AutoRank Pro v2.0.4 Installation Manual

[ Installation ] | [ HTML Template Feature ] | [ Templates ] | [ Cron Help ] | [ Tech Support ]

Installation Procedure
  1. Unpack the AutoRank Pro archive that you downloaded, using directory names.

  2. Open all of the files that have a .cgi extension in a text editor. You will need to set the location of Perl 5 on your server. This is done on the first line of the file:

    #!/usr/bin/perl

    Change the /usr/bin/perl value to match your system's setup. If you have telnet access you can locate perl by typing the following command:

    which perl

    In most cases, /usr/bin/perl or /usr/local/bin/perl is a valid setting. Note that this must point to Perl 5. Ask your server administrator if you are unsure about the perl location.

  3. Login to your FTP server, and change into the directory where you will be installing the CGI scripts. (We recommend that this directory be inside a cgi-bin or equivalent directory) In that directory, create 3 more directories. Name them data, sdata, and templates. These directories will contain all of the files that control script operation. The HTML files that the script creates (the files that contain the list) will need to be in a seperate directory located outside of the cgi-bin.

  4. Open the files rankem.cgi, functions.cgi, and out.cgi in a text editor. You will now need to set the one variable - $FUNCTIONS::SCRIPT_DATA_DIR - in each of these files. That variable needs to be set to the full Unix path to the sdata directory that you just created. Once you have set that variable in all three of those files, save them. Note that you should not put a / at the end of the directory path!

  5. Now, upload all of the .cgi files to the directory that you want them installed in. Make sure that you are uploading in ASCII mode. Next, upload the errors.dat and admin.dat files to the sdata directory that you created - again in ASCII mode. Finally, upload all of the .htmlt files to the templates directory that you created - in ASCII mode.

  6. You will now need to set permissions on the files you uploaded, and directories that you created. Below you will see a table with recommended permissions settings. These settings should work for most servers, however others may require different settings.

    File or Directory Permissions
    All .cgi Files 755
    admin.dat 644
    errors.dat 644
    sdata 777
    data 777
    templates 755
    All .htmlt Files 644
    Directory where list HTML files will be written 777

    Example Directory Structure
    /home/username/cgi-bin/autorank                   location of .cgi files
    /home/username/cgi-bin/autorank/sdata             location of script data files (admin.dat, errors.dat)
    /home/username/cgi-bin/autorank/data              location of member data files (created by script)
    /home/username/cgi-bin/autorank/templates         location of all template files
    /home/username/public_html/toplist              where the list HTML files will be written
    

  7. You are now ready to begin the WWW based portion of the setup. In your browser, type in the full URL to the setup.cgi file on your server. This will bring up the portion of the script where you will set all of the variables. Details and examples for each variable are given, so follow along through that to get all of the variables set properly.

    After you have set all of the variables, enter the default password admin and click the button. If everything went well, you will be presented with a page telling you that the variables have been recorded. To do further verification of your settings you can call the setup.cgi script like setup.cgi?verify. This will preform a series of tests and report the results.

  8. You should now be ready to begin using the scripts. The first thing you will want to do is point your browser to admin.cgi. Login using the default password admin - make sure you press the login button with your mouse pointer and not simply hit enter on your keyboard. Once inside the admin script you can start exploring the features, but make sure that you change your administrative password soon after your initial installation.

    Before re-ranking the list you must setup table properties or an HTML template from the second pulldown menu. Failure to do so will result in an error being reported.

    To get descriptions of the administrative functions, you can view the admin_f.html file included with the distribution. This file details what each of the functions do.

Other Installation Notes

  • If you chose to use cron then you will also need to open cron_rr.cgi and cron_rs.cgi and edit a few of the same variables in those files. You can then upload those files to the same directory as the other .cgi files, and set their permissions to 755. A crontab entry will need to be made so the scripts will execute at the proper times - more information about that is aviable at the bottom of this file. cron_rr.cgi reranks the list with the current information; cron_rs.cgi resets all counters to zero.

  • You will need to provide a link to the page where webmasters can add their site when you edit the header and footer files for your list. Somewhere in the header/footer place a link that points to accounts.cgi so people can add their site. If you want members to be able to edit their own information place a link that points to accounts.cgi?edit.

  • If you notice any bugs or have any problems, contact us using the information at the bottom of this file.


Templates

This feature is implemented in v2.0.4, however it is still in development stages. We will not be adding documentation until it is complete, so if you want to edit the template files you will be doing so at your own risk!


