WIMP Install

Next topic

Author	Message
Clive Amos	Tuesday 30 December 2003 12:32:05 pm Just did a clean install of 3.3-1 on my W2K/IIS server and have a few observations and a few questions. Before I ask my n00b questions, today is my first day with EZpub and I am suffering from information overload not to mention trying to deal with a WIMP so please be kind. ;) Read the install part of the manual and sort of got it but didn't configure anything after copying the files into http://mydomain/ezp. WIMP support is sporadic in CMS applications and as a good test, for the first time I like to lumber straight into the install procedure just to see how it goes. I thought it went quite well, very nice process. Got to the point of configuring the different types of sites that were chosen and found I needed to create a DB for each of the 4 types I had picked. Went into phpMyAdmin created 4 DB's then back to the install, pressed refresh but still did not get the new DB's in the list. Had to back up to the Database Initialization screen before the new DB's could be seen. Chose URL site access. Site Details screen showed the info for each selected site. The site URL field for each site was the same. I assumed, incorrectly it seems, that the install would add a unique dir path for each site. Unique site paths were created in /var, /design and /settings/siteaccess. After completing the install process and browsing to http://mydomain.com/ezp/ the Corporate site loads. All the links load the same page but each link URL goes to a non-existent path eg: http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/products. This is probably by design but is one of the things that I don't understand yet. Have not been able to figure out how to get to the other sites and have assumed that Site Details screen was improperly filled out. The docs on the Setup Wizard are very nice but deal only with installing a single site. A little more guidance on installing multiple sites would be helpful. In the docs: Manual configuration of eZ publish - Permissions: "Windows users can skip this part." makes no sense to me. All real Web servers whether installed on Windows NT/2K/XP or Linux require rwx file permissions. Windows 98 or it's like is inadequate for publicly hosted Websites. It would be really helpful for non-nix admins if the docs included a list of dirs that require write access. This info: var/ (recursive) settings/* (recursive) design/* (recursive) Goes right over my head. As a Windows user the meaning of 777 or 775 etc. is hard for me to remember but I can find what it means. Using rwx is good because it relates to Windows as well as other OS's. After the install I had a look and none of the files or dirs have write permissions, just read and execute for the anonymous Web user. The plan of the moment is to delete ezp and downsize to just the Plain site install. I would certainly appreciate some comments on what I should have done during the setup process. I hope someone finds this quick review of setup useful. Cheers Clive
Marco Zinn	Thursday 01 January 2004 11:22:37 am Hi Clive, as you were asking for some comments: ezSystems does not recommend Windows Systems for production sites, just for testing or developing. This probably the reason for that lack of docu there, when it comes to filesystem rights. As we know, FAT and FAT32 don't have rights, so I guess your "rwx" hints are for NTFS. For the different sites: You were doing right to create 4 different databases in MySQL, if you want to install 4 packets. I didn't try this yet (was too lazy to create more than 1 DB), but I'm surprised, that you only get one "User Site URL" ( http://mydomain.com/ezp/). You should get 4 different URLs, when you install 4 packages. The URLs are used to determine, which package your are looking for (ez-Terminology: "siteaccess"). In your installation directory, the installer will create sub-dirs of /var, /design and /settings/siteaccess for each package (siteaccess), as you noticed. This is perfectly fine. About the non-existing path (http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/products): This is correct, by design: ezPublish will ALWAYS run the index.php. This index.php is the same for every package and every page. The parameters after this index.php are used to find out the package (siteacces) and page. (see http://ez.no/developer/ez_publish_3/documentation/configuration/configuration/site_access, scroll down to "URI" for more info). I think, something is wrong with your User Site URL(s), as the siteaccess (package) name is missing. You say, all User site URLs are http://mydomain.com/ezp/ . This is strange, as there my be some distinction between the 4 sites. Furthermore, you say, that a link is http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/products, for example. Again, the siteaccess name is missing. It should be something like http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/corporate/products . Well, what did you do in the meantime? I suggest, that you just install one package ("plain" is ugly, but works) and take good note on the URLs for User and Admin site (in the setup wizard). Some more: Of course, all this relies on the webserver to detect the "index.php" in the URL and execute the index.php file correctly... but as you already talk about "links in the page", I guess, you see at least the homepage of some package. Marco http://www.hyperroad-design.com
Clive Amos	Friday 02 January 2004 11:00:27 am Marco, Yes, comments are appreciated. I did get the impression that ezSystems considered Windows as inadequate and certainly the desktop versions are. FAT and FAT32 file systems are not up to the task of running a Web server on the Internet. Win 2K server and above are equal to any nix server when it comes to running a Web server on the Internet, either IIS or Apache. It is really just a matter of preference as to which OS one chooses. The nice thing about PhP and MySQL is that they also don't care what OS they are running on. I am currently evaluating a number of other CMS Web applications: Tiki, phpWebSite, phpNuke, Mambo, Typo3 and all of them are supported on LAMP, some of them on WAMP and none are supported on WIMP. However, all of them run perfectly on WIMP using a manual install. A properly written Web based application requires a Web server and the OS it runs on really is immaterial. A good thing about nix is that a shell script be used to handle the install on all the different flavours. The same thing can be done on Windows using Windows scripting or VB. Being able to say "run this script" really simplifies installation documentation. Trying to describe how to do an install using the Windows GUI is much more difficult. One of the interesting things about all the CMS applications is they are creating a GUI interface to nix and Apache. The instructions in the Manual Install method do not describe the process adequately, they are more like a semi-automatic install laced with nix jargon. With just a little more information ezPublish could be easily installed on any Web server running on any OS. Sorry if I seem to be running on about this but I am a fan of platform independent Web based applications... PhP rocks! Getting back to ezP. I did read http://ez.no/developer/ez_publish_3/documentation/configuration/configuration/site_access and all the other instructions. From the information on the SiteAccess screen I expected the Plain site to be the default eg: http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php and the other sites to require an extra entry in the path eg: http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/corporate/. I suspect the problem could be related to a lack of write permissions which messed up the install. Although since the dir structure is as described in the docs, I am leaning more to a configuration problem as the cause of the current difficulty. Looking at /settings/siteaccess/site.ini.append for a couple of the different sites I see the whole file is commented out - <?php /* ...the settings... */ ?>. This seems a bit odd to me. The settings for each appear to be the info entered during the install. There is also a site.ini.append.bak with exactly the same time stamp. The site.ini.append.bak is also quite different from site.ini.append. I have not yet attempted to re-install ezP. I think it would be best to find out what dirs need write permissions and try to get a better understanding of the dir structure which does not appear to be a standard tree but rather a kind of relational structure. Thanks for your input. Cheers, Clive

