Although this is not how to related to horde, I am posting this here as fileinfo is quite useful and I couldnt get it working for quite some time.

1. Read the `/horde/doc/INSTALL`_
2. pear install fileinfo-beta will not work on RHEL without the following package.
3. Get the latest file package from ftp://ftp.gw.com/mirrors/pub/unix/file/
4. Install it with ./configure --prefix=/usr && make && make install
5. then pear install fileinfo-beta note: it is now changed to pecl install fileinfo-beta
6. Add the following in php.ini
::

 ;Magic mime time
 mime_magic.magicfile = "/usr/share/file/magic.mime"
 
 extension=fileinfo.so
 
 ;;;;
 ; Note: For Red Hat Linux, packaged extension modules are now loaded via
 ; the ini files in the directory /etc/php.d.
 ;;;;


so also add in /etc/php.d/fileinfo.ini
::

 extension=fileinfo.so


7. restart apache and check /horde/test.php. At this point I got MIME Magic Support: YesI get the following errors in /var/log/httpd/error_log, not sure how to get rid of them and if it hampers the fileinfo functioning.
::

 PHP Warning:  Function registration failed - duplicate name - finfo_open in Unknown on line 0
 PHP Warning:  Function registration failed - duplicate name - finfo_close in Unknown on line 0
 PHP Warning:  Function registration failed - duplicate name - finfo_set_flags in Unknown on line 0
 PHP Warning:  Function registration failed - duplicate name - finfo_file in Unknown on line 0
 PHP Warning:  Function registration failed - duplicate name - finfo_buffer in Unknown on line 0
 PHP Warning:  fileinfo:  Unable to register functions, unable to load in Unknown on line 0
 [Sat May 21 00:57:42 2005] [notice] Apache/2.0.46 (Red Hat) configured -- resuming normal operations


Request for anyone who has done the above in a proper way, do share and modify what needs to be done right.Jigish.gohil at gmail dot com

.. _`/horde/doc/INSTALL`: http://www.horde.org/horde/docs/?f=INSTALL.html

Note: If you're getting ***Function registration failed - duplicate name*** errors, you probably have the module registered twice as an extension.
As an example, modules are loaded (on ``FreeBSD``) from /usr/local/etc/php/extensions.ini.  If you had an entry for fileinfo.so inside extensions.ini,
and then you added another "extension=fileinfo.so" in php.ini - it would try to load twice (once from extensions.ini and once from php.ini), causing 
the above errors.  I realize the location and names of files may be different on a Red Hat system, and I use ``FreeBSD`` - but the explanation is
still valid.
----

For Fedora Core 4, do the following:

1. yum install php-devel
2. pear install fileinfo
3. Add the following in php.ini
::

 ;Magic mime time
 mime_magic.magicfile = "/usr/share/file/magic.mime"
 
 extension=fileinfo.so
 
 ;;;;
 ; Note: For Red Hat Linux, packaged extension modules are now loaded via
 ; the ini files in the directory /etc/php.d.
 ;;;;


so also add in /etc/php.d/fileinfo.ini
::

 extension=fileinfo.so


4. restart apache and check /horde/test.php. At this point I got MIME Magic Support: Yestom at kofler dot eu dot org

**NOTE: Most Unix-like systems doesn't correctly handle Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel MIME types. If you very heavy rely on these types, use integrated Horde MIME magic library instead. See `bug #3565`_ for more info.**

.. _`bug #3565`: http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/?id=3565