Changing from Windows to Linux, but having problems

[Mazydizzle]

Hi all,

i am trying to set up my new linux dedicated server to host my site but the network setup always fails on the path to perl bit.

i have issued the command "which perl" and i get usr/bin/perl and a whole lot of other paths.

the issue is that I think that because that path does not fall in to the FTP user accounts web space, actinic cannot see it or does not have permissions to browse to it.

I am using CentOS 5 and I am not a linux man, but I try and teach myself. I've searched around these forums and I am unable to find the answer to help me overcome this.

On my old windows host, everytime i used to create a site it would have a perl folder sitting in the webspace too, so it worked all the time.

Can anyone help me either create this perl folder in the FTP user accounts webspace or show me how i can tell actinic to look outside the FTP user accounts webspace??

My host is 1 and 1 and it is running CentOS 5 with Plesk control panel.

Any help appreciated! thanks!

Mario

[NormanRouxel]

Actinic puts no files into the "path to Perl" location. This is used internally by the various Perl scripts, so just enter the correct value into Advanced / Network Setup.

The Perl files are put into your cgi-bin directory which will be inside your FTP space.

There are example network settings on this Community for 1&1 / Linux.

[Mazydizzle]

Thanks for the reply Norman.

the Network setup wizard is failing when trying to set up the path to perl. It keeps trying guesses and then asks me to manually put it in. When I do it then says that a HTTP request to the server failed.

I have ensured that the permissions on the CGI BIN and web root directories are 777 for testing perposes. But still this problem persists.

My setting are attached.

Can you suggest anything I am doing wrong? These settings worked perfectly well with my windows host. But not my linux host.

Mario

[Duncan Rounding]

Are you sure that this is right:
PATHFROMCGITOCATALOG ../httpdocs/acatalog/
try:
PATHFROMCGITOCATALOG ../acatalog/

[Mazydizzle]

Hi,

sorry about this, I think I am confusing myself here.

I have setup webhost like this.

CGI BIN

www.domainname.com/cgi-bin

acatalog folder

www.domainname.com/httpdocs/acatalog

FTP User home directory is /

should it be set up like that?

Ideally i'd like the website to work without having to put any "/"'s in the URL.

so www.domainname.com goes straight to the Actinic Brochure page.

Thanks for your help so far.

Mario

[leehack]

Your home page will be loaded to the root folder, all other pages are loaded into your 'acatalog' folder.

[Duncan Rounding]

Can you do this:
www.domainname.com/acatalog
instead of:
www.domainname.com/httpdocs/acatalog

[Mazydizzle]

Hi drounding,

when I create a new domain on my host, the webspace automaticaly assigns the real folder called "httpdocs" as the website root.

For example, when I hit www.domainname.com it actually goes to www.domainname.com/httpdocs/index.html

Now, my CGI-BIN folder does not get put in to this httpdocs folder. So is actinic going to have trouble navigating to the CGI-BIN do you think? What would the URL be?

I have created a new site from scratch in designer, for testing purposes. I've also created the domain and its webspace on my server for testing purposes. When I use the wizard, it fails on the path to perl shell location after it tries guesses. When I try and click next, i get the message about failing to send a HTTP request to the server.

Something wierd is going on here.

I will try and put in manual settings rather than using the wizard and then post them on here.

Mario

[Mazydizzle]

Hi all,

please find the latest network setup export attached.

When clicking the test button i get the following error...

Actinic received a server error from the web server. The CGI scripts are not executing properly on the server. The error could be caused by several things. Check:
- the 'Path to the Perl shell'
- the 'CGI script extension'
- the 'Path to CGI-BIN'
- the 'CGI-BIN URL.
- the amount of web space left on your server
- if your server is configured to accept POSTs to CGI scripts
- the permissions on the server:

On Linux/Unix based servers the permissions should be:
cgi-bin (755) – drwxr-xr-x
Online Store Folder (777) – drwxrwxrwx

In order to eliminate permissions issues, i have set 777 on both folders for everyone.

[Duncan Rounding]

Script ID is unusual at 1024 - try 1 instead.
Also try USEPASSIVEFTP as true.

[Mazydizzle]

Hi there,

sorry that has not helped either.

I cant stop thinking that this is an issue with Perl as the wizard fails at the point where it cannot find the path to the perl shell.

I am just not sure about whether I have to set any permissions on perl directories in order for actinic to be able to use that directory.