Author

Message

Tuesday 30 December 2003 12:32:05 pm

Just did a clean install of 3.3-1 on my W2K/IIS server and have a few observations and a few questions. Before I ask my n00b questions, today is my first day with EZpub and I am suffering from information overload not to mention trying to deal with a WIMP so please be kind. ;)

Read the install part of the manual and sort of got it but didn't configure anything after copying the files into http://mydomain/ezp. WIMP support is sporadic in CMS applications and as a good test, for the first time I like to lumber straight into the install procedure just to see how it goes. I thought it went quite well, very nice process. Got to the point of configuring the different types of sites that were chosen and found I needed to create a DB for each of the 4 types I had picked. Went into phpMyAdmin created 4 DB's then back to the install, pressed refresh but still did not get the new DB's in the list. Had to back up to the Database Initialization screen before the new DB's could be seen. Chose URL site access. Site Details screen showed the info for each selected site. The site URL field for each site was the same. I assumed, incorrectly it seems, that the install would add a unique dir path for each site. Unique site paths were created in /var, /design and /settings/siteaccess. After completing the install process and browsing to http://mydomain.com/ezp/ the Corporate site loads. All the links load the same page but each link URL goes to a non-existent path eg: http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/products. This is probably by design but is one of the things that I don't understand yet. Have not been able to figure out how to get to the other sites and have assumed that Site Details screen was improperly filled out.

The docs on the Setup Wizard are very nice but deal only with installing a single site. A little more guidance on installing multiple sites would be helpful. In the docs: Manual configuration of eZ publish - Permissions: "Windows users can skip this part." makes no sense to me. All real Web servers whether installed on Windows NT/2K/XP or Linux require rwx file permissions. Windows 98 or it's like is inadequate for publicly hosted Websites. It would be really helpful for non-*nix admins if the docs included a list of dirs that require write access.
This info:
var/* (recursive)
settings/* (recursive)
design/* (recursive)

Goes right over my head. As a Windows user the meaning of 777 or 775 etc. is hard for me to remember but I can find what it means. Using rwx is good because it relates to Windows as well as other OS's. After the install I had a look and none of the files or dirs have write permissions, just read and execute for the anonymous Web user.

The plan of the moment is to delete ezp and downsize to just the Plain site install. I would certainly appreciate some comments on what I should have done during the setup process.
I hope someone finds this quick review of setup useful.

