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making dbman work

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making dbman work
I downloaded the software, and did an initial edit of default.cfg and db.cgi. I then uploaded all of the files into my cgi-bin directory, and pointed to the correct path for perl, as instructed. Being half-talented, half-idiot regarding cgi functionality, I am at a loss as to what to do next. I also loaded the database file into a directory, and pointed to the database in default.cfg.

How do I generate web pages for my database automatically? Or, did I misunderstand something.

I have the basic skills to point to the right files etc, but am not sure exactly how to make this thing work after that.

ANy help for the unitiated would be appreciated. I have reviewed some of the helpful responses to other posts, and very much appreciate that you do not have any of the "rtfm" types of responses that used to be so common on help forums.

If it is appropriate to make a suggestion here, I would very much have appreciated a step-by-step documentation for the whole process of making this work. The README.TXT is a good start, but presumes a bit too much for many folks who might want to make this work themselves.

Sincerely,
thoma134
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Re: making dbman work In reply to
If you've got your files uploaded, the next step is to access them using a web browser.

Moderator JPDeni has written just the sort of step-by-step you're looking for. It is nicely done, and is located at

http://www.jpdeni.com/dbman/

Regards,
glen

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Re: making dbman work In reply to
thanks for the pointer, the information was very helpful. A big problem I have encountered NOW is that the way cgi functions on my server is unusual. I double-checked my PERL path, file permissions, they are okay. If you look at
http://www.tc.umn.edu/cgi-bin/do?user=thoma134&prog=dbman/db.cgi

you can see from the url alone how strange this is when I am trying to edit default.cfg to point to the right directory.
Just for comparison, the dbman directory actually is
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman
but when you try to point to it this way, the server does not allow you to access the file.

Have you ever worked with any similar server configuration?

Thanks again,
Chuck Thomas
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Re: making dbman work In reply to
Try setting all your variables in your default.cfg file to the physical path where your files and directories are located. I think that you may be trying to set the paths to the virtual paths, which will not work.

Try setting your variables to the following:

Code:
$db_dir_url = "http://www.tc.umn.edu/cgi-bin/do?user=thoma134&prog=dbman";
$db_script_url = "http://www.tc.umn.edu/cgi-bin/do?user=thoma134&prog=dbman/db.cgi";
$db_file_name = "/www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/ default.db";
$db_id_file_name = "/www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/default.count";
$auth_dir = "/www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/auth";
$auth_pw_file = "/www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/default.pass";
$auth_log_file = "/www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/default.log";

Then in your db.cgi file, set the $db_script_path to the following:

Code:
$db_script_path = "/www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman";

Other than that, I don't know what to tell ya. That is a strange URL to access your cgi-bin programs in sub-directories.

The other suggestion is to pull the files down a directory to the cgi-bin directory and then changes your paths and permissions.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us
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Re: making dbman work In reply to
Hi again,

Your suggestions definitely make sense. I made the changes you suggested, and have placed a default.txt and db.txt for you to peruse at

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~thoma134/

if you wish... when I made the changes, the new error message received was

CGI ERROR
==========================================
Error Message : Error loading required libraries.
Check that they exist, permissions are set correctly and that they compile.
Reason: Can't locate /www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/www.thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/html.pl in @INC (@INC contains: /www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman /usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-solaris/5.00404 /usr/local/lib/perl5 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/sun4-solaris /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl /usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-solaris .) at /www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/default.cfg line 58.

Script Location : /www/thoma134/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi
Perl Version : 5.00404
Setup File : default.cfg

Form Variables
-------------------------------------------
prog : dbman/db.cgi
user : thoma134

Environment Variables
-------------------------------------------
DOCUMENT_ROOT : /var/opt/apache/docs
GATEWAY_INTERFACE : CGI/1.1
HTTP_ACCEPT : image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, image/png, */*
HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET : iso-8859-1,*,utf-8
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING: gzip
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE: en
HTTP_CONNECTION : Keep-Alive
HTTP_HOST : www.tc.umn.edu
HTTP_PRAGMA : no-cache
HTTP_USER_AGENT : Mozilla/4.5 [en] (WinNT; I)
PATH : /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin
QUERY_STRING : user=thoma134&prog=dbman/db.cgi
REMOTE_ADDR : 160.94.230.189
REMOTE_PORT : 1617
REQUEST_METHOD : GET
REQUEST_URI : /cgi-bin/do?user=thoma134&prog=dbman/db.cgi
SCRIPT_FILENAME : /opt/apache/cgi-bin/do
SCRIPT_NAME : /cgi-bin/do
SCRIPT_URI : http://www.tc.umn.edu/cgi-bin/do
SCRIPT_URL : /cgi-bin/do
SERVER_ADMIN : cab@tc.umn.edu
SERVER_NAME : www.tc.umn.edu
SERVER_PORT : 80
SERVER_PROTOCOL : HTTP/1.0
SERVER_SIGNATURE :
Apache/1.3.6 Server at www.tc.umn.edu Port 80


SERVER_SOFTWARE : Apache/1.3.6 (Unix)
TZ : US/Central

Quote Reply
Re: making dbman work In reply to
Okay...Try changing the following variables with these values:

Code:
$db_dir_url = "http://www.tc.umn.edu/cgi-bin/dbman";
$db_script_url = "http://www.tc.umn.edu/cgi-bin/dbman";

For the second variable do NOT include the $db_dir_url variable.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us
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Re: making dbman work In reply to
Hello once more, thanks for your continued support...this is now unraveling, but each step has its own problems. I made the changes you suggested, but to no avail. After re-reading default.cfg, I realized part of the problem was indeed pointing to some of the associated files. I made some changes to db.cgi and default.cfg. You can see these files at http://www.tc.umn.edu/~thoma134

Thus far, I have been able to get through the login as a guest, and to the main menu. When I make a selection from the main menu, however, the following message results on the browser:

Missing user and/or prog arguments.

Usage: do?user=user&prog=prog&arg1=arg1&...


Any help you can offer is, as usual, appreciated.

Sincerely,
Chuck Thomas

PS This is the best online support forum I have ever seen in terms of reliability and patience!
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Re: making dbman work In reply to
Chuck,

To be perfectly honest with you...You need to contact your local tech support person at your Internet Service Provider and ask them about using custom cgi scripts that has password protection internal to the program, like DBMAN.

I have never seen this before.

Please contact your ISP or local tech support person. What you are seeing is not internal to DBMAN. It is related to your server, and you need to ask your techis about how to get it to work on their server.

Sorry.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us
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Re: making dbman work In reply to
okay, thanks for the help you could offer...it is a toughie. May I ask one last question, then? Is there such an animal as a version of this script that doe not contain any of the internal password control code? All I really want anyway is a universally-accessible search interface. Any editing of the database would be achieved by just outputting a new report from our source database files in a format compatible with dbman. All of the admin and other user access controls and functions are extraneous for my needs.

Sincerely,
Chuck Thomas

Sincerely,
Chuck Thomas
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Re: making dbman work In reply to
Unfortunately, the scripts would have to be completely re-configured to take out the password protection.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us