Mario

[NormanRouxel]

Actinic on 1&1 Linux is usually very easy. As I said earlier there are example network settings on the Community.

[Mazydizzle]

Hi Norman,

i imported the settings from the thread http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=28934 and the only thing that i noticed that was different was the location of the CGI-BIN

it advises /domainname/CGI-IN which came up with an error advising that the CGI BIN folder could not be found

when i change it to /cgi-bin/ it now advises that there is an error executing scripts.

I still think that this is perl related. Is there any kind of debugging available with actinic?

Mario

[Mazydizzle]

I've just done a packet capture on my machine and I can see that it successfully posts the file cp000001.pl in to the webspace's CGI-BIN folder.

Then i imagine that the perl scripts in the CGI-IN folder fail to run and I think its down to the perl location.

Should there be any permissions set on the usr/bin folder that the perl scripts sit in?

I can see that the file perl, has -rwxr-xr-x permissions configured. Not sure if that is right or not.

Any help on perl will be appreciated!

Mario

[Mazydizzle]

OK, im getting closer now...

i fouind this article in the community... http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=44812 and from there I have found that I do not have the Standard Perl module installed...

I am going to crack this if it kills me!!!

Mario

[NormanRouxel]

I have numerous sites on 1&1 Business / Linux. Here are sample settings that work for me:

HTTPPROXYMODE 0
HTTPPROXYADDRESS
HTTPPROXYPORT 80
HTTPPROXYUSER
HTTPPROXYPASSWORD
FTPPROXYMODE 0
FTPPROXYADDRESS
FTPPROXYPORT 21
FTPPROXYUSER
FTPPROXYPASSWORD
SCRIPTID 1
SCRIPTEXT .pl
SMTPHOST auth.smtp.oneandone.co.uk
WEBSITEURL http://www.mysite.com/index.html
IGNOREPASSIVEERRORS true
USERELATIVECGIURLS false
PATHTOPERL /usr/bin/perl
USEENHANCEFTP false
FTPCLIENTTIMEOUT 5000
FTPRETRYDELAY 3000
FTPSILENT false
FTPMAXRETRIES 3
FTPCONNECTTIMEOUT 15000
SMTPAUTHREQUIRED false
SMTPUSERNAME
SMTPPASSWORD
COMPRESSIONPACKETSIZE 1024
COMPRESSEDUPLOAD true
CATALOGURL http://www.mysite.com/acatalog/
ONLINESTOREFOLDERNAME acatalog
CGIBINURL http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/
PATHFROMCGITOCATALOG ../acatalog/
CODEBASE ./
FTPHOST mysite.com
FTPUSERNAME ***********
FTPPASSWORD ***********
PATHTOCGIBIN /cgi-bin/
USEPASSIVEFTP true
FTPPATHFROMCGITOCATALOG

[Mazydizzle]

Thanks Norman,

I will try those settings and see if that helps me out.

Just out of interest, has your linux server got the Perl Standard module installed?

I just want to rule out whether this is a Perl Issue or a settings issue.

Thanks

Mario

[Mazydizzle]

Hi Drounding/norman, i have carried out the instructions that you posted in the following thread...

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=48585&highlight=1and1+perl

but when i run the wizard, it struggles to find the cgi-bin advising that the URL is not correct.

I have also tried running the basic hello.pl script to to test my perl installation and i get an internal server error message so i think that something is clearly wrong with my perl setup or the way that 1and1 servers are setup nowadays. Instructions i found were in this thread..

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=49659&highlight=1and1+perl&page=9

I have a dedicated linux box running centos5 64bit and I simply create a new customer, with a domain and an ftp account and then try and test network settings with actinic. it should work straight away. At least it does with my windows server with 1and1!!

Im wondering whether new 1and1 packages are struggling with actinic now. I have had my windows server for 3 years and actinic has worked perfect every time! Now i get a linux server, i cannot get this working!

Any more help / advice appreciated. DO you know of another linux host I can use?

Mario

[NormanRouxel]

Why not try to get simple "Hello World" Perl script to run from within your cgi-bin. Google for the code if you don't know Perl. Once that's running you'll have a better idea what settings are needed for Perl.

[Mazydizzle]

Thanks for all your input in to this everyone.

in the end i got so fed up, I re-imaged my server, and all is working!

I must have screwed something up somewhere.

Now i just need to figure out how to upload this massive website (34,000 files) without it erroring.

even using my massive internet pipe at work is struggling!

Oh well.