Cheers
Clive

Marco Zinn

Thursday 01 January 2004 11:22:37 am

Hi Clive,
as you were asking for some comments:
ezSystems does not recommend Windows Systems for production sites, just for testing or developing. This probably the reason for that lack of docu there, when it comes to filesystem rights. As we know, FAT and FAT32 don't have rights, so I guess your "rwx" hints are for NTFS.
For the different sites: You were doing right to create 4 different databases in MySQL, if you want to install 4 packets. I didn't try this yet (was too lazy to create more than 1 DB), but I'm surprised, that you only get one "User Site URL" ( http://mydomain.com/ezp/). You should get 4 different URLs, when you install 4 packages. The URLs are used to determine, which package your are looking for (ez-Terminology: "siteaccess").
In your installation directory, the installer will create sub-dirs of /var, /design and /settings/siteaccess for each package (siteaccess), as you noticed. This is perfectly fine.
About the non-existing path (http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/products): This is correct, by design: ezPublish will ALWAYS run the index.php. This index.php is the same for every package and every page. The parameters after this index.php are used to find out the package (siteacces) and page. (see http://ez.no/developer/ez_publish_3/documentation/configuration/configuration/site_access, scroll down to "URI" for more info).
I think, something is wrong with your User Site URL(s), as the siteaccess (package) name is missing. You say, all User site URLs are http://mydomain.com/ezp/ . This is strange, as there my be some distinction between the 4 sites.
Furthermore, you say, that a link is http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/products, for example.
Again, the siteaccess name is missing. It should be something like http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/corporate/products .

Well, what did you do in the meantime? I suggest, that you just install one package ("plain" is ugly, but works) and take good note on the URLs for User and Admin site (in the setup wizard).

Some more: Of course, all this relies on the webserver to detect the "index.php" in the URL and execute the index.php file correctly... but as you already talk about "links in the page", I guess, you see at least the homepage of some package.

Marco
http://www.hyperroad-design.com

Clive Amos

Friday 02 January 2004 11:00:27 am

Marco,

Yes, comments are appreciated. I did get the impression that ezSystems considered Windows as inadequate and certainly the desktop versions are. FAT and FAT32 file systems are not up to the task of running a Web server on the Internet. Win 2K server and above are equal to any *nix server when it comes to running a Web server on the Internet, either IIS or Apache. It is really just a matter of preference as to which OS one chooses. The nice thing about PhP and MySQL is that they also don't care what OS they are running on.

I am currently evaluating a number of other CMS Web applications: Tiki, phpWebSite, phpNuke, Mambo, Typo3 and all of them are supported on LAMP, some of them on WAMP and none are supported on WIMP. However, all of them run perfectly on WIMP using a manual install. A properly written Web based application requires a Web server and the OS it runs on really is immaterial.

A good thing about *nix is that a shell script be used to handle the install on all the different flavours. The same thing can be done on Windows using Windows scripting or VB. Being able to say "run this script" really simplifies installation documentation. Trying to describe how to do an install using the Windows GUI is much more difficult. One of the interesting things about all the CMS applications is they are creating a GUI interface to *nix and Apache.

The instructions in the Manual Install method do not describe the process adequately, they are more like a semi-automatic install laced with *nix jargon. With just a little more information ezPublish could be easily installed on any Web server running on any OS. Sorry if I seem to be running on about this but I am a fan of platform independent Web based applications... PhP rocks!

Getting back to ezP. I did read http://ez.no/developer/ez_publish_3/documentation/configuration/configuration/site_access and all the other instructions. From the information on the SiteAccess screen I expected the Plain site to be the default eg: http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php and the other sites to require an extra entry in the path eg: http://mydomain.com/ezp/index.php/corporate/. I suspect the problem could be related to a lack of write permissions which messed up the install. Although since the dir structure is as described in the docs, I am leaning more to a configuration problem as the cause of the current difficulty.

Looking at /settings/siteaccess/site.ini.append for a couple of the different sites I see the whole file is commented out - <?php /* ...the settings... */ ?>. This seems a bit odd to me. The settings for each appear to be the info entered during the install. There is also a site.ini.append.bak with exactly the same time stamp. The site.ini.append.bak is also quite different from site.ini.append.

I have not yet attempted to re-install ezP. I think it would be best to find out what dirs need write permissions and try to get a better understanding of the dir structure which does not appear to be a standard tree but rather a kind of relational structure.

Thanks for your input.
Cheers,
Clive