I know. I'm not supposed to double post but these have been sitting over in the Windows forum for a while and aren't getting answered. Even though I'm on IIS, I'm not sure these are problems specfic to my platform. Here goes:

Okay, I've spent the day with Links and I will say that I'm very impressed. However I am having three problems that I need help with. I've read most all the posts and the FAQ so here goes...
1. When I do any building I get the following message:


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updating New and Popular Records . . .
What's New Cutoff: 14 days
Popular Cutoff: 8 hits
Updating record: 3, marking as new.
Updating record: 4, marking as popular (8).
Updating record: 4, marking as new.
Couldn't rename! Had to copy. Strange: Permission denied
Done.
Updating ratings ..
Couldn't rename! Had to copy. Strange: Permission denied
Done.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing seems to be actually wrong but it still doesn't seem right. I've checked my permissions a couple of times and they seem to be fine.

2. I removed all references to style sheets and thinks seem to be fine. I'm actually referencing my own style sheet. However there are a few that I can't figure out:

-The "Top" link on all of the category pages (referenced by %title_linked%)
-The "What's New" links (referenced by %link_results%)
-The Categories in "What's Cool" (%link_results% again)

I was initially having problems with the normal category listings but found the spot in site_html_templates.pl to fix that. I would assume the other fixes are somewhere but I can't locate them.

3. The last one I haven't looked into as much but here goes. How do you add a URL that's more than 72 characters? The admin interface won't seem to let me do this.

Thanks for any help with these questions.

1) Make sure that your database files are all set to Read and Write. This is specific to your platform, because you will need to change the permissions via the NT Explorer, as I suggested many times in the NT Forum.

2) The "Top" text is located in the sub build_linked_title routine in the nph-build.cgi file. Just edit the Top text and replace it with what you want. The other text is also located in the nph-build.cgi file. Use the Find option in your text editor to find the text and then replace it.
(This is not specific to your platform.)

3) You need to change the 72 maximum length characters in the links.def file in the maximum length column of the URL. (This is not specific to your platform YET has been discussed many times in the Discussion Forum and ModificatioN Forum.)

Hope this helps.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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1) Make sure that your database files are all set to Read and Write. This is specific to your platform, because you will need to change the permissions via the NT Explorer, as I suggested many times in the NT Forum.

Yup, did that exactly per the instructions. IUSR_MACHINENAME, IWAM_MACHINENAME and EVERYONE have at least RW to every file and directory in the data folder.

2) The "Top" text is located in the sub build_linked_title routine in the nph-build.cgi file. Just edit the Top text and replace it with what you want. The other text is also located in the nph-build.cgi file. Use the Find option in your text editor to find the text and then replace it.
(This is not specific to your platform.)

Thanks.

3) You need to change the 72 maximum length characters in the links.def file in the maximum length column of the URL. (This is not specific to your platform YET has been discussed many times in the Discussion Forum and ModificatioN Forum.)

Apology here for not searching further. It was late and I had been working on Links for 12 straight hours at that point...

Hope this helps.

Definitely does. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

Uh...the data directory (folder) needs to have execute permissions as well for:

IWAM/MACHINE = Read, Write, Execute
IUSR/MACHINE = Read, Write, Execute
Everyone = Read, Write, Execute

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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Follow-up Quickie:

Despite having read a couple of threads on this already, I still can't figure it out. To password protect the Admin directory in NT here's what would seem logical to do. Change the NTFS permissions so that IUSR_MACHINE name didn't have access to Admin.cgi. Then through the Internet Service Manager, enable Basic authentication so that the user who needed to get in (me) would be prompted for a password.

When I do it this way I get the following error:


I can't think of another way to restrict access to the admin.cgi file without also restricting access to the rest of the Admin directory (which would not be a good thing right?).

From the README:


Based on this:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/scripts/forum/resources/Forum10/HTML/000242.html

666 is just read and execute.

Even so, changing the Data directory to RWX didn't help. Any more ideas?

WELL, YOUR DATA directory does need to have RWX for all web users in your machine.

Other than that I don't know what your problem is.

Best of luck!

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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So what I gather then is that the README is wrong, my config is right, I'm wrong because I got an error, but I'm right because everything works...

The bottom line is do you think I'll have problems later because of the error I'm getting. Everything seems to work just fine now. Except the password-protection thing. Any thoughts there?

I appreciate all the help here. Sorry for being a pest.

Yes...The error is showing up in your Build, which is not completing due to permission settings in your directories and files.

BTW: About the password protection...your best bet is to download and install WebSite1.1 from O'Reilly (www.ora.com). I used this when I was managing NT web servers at my old job. Then use the password protection function in the WebSite1.1 Web Server to set-up virtual directories and password protect your admin directory.

Download it at:

www.ora.com

WebSite1.1 gives you the same authentication process that .htaccess allows in UNIX server. A pop-up window will appear.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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Two quick follow-ups. I went through nph-build.cgi and found everything that needed to be changed except one thing. The results for my searches are still showing up wrong.

Also, Website 1.1 is no longer available. It's at 2.0 now. And 2.0 is $800! I don't need a Web Server. I've got IIS running. I just need the password protection feature. I'm off to check and see if CGI Resources has anything.

No..they didn't...I downloaded the freeware version of WebSite1.1 (when it was freeware) two years ago at my old job and used it to protect our database files.

The other solution is to put your database files in NON-WEB directory that could be accessed by the script, but not by people typing in the URL to your database files.

BTW: Another thing you will have to do is download and install the hotfix for Perl scripts from Microsoft at the TechNet site. There is a security leak in IIS that you can access the source code via a URL and entering in additional arguments into the query string. Unless you don't care about people seeing your server environment in terms of absolute paths.

BTW: As an Enterprise software package...IIS ain't there yet. Linux and UNIX surpass its capabilities in terms of scalibility and security.



Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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[This message has been edited by AnthroRules (edited March 11, 2000).]

Two quick follow-ups here. Thanks again to Eliot for all the help:

1. I was able to make the error go away by giving NTFS Change permission (RWXD) to everyone for the data directory. Problem solved there I guess.

2. This whole thing about password protection in NT kinda sucks. I know it's nobody's fault but Microsoft but I guess it would be nice to know a little more of this problem before going through the entire install.

My Links will get backed up every night and I guess I'm not all that concerned about my site being a target for hackers anyway (although I guess you never know these days). I will look into Widgetz mod but I'm also interested in seeing what others have to say about this. I can't imagine that everyone who's running Links on IIS went out and spent $800 for the O'Reilly product.

Uh...With IIS, you can not password protect directories in a manner that will allow perl and cgi scripts to run properly.

Before checking cgi-resources.com, you should check out the PASSWORD ADMIN MOD written by Widgetz, which is located in the LINKS Modification Forum. This password protects the admin.cgi script. HOWEVER, it does not protect the directory, which is more secure, AND that is why I recommended O'Reilly.

AND you do need a third party server package, like WebSite1.1 to password protect your NTFS directories with IIS, and to allow cgi and perl scripts to run.

And the scripts at cgi-resources.com that I've seen are not what you need in terms of password protecting directories and their contents.

Regards,

------------------
Eliot Lee....
Former Handle: Eliot
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