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Preliminaries
START runs on all contemporary variations of Unix, Linux and
similar operating systems. It
can be installed under any web space served by any version
of the Apache webserver.
Important: You will probably need to install START from
root, or from some other account using sudo commands.
In any case, it is essential that after setup is
complete, you change the user/group ownership for the
entire START directory hierarchy.
Specifically, this means changing the user/group to that
under which Apache runs. This detail is frequently overlooked -
not just for START, but for all web-based software - so
please remember that this must be done as the final
phase in your installation process.
Software Dependencies
Before installing START, you should ensure that your software
base is sufficiently up-to-date. START requires three
well-known tools to support its functionality.
1. Perl 5.8.3 or above: Perl is an integral part of all
systems, and you server will already have some version
installed. However, START requires (at least) perl 5.8.3 for
some of its activities. To check your version of perl, type
perl -v
from the shell interface. The result will indicate the version
of your perl build.
If you need to upgrade your perl, you should ask your system
administrator to do this for you.
The default install will be sufficient to upgrade your current
perl build (without adversely affecting other software on your
system).
Note: START also requires some additional modules to be
present, all of which can be installed by the shell command cpan:
HTML::Entities
HTML::TreeBuilder
Crypt::PasswdMD5
Digest::MD5
File::MMagic
Text::Wrap
Text::Format
Spreadsheet::WriteExcel
Spreadsheet::WriteExcel::Simple
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel::Simple
When you install these modules, the cpan script will also
install all of their dependencies.
2. Ghostscript: All Unix systems have ghostscript pre-installed, somewhere.
It is called gs. The directory including gs should already be in your PATH
variable. START will function adequately with versions 5.04 and above,
using either GNU or AFPL releases.
3. Web Server: Start runs under the Apache web server.
Webserver Options
Install START to run in any space controlled by your
Apache server. Any up-to-date version of Apache will
suffice. However, to run under Apache 2.1 and above, your
server will need the following modules loaded:
mod_actions
mod_auth_basic
mod_authn_file
These may already be compiled into your build. If not,
you can load them via DSO (LoadModule) directives.
While the conference data will be stored in an area
served by Apache, note that this does not mean that it will be
publically exposed. To the contrary, nobody outside your domain will
see the internal data in START. All directories of
START are protected with .htaccess files, the
majority of which allow no access at all.
First, login directly to the server. Now, go to the web
directory where you want to put START. For the sake of
this discussion, we assume you wish to put START at the top
level of your web hierarchy. Assume that your
DocumentRoot is the following directory:
/var/www
If it is some other directory, the same discussion applies
to that directory. In this case, you could carry out
the following steps:
1. Put the START archive in /var/www.
2. Install START from this directory, as per the installation
instructions below. After you extract the files in tarball,
remove the archive from the webspace. Failure to do
this will be a violation of your license agreement, since it
could lead to a free, universal dissemination of this proprietary
software.
3. The setup dialog will prompt you for the URL to access START.
Assume that your DocumentRoot corresponds to the following URL:
http://www.xyz.com
In this case, you should enter the following URL to access START:
http://www.xyz.com/start/www
Of course, if you install START "deeper" in your web hierarchy,
you should adjust the URL accordingly (to account for the
web-relative path down to the start directory).
4. START manages authentication (and other access rights) via
.htaccess files, which are automatically inserted in
all of its subdirectories. To ensure that your webserver
processes the directives in these files, you will probably
need to a container for START in your main httpd.conf file.
Using the running example - in which the entire START directory is
installed directly below your DocumentRoot -
the following code should be inserted in your webserver's master
httpd.conf file.
<Directory "/start/www">
AllowOverride All
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
</Directory>
Optionally route START interactions through an aliased URL,
or through a proxy server.
The setup dialog will ask you if you want to rewrite the
base URL for START's web hierarchy. You might want to do
this under two conditions: (a) if you decide to route
traffic to/from START through a proxy; or (b) if you
alias the publically accessible space for START (thereby
making the URL more simple).
Installing START
1. Put the START archive in the directory above where
you want START to operate.
2. Now type
tar xvfz START.tar.gz # Expand archive.
rm START.tar.gz # Removes tarball from public webspace.
cd start
perl setup.pl # Initiate the installation.
If your workstation is up-to-date, the setup dialog will guide
you through the rest of the process.
4. The URL for the administrator console will be listed
at the end of the setup script. Make a note of it.
5. Change the user/group to be the user/group under which
your Apache server runs. For example, if httpd runs as
user www and group www, then type:
chown -R www:www *
If the apache user/group are not www, then substitute as
necessary.
6. With the admin console, you can set up the conference(s) for
which you licensed START. A hosted conference will have a unique
identifier (usually a combination of the conference's acronym and
its meeting year).
7. After setting up a conference, START will be inform you
of where you can find its manager's console. Use the manager console
to continue setting up the parameters for a hosted conference.
Optional: SPF Conformance
In recent years, some MTAs and spam filters have adopted the
SPF standard, for determining whether an email's sender address has
been "spoofed". Note that START relies heavily on email for
communication from the PC chairs, from track chairs, and
from/between reviewers (if, for example, message boards are used).
The "from address" in the email's header will always be that
corresponding to the person (or entity) sending the mail. This
can occasionally cause problems, if the sending address is not
in your server's domain - e.g., the email may get falsely tagged
as spam.
There is a simple way to prevent this problem: To alter the envelope
to ensure that the sender (and more importantly, the
return-path) always corresponds to an address inside your
domain. This is easy to accomplish, via carrying out a few
simple steps.
1. Create a new username called start on your server.
The following shell command should suffice:
useradd -m -s /bin/false start
The user start need not have login rights. However, it
does need to be recognized as a valid sender for your MTA. Returning
to the example above - where the domain was xyz.com,
the email address
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should now be a valid
email address inside the domain, i.e., the user start
should be able to send and receive mail.
2. In the new home directory (/home/start), create a
.forward file, consisting of one single line:
|/full-path-to-start/process-mail.pl
In the example above, full-path-to-start would be
/var/www/start/ (adjust as necessary for the path
to your "start" directory.
The forward will ensure that any incoming mail will be processed
by START. Why is this necessary? There is only once situation under
which the "user" start will receive valid incoming mail:
that is, when a START user sends mail to someone involved with the
conference, and for some reason the mail cannot be delivered.
At that point, the bounce report
will be returned to your local user start . The purpose of
the forwarding script is to relay the bounce report back to
the START user who initiated the mail.
3. In the setup script for start, you will get the following prompt:
Enter sending address for email (optional):
Enter the new email address for the user start (which, in
our example, would be
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.
At that point, all email coming from your START site will conform
to SPF guidelines.
Upgrades
Whenever a new version of START is released, you will receive
mail about the release. You should upgrade to that
version. You will not need to re-install the Apache
server, or do any of the other work noted above.
Rather, for over-installs you need to only de-compress
the START archive, and put it in exactly the same directory
where you put your first installation.
Then re-run the setup dialog.
An over-install can be done while your server is
up and running. An over-install of START will never destroy
any of your conference-specific data.
Please notify
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if you encounter any difficulties whatsoever. Also, we always welcome feedback on ideas for improvements, add-ons, new features, etc.
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