
   5.a. setup.php claims it does not exist and/or does not have the correct permissions, yet it does.

6. cache, uploaded, zp-data, cache_html, plugins
   6.a. chmoded to 0777, setup complains that it's too loose, re-chmoded to 0755, setup.php complains that it's to strict. Which permission set is required to satisfy setup.php?

System Information:
Debian 6.0.3, 64-bit

Server version: Apache/2.2.16 (Debian)
Server built: Sep 29 2011 20:59:05
Server's Module Magic Number: 20051115:24
Server loaded: APR 1.4.2, APR-Util 1.3.9
Compiled using: APR 1.4.2, APR-Util 1.3.9
Architecture: 64-bit
Server MPM: Prefork
threaded: no
forked: yes (variable process count)

PHP 5.3.3-7+squeeze3 with Suhosin-Patch (cli) (built: Jun 28 2011 08:24:40)
Copyright (c) 1997-2009 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies
with Suhosin v0.9.32.1, Copyright (c) 2007-2010, by SektionEins GmbH

If any other information is required, please do not hesitate to ask.

1: It cannot be (and is not) both. And Setup will not set it unless you provide the detailed files so it can detect the proper setting. All is described in the warning. Of course if you know the answer you can just select the correct characterset.

2: Setup will properly create a default .htaccess file if you click the link it provides. (Of course, the server needs to have allwed Zenphoto to write to this folder. If you file security does not allow this you have to make the file yourself.) If you need something different from the default then you had better be knowledgeable enought to make the changes.

3: Again, setup will create this file if it does not exist. It there is a file there it will be left alone.

4,5,6: File and folder permissions have to do with how you upload the Zenphoto files and the workings of your server file system. Setup just reports what it finds. If it tells you the permissions are not what it expects then your server has reported them that way.

Setup will properly set the file permissions on all the folders/files provided a) your server allows PHP scripts to do this and b) you have choosen the correct value for your server. The answer of what is correct depends on the server and only you and the server know that.

Note that we do no testing with servers other than Apache with a standard PHP. Other configurations may work or they may give you the problems that you are reporting. Sorry, but we simply do not have the knowledge of these other environments to be of any help.

A few additions:
2: The htaccess template file is located at /zp-core/htaccess if you need to do it manually copy it.

3: An rather strict example file is also located in /zp-core/robots.txt. Visit for example http://www.robotstxt.org/ to learn how to adjust to your needs.

Btw, the server credentials look correct (even the suoshin patch should not a problem as my server uses that as well.) Zenphoto works fine ony standard shared host environments. I can assure that for at lest three of them over here in Germany).

Thank you for your feedback. A majority of what I reported was merely a cursory observation on the behavior of setup.php. The critical stop though, was not answered. That being #5

A screenshot of the error can be seen here: http://69.116.99.164:2500/~chris/images/screenshots/screenshot.117.png

and an "ls -lash" of the zenphoto dir is here: http://69.116.99.164:2500/~chris/images/screenshots/screenshot.118.png

Well, that really was answered, if not directly, by the comment (4,5,6) that the server needs to be setup so that Zenphoto can write to the folders. And really, what part of "you must create the /albums/ folder" did you not understand?

Basically, your server is not setup so well. And as said, that is not something we can help you with.

Ya ... umm ... the host is set up correctly ... the zenphoto directory is owned by www-data, everything (for the sake of this test) is 0777, recursively. It still says /albums/ is the wrong permission or not created ... My question is this, is it the albums directory in $HOME/www/$DOMAIN/gallery/zenphoto/albums or is it expecting an albums directory in my root, hence the /albums/ structure?

The /albums folder is in the root of the Zenphoto install. If that is also the root of your website depends on where you installed Zenphoto. The structure is the one you get in the archive...

Your install seems to be wanting the albums folder to be in the root of the server. That is allowed if you have set the "external" selection in zp-config.php. If you have not intended this please check your zp-config file. If it is correct then most likely something in your server configuration is "hiding" the folder structure.