AnyBoard
Installation Guide
Installation is easy, all you need to do is to edit ONE line of the
anyboard.cgi file.
Estimated time: 5 minutes.
Imprtant Note: You must split the script (split command
available on master admin panel) after installation. See the readme.txt
file come with AnyBoard package.
Quick
Install Guide For The Impatient:
Install anyboard.cgi to
your cgi-bin, then access the script with the URL
http://your-host/your-cgi-dir/anyboard.cgi?cmd=init
follow
the on browser instructions carefully, read this manual when having
problems.
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Detailed
Instructions
System
requirements
AnyBoard can be
installed on web servers which supports CGI standard, including UNIX,
Linux and Windows NT/2000. The basic requirements for AnyBoard are
- CGI access.
Your server must allow you to install your own CGI scripts. Normally,
the CGI scripts are installed under a directory named cgi-bin/, cgi-local/,
cgibin/, scripts/, etc. Consult your ISP on this.
- PERL 5.004
and up. PERL Version 4 won't work. Some systems have both PERL
5 and PERL 4 installed, you need to find out the path to PERL 5. If
you have telnet access to your server, the command "perl
-v" will show the perl version. Perl 5.003 and earlier
has bugs which prevent AnyBoard from working correctly.
Your ISP should
have a FAQ page answer questions such as CGI access and perl scripts.
Always consult your ISP if not sure.
Look
at the questions at the installation request
page for information you need for an install. You should
also try the AnyBoard online installer at http://anyboard.net/cgi-bin/abinstall.cgi
first.
Download
AnyBoard Free Version (links directly to AnyBoard.zip file), unzips
it, you will find a script file named anyboard.cgi, which is the AnyBoard
program.
Installation procedures
| 1
Install anyboard.cgi to your cgi-bin and run the
sinfo command (trivial)
|
Follow your ISP's
instructions for installing PERL cgi scripts and install the single
script anyboard.cgi to your CGI-BIN directory.
After installing
anyboard.cgi to your cgi-bin/, run a diagnosis with the sinfo command
by accessing the script via the URL:
http://your-domain/your-cgi-dir/anyboard.cgi?cmd=sinfo&all=1
The above URL should
return a page with information about your AnyBoard installation. If
the URL is not working, ask your ISP on how to install CGI programs.
Now, access the
URL
http://your-domain/your-cgi-dir/anyboard.cgi/?cmd=sinfo&all=1
Note, there is a now a / after anyboard.cgi script name, this extra
path is called PATH_INFO.
For instance, the
sinfo command for anyboard.net is http://anyboard.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi/?cmd=sinfo&all=1
This should bring
up a page with information about the web server and the script settings.
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Details
|
If you have not installed CGI scripts before, you
must consult your ISP's FAQ. The following desription is a for
the usual situation.
The
first line of anyboard.cgi script reads
#!/usr/bin/perl
/usr/bin/perl
is the default location of perl on UNIX. If perl is installed
at a different location, modify this to match it. For instance,
some ISPs install perl at /usr/local/bin/perl5, then this line
should be changed to
#!/usr/local/bin/perl5
For
Apache Win32 port, the first line would be something like
#!C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe
For Microsoft IIS, this line has no effect and can be left
unmodified. IIS uses file extensions to indicate file type. For
instance, if you are using ActivePerl (http://www.activatestate.com),
then the default extension for a perl cgi script is .plx, so you
should rename the AnyBoard.cgi to AnyBoard.plx.
Upload
the modified anyboard.cgi to your cgi-bin/. Make sure the script
is executable. On Unix systems, this is done by changing its permissions
%chmod
755 anyboard.cgi
After
these steps, the script is installed and ready to run, we should
now perform a diagnosis of the installation via the URL
http://your-domain/your-cgi-dir/anyboard.cgi/?cmd=sinfo&all=1
(Note the / after the anyboard.cgi script name.)
|
| 2
Create master config directory, perform script configuration
(Pay attention now) |
Now, pay attention
to the comments area of the sinfo command. First, we must fix the Master
CFG entry.
The anyboard.zip
distribution file includes a directory named abmasterd/, this
directory contains sample forum configuration files, such as the one
used by AnyBoard
support forum. You must upload this directory to your web server,
and then set the $abmain::master_cfg_dir variable in the anyboard.cgi
script to point to the absolute path of abmasterd. You
must make sure that abmasterd/ is writable by the CGI program,
because AnyBoard will need to create a password file there for the master
admin. On UNIX, the permission can be set by "chmod 777 abmasterd"
.
If you have FTP only access, the output from pwd command may not the
be real absolute path, in this case, you should ask your ISP about the
full path. You can get hints on the paths by looking at the path
for anyboard.cgi.
After the changes, re-run the sinfo command, make sure
the errors for Master CFG are gone. If
the script can not find the master config directory or the directory
is not writable, then installation can not continue.
Next and more importantly,
check if WEB site name is correct, check if PATHINFO is correct and
if PATH matches your site's top www directory, if they do match,
then you can go to step 3.
If not, then you
need to follow these additional instructions.
