Installing WB

About	Install	Config	Usage	Copyright	F.A.Q.

Moving files to place

/usr/local/apache/cgi-bin
/var/www/cgi-bin

/var/www/html
/opt/htdocs
/var/htdocs

WB installation is made in a few steps:

1. Create a subdirectory under the document root to hold all your billboards; E.g.:

   > mkdir /var/www/html/BillBoards

2. Unpack the WB files into the billboard directory just created. E.g.:

   > tar xvfz wb.tgz

   or

   > gunzip -c wb.tgz | tar xvf

3. Move the programs wb.py and wbmgmt.py into the CGI directory. E.g.:

   > mv wb.py wbmgmt.py /var/www/cgi-bin

4. The http server must have permission to write to this directory. The easiest way is to define the userid which is running the server as owner of the directory. You must check your particular installation to know which is the actual userid (it is usually "apache", or maybe "cochise" or even "nobody"). You may use the ps command as follows:

   : ps -ef | grep httpd
       root   624     1  0   Jul 05 ?        0:09 /usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd 
    cochise 27509   624  0 16:34:03 ?        0:00 /usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd
    cochise 27421   624  0 16:33:05 ?        0:00 /usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd
    ..... more lines ...

   Ignore the "root" line. The other are the actual userid you need.

   Note: various Unix(Linux) versions may have sligtly different syntax for the ps command. E.g: ps aux

5. Finally edit the wb.py code to reflect the details of you installation. Here follows the involved lines:

   # Start customization section  
   root_http   = 'http://www.my.domain/BillBoards'  
   root_dir    = '/var/www/html/BillBoards'  
   domain      = 'my.domain'         # e-mail domain  
   smtphost    = 'smtp.my.domain'    # smtp host  
   def_lang    = 'us'                # Get language from directory _lang_us
   auth_mode   = 'unix'              # Specify user authorization method
   debug       = 0                   # Set to 1 for debug output  
   def_ttl     = 600                 # Session expiring time  
   dolog       = 1                   # Set to 0 for no logging 

   As a starting point you only need to modify the first five items, as follows:

   root_http

   The URL of the BillBoard directory on your web server. In the example above we have supposed that the billboard directory has been created just under the Document Root.

   root_dir

   The directory path of the same BillBoard directory.

   domain

   Mail domain you want to be used to send notify messages. Messages will be sent as coming from the address: wb@my.domain

   smtphost

   The outgoing mail server for your domain

   def_lang

   The name of the vocabulary file supporting the desired default language (Note: different languages can be selected for each billboard defined. See: configuration).

   auth_method

   This variable may be either 'unix', or 'local'. User access for adding or updating document is protected by userid/password check. If the value is 'unix' the password check is performed with the standard unix mechanism, i.e.: authorized users must be registered as unix users on the host running the system.
   If the value is 'local' user authentication is performed against a WB specific password file which is independent from host user authentication. The local password file may be managed by using wb.py -u, wb.py -l, wb.py -r.

6. As a final step you must ensure that the wb.py program can be executed by the web server, and the support files stored in the billboard root can be read by wb.py. For doing that you may need to properly modify the ownership or the rights of the files.

Testing the installation

1. Try to run the wb.py from a command line, just to see what happens. E.g.:

   > python wb.py wb.py - L.Fini (lfini@arcetri.astro.it). Version 4.11, October 2005 Usage: wb.py -i directory show billboard info wb.py -m [directory] perform billboard maintenance [only on specified dir] wb.py -s bboard doc show document file structure wb.py -u user passwd add user/password to local password file wb.py -v directory show available languages

   Note: You may notice that the program wb.py can also be run as an usual program from a command line. This is useful to perform programmed maintenance on the billboards (see below).

2. Check the "self run" line, by running again the program. E.g.:

   > /var/www/cgi-bin/wb.py

   And you should see the same output as above. If it doesn't work, check the exact path of your python interpreter. E.g.:

   > which python

   /usr/bin/python

   The same path must be written in the very first line of wb.py, as follows:

   #!/usr/bin/python

3. Check if you can run the wb.py program as a CGI application. Just point your browser to the right URL, from anywhere on the Internet:

   http://www.my.domain/cgi-bin/wb.py

   And you should see a list of available billboards. Note: You will not actually see any billboard, because you haven't defined one as yet!