[Dxspider-support] Spider web access in Windows.

Eric Carling eric at g0cgl.f2s.com
Wed Dec 22 19:56:12 GMT 2004


 
Background.
 
Quite a few sysops over a long period of time have asked how to set up the
Spider web access in Windows. I didn't ever see an answer from anyone until
very recently.
 
Credits.
 
Firstly, David N9KT kindly offered to help but it so happened that Keith
GU6EFB (GB7DXG) had already got it working and had done the bulk of the work
with it. Keith passed the information to me but we found that it wasn't so
straightforward and required some debugging. I spent some time doing that
and 
can now try to provide a step by step guide.
 
It is worth remembering David's words about Server security:
 
"I must also advise you that if you are going to do this, you need to read a
lot about securing your web server. If you don't do a good job securing
your web server, you leave yourself open to attacks on the machine running
the web server as well as any machines on the same LAN"
 
The rest of this is mostly Keith's work......
 
 
What you need.
 
I am using XP Professional but it shouldn't matter which Windows OS you have

The spider-web files will be found in the sub-directory of that name in
your distribution.
 
Perl and a Java enabled browser are prerequisits but you should have them 
already.
 
You need a web server. If you already have one and it handles perl cgi
scripts then you are all set.
 
If you don't yet have a server then you can use Microsoft IIS which is an
optional Windows component on your OS installation CD - it may be installed
already from when the OS was loaded or you can install it from the CD now. 
With IIS, perl cgi scripting is not enabled by default. To help you with
this,
download the pdf file at 
http://www.actinic.co.uk/hosting/docs/iis_Server_Setup.pdf
 
Alternatively, download web server software. Keith uses Jana server from
http://www.janaserver.de/ and this server works well for Keith and is easily
configurable. Note though that I had tremendous trouble getting the Spider
web cluster to work in Jana - for Keith it works but for me it was hard
going. I therefore tried some others, the best of which that I found to be
easily configurable and in which the Spider web cluster worked without
trouble, is BRS WebWeaver from http://www.brswebweaver.com/
 
These servers are freeware, there are probably others and doubtless there
will be people on the reflector who have their own recommendations.....I
suggest these two because I had little expertise to draw on and Keith and I
found them to work for us.

It is important to note that the web server and your Spider cluster are
running
on the same machine.
 
 
Setting up the web cluster.
 
Make sure your server has been properly configured and runs. The basic
principles are that it is accessible from Internet, cgi scripting is enabled
to include pointing to your c:\perl\bin\perl.exe path and you know what the
root directory is called. For example in IIS the root is the wwwroot
directory, in Jana it is the html directory and in WebWeaver it is the docs
directory.
 
From the root directory, create a sub-directory called cluster. Example: in
IIS the path would be \wwwroot\cluster
Into the cluster sub-directory, copy to it all the files from the spider-web
directory in your Spider distribution (they are almost all Java files).
Extract from the cluster sub-directory the file called spider.cgi and move
it the directory for cgi scripting. In IIS a cgi scripting directory will
have been created when you followed the setup procedure in the actinic pdf
guide. In Jana it is the cgi-bin directory and in WebWeaver it is the
scripts directory.
 
Next, some changes must be made to spider.cgi by using a text editor like
wordpad or notepad.
 
From the top....find the section referring to hostname and make the changes
as seen below with your own details for hostname, port and nodecall and
remove the comment mark from in front of $HOSTNAME
 
$HOSTNAME = "gb7cgl.tzo.com" ;
$PORT = "7300" ;
$NODECALL = "GB7CGL-1" ;
 
 
Next find the line that looks similar to this:
print(" <APPLET CODE=\"spiderclient.class\" CODEBASE=\"/cluster/\" width=800
height=130>\n") ;
 
Note that in the original file, the line reads ....CODEBASE=\"/client/\"....
 and this part must be
changed to cluster as above.
 
You can go on from here to test it as I shall describe, but note now that
spider.cgi is based on a rudimentary web page design that will need some
creative work. I recommend that you make a copy before writing changes to it
because it is easy to make a mistake that affects the coding of the script.
I viewed it in Microsoft Frontpage and made the changes that can be seen at
http://gb7cgl.tzo.com:82/scripts/spider.cgi - Keith changed his to look like
http://gb7dxg.shacknet.nu and see 'DX Cluster web access' in the left side
menu.
 
Ok, so now test that it works. From your browser, address the spider.cgi
file as per
the examples above. The page will open and the input of a callsign followed
by the
login button should launch the java web cluster applet.

Questions, feedback and reports of success in getting your Spider web
cluster working
in windows to this reflector. Keith and I will do our best to help - bear in
mind that we are 
not experts but we will do our best.

73 de Eric @ GB7CGL-1
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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