When you use the
URL http://your-site/your-cgi-dir/anyboard.cgi/?cmd=sinfo&all=1
to check the script, you appended an extra / after the anyboard.cgi
script name, this is called the PATHINFO. In this case the PATHINFO
used is "/". If the PATHINFO displayed by the sinfo command
is not "/", for instance, if it contains the anyboard script
name, then the server provided a bogus PATHINFO. In some cases, a URL
with a / after the script name can even confuse a non-standard server
and cause a server error (such as IIS 5) . In these cases, you must
set the $abmain::no_pathinfo variable in the script to 1, and do NOT
append PATHINFO in the URL, so your sinfo command would be http://your-site/your-cgi-dir/anyboard.cgi?cmd=sinfo&all=1
. When PATHINFO is not used, you also need to explicitly set the $abmain::fix_top_dir
and $abmain::fix_top_url variables. The $abmain::fix_top_url is the
top URL of your web site, and $abmain::fix_top_dir is the physical path
of the web directory. For example, the $abmain::fix_top_dir for http://anyboard.net/
is /home/anyboard/www/. You may also set the $abmain::fix_cgi_url to
the full url of the anyboard script, e.g., http://anyboard.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi.
The following table lists the required and optional configurations for
AnyBoard to work.
|
Conifguration
|
What it is |
Required? |
Examples |
| $master_cfg_dir |
Where site configuration information
is stored. |
Yes! |
UNIX:
$master_cfg_dir="/home/anyboard/abmasterd";
Windows:
$master_cfg_dir="D:/inetpub/abmasterd";
|
| $no_pathinfo |
Can we use PATHINFO? |
No for standard servers. Yes for IIS
and other non-standard ones. |
$no_pathinfo = 1;
|
| $fix_top_url |
Top URL of the site. |
Must be set if $no_pathinfo is set
to 1 OR if the server name reported from sinfo command is
wrong. |
$fix_top_url="http://anyboard.net/";
|
| $fix_top_dir |
Directory for the top url above. |
Yes if $fix_top_url is set. |
UNIX:
$fix_top_dir = "/home/anyboard/www";
Windows:
$fix_top_dir="D:/inetpub/www/";
|
| $fix_cgi_url |
Full url of the AnyBoard CGI script. |
Yes if $fix_top_url is set. |
$fix_cgi_url=
"http://anyboard.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi";
$fix_cgi_url=
"http://251.222.123.234/scripts/anyboard.pl";
|
As you can see, for standard web servers, the ONLY parameter you need
to enter into the script is the $abmain::master_cfg_dir: AnyBoard can
automatically determine the URLs and directories. For non-standard servers,
you have to set the other 3 parameters, either by editing the script
or use the reconfigure function on the master admin panel. Of course,
if you like, you can set the 3 parameters for standard servers, and
it will work too.
If you can not
get the sinfo command working at all, consult your ISP's FAQ pages for
answers on how to install perl cgi scripts, do not send the questions
to Netbula.
| 3
Create new forum on the WEB |
The following command is conveniently listed on the
master admin panel.
- Use browser
to access the following URL, make sure you turned on cookies
http://yoursite/your-cgi-dir/anyboard.cgi?cmd=admin
(For instance,
http://AnyBoard.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?cmd=admin )
When you access this URL the first time, AnyBoard will ask you to
create the master administrator by entering a name and a password.
Master administrator is the one who can create forums via the web.
Be sure to record the master admin name and password.
- After you created
master admin, you will be prompted to login as master admin. Enter
the admin login and password you just created, the master admin page
shows up. Please read through and see what's available on the master
admin page. One of the link is to "Master Forum" which is
created automatically when you create the master admin, unlike normal
forums, this forum is stored under the master_cfg_dir. You should
also notice that you have to split the script for performance reasons.
AnyBoard is a single file, packed with various modules and hundreds
of methods, you must split the one big file into smaller modules.
- Click on the
link for create new forums, which brings up the forum creation form.
- Enter master
admin username/password, which you set in step a)
- Enter virtual
path to forum directory to be created, this directory must be non-existant.
Virtual path is the path after the domain name.
For example,
for http://AnyBoard.net/forums/AnyBoard1/, the virtual
path is /forums/AnyBoard1/;
for http://yourdomain/~user/forum/ the virtual path is /~user/forum/
If the CGI User of the script is different
from your FTP/Shell login, then you must first create a directory
under your www with 777 permission, and then create all forums under
this directory.
- Choose forum
administrator login and Submit the form.
The new forum will be created and admin login window will show up.
With the example in the figure above, the newly created forum is at
http://AnyBoard.net/forums/AnyBoard1/
If the forum creation failed, you should read the error messages carefully
and go back to check your configurations and
permission settings. You can either edit the script to change the parameters
or use the reconfigure function available on the master admin page.
AnyBoard now automatically
brings you to the new forum's admin panel, and you can start configuring
the forum. The very first thing you should do is to set a password for
the forum admin.
We
have setup a site for you to test create your AnyBoard
If you do the above, you have a forum running, you should start configuring
the forum, such as changing admin login and password. AnyBoard has over
300 confiiguration parameters, see the AnyBoard manual for details.
| Optional |
If
you want to use email validation and email notification features,
set the
correct $smtp_server variable. SMTP server is the one through which
email is SENT.
If your web server is www.yourname.com, the SMTP server is
usually yourname.com.
Your dial-up ISP also has SMTP server running, however, usually
you can NOT use it from AnyBoard, because AnyBoard sends email from
your web server machine, but your ISP's SMTP server only accepts
email sent from your PC via dial-up connection. If you configured
a SMTP server and seeing Relaying error when AnyBoard tries to send
email, it means the SMTP server does not accept the email.
Always ask your ISP for help in situations like this. |
| 5
Additional help needed? |
If you can get
the step 1) to display the sinfo page and can't go beyond that, please
submit an installation
request, and we will have a look. If your system rquires special
treatment, we may install AnyBoard on your site for free (you need to
provide login/password to your site), otherwise, you may order the installation
service from us.
