E-Reserves Project Notes

Larry Stone / 11-Jan-98

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This entry is a summary of the changes I made to Docutek's ERes 3.1 product
for our first trial, and instructions on installing them (and generally
getting the system running on an Athena server.

I. Changes to Code
   
  All of the modifications have been saved in the 'src' subdirectory.
  The file 'cgi-lib.pl' is to be added to to the ERes cgi-bin directory.
  All other files are copies of ERes' perl source.  I checked-in the ERes
  original version (alas without any version marker of their own) as the
  first version in RCS, and then my modified version(s).
   
  The source files are as follows:
   
  ereslib.pl         -- use web certificate for authentication
  editslogin.pl      -- use web certificate for authentication
  createcourse1.pl   -- use web certificate for authentication
  adddocreg.pl       -- use cgi_lib and browser upload for file uploading.
  modifydocdel.pl    -- use cgi_lib and browser upload for file uploading.
   

II. Installation

  This assumes ERes was installed in /var/eres.
   
  To install the changes, simply copy the contents of src/ into
  /var/eres/cgi-bin, and adjust the ownership & protections to match
  the other perl files.  Since the files will overwrite existing files, you
  may wish to save copies of them, although the original version is also
  available from the RCS files under src/.
   
  So:
   
  1. Copy the perl files in src/
  2. Create directory /var/eres/www/docs/eres/tmp, and make it
     writable by the user ID under which the CGI scripts will run (e.g. 'www'
     in the default configuration).
  3. The initial installation of ERes has some mistakes; the following
     directories must be made writable by the 'www' user:
       /var/eres/cgi-bin/data
       /var/eres/cgi-bin/bboard
       /var/eres/www/docs/eres
  4. Chmod the ERes course directory so subdirectories are created with the
     same group ownership, for convenience if we use group ownership to
     allow maintainers "rcp" files into course directories:
       chmod g+s /var/eres/www/docs/eres
   
  5. Add the "reactivate.local" file to /etc/athena on baron-ochs so
     the inetd.conf file is fixed after updates & such to disable the -e
     option on kshd, allowing rcp's from Athena 8.1 machines such as
     intaglio.

III. Other housekeeping & proposed changes

  1. The installation set the "manager's email" to eres@eres.mit.edu.  Since
     the eres machine isn't running an SMTP server (this is normal), this
     mail will fail.  The email address should be set to whatever list
     we choose to use, e.g. e-reserves-help@mit.edu.

  2. ERes maintainers must be added to the /var/eres/cgi-bin/data/users.dat
     file, as per the instructions.  For each user, use the Kerberos
     principal from your Web certificate as the username (e.g. "lcs"),
     and set the level to the highest level you want them to have
     (i.e. edits, assistant, helper, manager).  Don't worry about the
     password, set it to something in plaintext if hand-editing the file,
     since it is not used.  Whenever the user named in users.dat
     connects to the SSL (https) port with their certificate, they will
     automatically get the level of privilege indicated in users.dat.