Modx



ModX is now a one-click install on Dreamhost. It is an excellent CMS that is much easier for end-clients to manage than other CMSs such as Drupal.

strtotime error after installing
If you receive the error "Warning: strtotime [function.strtotime]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set function." it is because you are running PHP 5.3 and the standard Dreamhost php.ini does not have date.timezone set.

There are two alternatives
 * Downgrade to PHP 5.2
 * Use the method below to add a missing value to php.ini

The missing variable date.timezone can be inserted into the phprc file which adds to and over-rides the standard Dreamhost php.ini configuration. As an aside, this also where you activate extensions such as soap (extension = soap.so)), gd (extension = gd.so) etc.

To create phprc

 * SSH into your account
 * In the root user folder i.e. /home/username create a new directory named .php  mkdir .php
 * Change to that directory   cd .php
 * create a new directory 5.3    mkdir 5.3
 * change to the 5.3 directory   cd 5.3
 * create the phprc file   touch phprc
 * open the file for editing   pico phprc    (or your preferred editor)
 * add the line   date.timezone=(your/timezone)    http://us.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php
 * save the file
 * reapply (if needed) chmod 700 to phprc file

That's all there is to it. If you already have a phprc file you likely already know enough to just use the 2nd last line.