Cron And AutoRank Pro

  • What Is Cron?
    Cron jobs are a way of automating tasks that you 
    want done every week/month/day and at a certain time.
    
    NOTE: cron needs full paths for everything, so you 
    must use full paths in the variables in a cgi script
    
    
  • A Quick Overview Of Crontab Entries An example of a crontab entry could be: 25 0 1 * * /usr/web1/home/html/cgi-bin/update.cgi which runs a script in /usr/web1/home/html/cgi-bin called update.cgi at 12:25 am on the first of every month.
  • In Depth Explanation of A Crontab Entry An entry consists of two parts - a time to run, and a command to run. The time to run (the first part of the entry) is broken up into 5 fields: 1. minute of the hour 2. hour of the day (on the 24 hour clock) 3. day of the month 4. month of the year (1 = January, 2 = February, etc.) 5. day of the week (0 = Sunday, 1 = Monday, 2 = Tuesday, ..., 6 = Saturday) A "*" in one of these fields indicates that the job should be executed at any or every one of these, so for instance a "*" in the month of the year field means that this task should be carried out every month at the time specified in the other fields. A "*" in the day of the week field, when there is something in the day of the month field, does not mean that this task should be carried out every day, but rather that it should be carried out on the appointed day of the month regardless of what weekday it is. Only "*"s in the day of the week field, and the day of the month field, and the month of the year field would indicate a daily task. Examples: The job with this time to run would run every Sunday at 12:20 am. 20 0 * * 0 This job would run at midnight on any Friday the 13th. 0 0 13 * 5 You don't have to put just one time in a field. This job, for instance, would run every day at 12:30am, 2:30am, 4:30am, 6:30am, 6:30pm, 8:30pm, and 10:30pm: 30 0,2,4,6,18,20,22 * * * This one would run every Tuesday and Friday at 5:30 am: 30 5 * * 2,5
  • Using Cron Jobs With AutoRank Pro Create a new file named cronfile. Any other cron jobs you are running should also be placed in this file. In this file you will put the following lines: 00 0 * * * /full_path_to/cgi-bin/cron_rs.cgi 30 * * * * /full_path_to/cgi-bin/cron_rr.cgi This will run cron_rs.cgi every night at 12:00:00 AM and cron_rr.cgi every hour on the half hour. cron_rs.cgi resets all counters to zero, and cron_rr.cgi re-ranks the list. If you want these scripts to be run at times other than those, just edit the times according to how you want it set up. However, you should have it set so that the re-rank and reset script do NOT run at the same time or else you will have a blank list until the next re-rank. Now upload cronfile to your server in ASCII mode. Telnet into your account and go to the dir you uploaded cronfile into. Type: crontab cronfile This should set your cron job. If you want to check to make sure it was entered correctly you can type: crontab -l If you want to remove all cron jobs you can type: crontab -r
  • Why should I use cron? Cron will give you extremely accurate update times, whereas with regular cgi you will probably not have this. With regular cgi updates the only time the list can be updated or reset is when someone activates the scripts by clicking on a link to your top list. So say you have your list set to re-rank every 30 minutes, but no one clicks on a link to your list for 45 minutes. Then the list will not be updated for a period of 45 minutes. An even bigger problem is with reseting the list. If someone doesn't click on your link at the time you want the list to reset it will throw it totally off. For example, say the first time the list is set to reset is at midnight, but no one clicks until 12:30. That will change the next reset to 12:30 the next night instead of 12:00. Put simply, cron will make your list much more accurate, and can reduce the load on your server. If you have it available on your system, please use it. It is very simple to set up, and if you need any help you can always get it from us!

Technical Support

  • Where To Go To Get Tech Support

    If you need any assistance you can contact us via e-mail by using the tech support page in the owners lounge at: http://www.cgi-works.net/members/

    Or you can post a message on our members only message/help board at:
    http://www.cgi-works.net/members/board/board.cgi

  • IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT TECH SUPPORT:

    VERY IMPORTANT: If you edit the scripts in any way other than described above, you will no longer be eligible for technical support.
    WE WILL NOT PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR EDITED SCRIPTS!

    The only two ways we provide support for our commercial scripts are listed above. We do it this way to make sure we are providing support only to those who have paid for the scripts and deserve the support. If you post a message at the General CGI Board it will not be answered by us, you must post on the Owners Lounge board. Also sending a plain e-mail to us will be ignored, you must use the tech support form in the Owners Lounge.

    These two methods also help to ensure that we are not wasting our time providing support for illegal copies of our software, and will result in faster responses to legitimate owners questions.

    Thank You, and enjoy your new script!