Hints to get Ultimate BB running with OSU/VMS

Pardon the lack of formatting of this page, I'm just trying to make this info available quickly.

There are a couple of issues to overcome with getting the Ultimate BB running on the OSU server, but they can all be quite easily overcome. I think I had it up and running in under 3 hours, from first download, and I didn't have this document to help me. :) Note that I -did- already have Perl running.

OK, now what you have been waiting for. Here is a list of the gotchas that I ran into to get the thing to work with the beloved OSU server on VMS. Use this page in conjunction with the instructions on the Ultimate site.

Unzip the distribution -ON A PC-, not on your VMS machine, then ftp the files in ascii mode to your VMS box. This -can- be done on a VMS box, but you'll end up editing lots of double out of the files. Save yourself the trouble, and use a PC.

Next, you have to deal with the "unix" orientation of the documentation. Be sure to totally ignore all instructions as regards to file protection. They actually set lots of things to World:RW. This sounds like a bad idea to me. :). All we have to make sure is that the webserver account has appropriate priveledge to read and in some cases, write to the files and directories in question. Or, even more simply, give ownership of the directories and files to your webserver account.

Per the documentation, you must have Perl v5.x running correctly on your machine. You must have a recent enough version of OSU server (I'd say at least 2.x) that includes the Perl stuff in www-exec.com. Note that instructions on how to get Perl running is beyond the scope of this document, but there is lots of help on the web.

Modify WWW-EXEC.COM in the web root directory to add files with the extension '.CGI' to be included for perl processing. This should be just a single line. Just look for the line that looks for '.pl' and duplicate it for '.cgi'.

Place all BB files with a '.PL' extension somewhere in your "PERL_ROOT" path. I used PERL_ROOT:[LIB.SITE_PERL]. The alternative is to place them in your web root directory, but I didn't want to clutter this directory. Per the documentation, the '.cgi' files go in www_root:[bin], the 'cgi' directory. (-not- the [cgi-bin] directory).

Place, at least initially, all file from the BB 'variable' directory in your web root, www_root:[000000]. This is the default directory that EXEC proceedures run from. More on this later.

Create a directory, doesn't matter where as long as the webserver can get to it, called [ubb]. Create subdirectories as well, [ubb.members] and others per the documentation.

Place a pass rule in the http_paths.conf file to reference the [ubb...] directory tree. (/ubb)

The key file for the main cgi program is ubb.setup. This file is read by the .cgi program, and it expects it to be in the current default directory. (web root). It contains data on where the rest of the stuff is located. When you first do the "setup files" it must be there. Once you do the initial configuration, you con acually point the variable files elsewhere and they will be modified. If you say that the variable files are other than the web root, as I have, it -will- maintain the setup file in that alternate directory. After every change to it, you must move a copy of it back into the web root, so that it can see the changes. I haven't figured out a work around to this yet. I changed it a bunch to first get it running, but haven't touched it since, so maybe it's not too important.

Don't try to use 'sys$sysdevice' as part of file specs. The '$' confuses Perl, apparently. If your installing this on a system disk, create a logical for the system disk and use it in file specs. In the GENERAL SETTINGS input, simply use something like /system_disk/ubb, after defining system_disk to sys$sysdevice in the system logical name table.

Use caution in editing any of the perl scripts. Many, if not all contain lines longer than 255 characters. EDT will destroy them. I was able to use TPU on those that I wanted to tweek.

Just for grins, here is what my ultbb.setup file looks like. It should give you a head start on how to configure yours. Note, 'odedisk' is a systemwide logical.


$BBEmail = "OdeToolkit\@Odetoolkit.HMC.Edu";
$MembersPath = "/odedisk/ubb/Members";
$MyHomePage = "ODEToolkit home page";
$HomePageURL = "http://odetoolkit.hmc.edu";
$BBName = "ODE Toolkit Bulletin Board";
$ForumsPath = "/odedisk/ubb";
$CGIPath = "/odedisk/www_root/bin";
$NonCGIPath = "/odedisk/ubb";
$CGIURL = "http://odetoolkit.hmc.edu/htbin";
$NonCGIURL = "http://odetoolkit.hmc.edu/ubb";
$EmailCheck = "true";
$TimeZone = "PT (US)";
$BBRules = "Considering the real-time nature of this bulletin board, etc.
$ForumDescriptions = "yes";
$DateFormat = "US";
$TimeZoneOffset = "0";
$TimeFormat = "24HR";
$VariablesPath = "/odedisk/ubb/variable";
$EmailBlock = "OFF";
1;

OK, this should be enough to get you going. Feel free to ask e-mail me questions if you have trouble, but I don't think it will be necessary.

You are welcome to peruse the installed bulletin board . All I ask is that you -NOT- register and post unless of course you are into differential equations. On the other hand, if you happen to be interested in ODE solvers, please check out ODEToolkit. It servers up a java base client, and acts as a backend solver for graphical solutions of Ordinary Differential Equations. It was completely written by students here, and will blow your socks off!.

Last modified 16-Jul-1999 by me.