Problem

You want to verify that the Movable Type system requirements have been met.

Solution

Use your browser to run the mt-check.cgi script.

Discussion

Movable Type requires the presence of several standard Perl modules, separate from the Movable Type code itself. Movable Type comes with all of the required modules except for DB_File, DBD::mysql, DBD::Pg, DBD::sqlite, and DBI. These modules can not be distributed with Movable Type because they require some of their code to be compiled for your server's specific operating system and processor.

Movable Type's capabilities can be further enhanced with the presence of several other Perl modules that support optional features. Movable Type comes with some of these optional modules, except for HTML::Entities, Image::Magick, Storable, Crypt::DSA, and Mime::Base64. If you decide that you want to use these features you will need to install these modules; otherwise they can be ignored. If an optional module is not installed, mt-check.cgi will produce a warning message that will explain the Movable Type feature(s) that its absence impacts.

To determine whether these modules are installed, run the mt-check.cgi script from your browser. For example, if your site is http://www.example.com/, and you uploaded the Movable Type files into the /cgi-bin/mt directory, you'd type http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-check.cgi.

mt-check.cgi is a Perl script that checks whether required and optional modules are installed on your server. If you get a server error when running this script, your Movable Type software was not properly installed. Review the steps you took to install the software. Common mistakes include not setting proper permissions and failing to upload the files using ASCII mode. If these suggestions don't help, refer to the Movable Type Knowledge Base for more troubleshooting information at http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/kb/.

If the script runs successfully and all required modules are present it will say "Movable Type System Check Successful." You are ready to continue. If you are missing any required modules or an optional module necessary to support additional functionality, install them and re-run mt-check.cgi.