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Mewsoft Open Source Products Installation Instructions Edit Delete Reply with quote Quote
First Post Posted on: 01-21-16 02:31 PM last post first post

Mewsoft Open Source Products Installation Instructions
 

These installation instructions assumes by now you have the program on your computer either by download from the internet or on a CD-ROM or on your hard drive. The program comes as compressed single zipped .zip file. You can always download the latest version .zip file from our website download page or from My Account if the product is not a free using your license number if your license is still valid and active.

These installation instructions applies also for all Mewsoft open source products (Auctionawy, Classifiedawy, Searchawy and Boardawy).
 

Quick Guide
 
  1. Unzip the product file product.zip (for example, boardawy.zip, auctionawy.zip, classifiedawy.zip, searchawy.zip).
  2. Configure your FTP program.
  3. Edit the first line of all *.cgi files to point to location of Perl on your server if required.
  4. Rename *.cgi to *.pl if your server requires the .pl extension for Perl scripts (or to any other extension).
  5. Transfer all files and directories with the same directory structure on your computer.
  6. Change permissions on all files and directories.
  7. Create MySQL (or MS SQL) database from your website control panel.
  8. Run the Admin program from your web browser and setup the program configuration.
  9. Run the main program from your browser.
  10. Register as a user and test the program settings and features.
  11. If you have any problems contact go to Mewsoft Support Forums.
  12. Important Notes.
  13. Congratulations.
     
Details of the installation instructions
 
1. Unzip the product file product.zip (for example, boardawy.zip, auctionawy.zip, classifiedawy.zip, searchawy.zip).

Place the file "product.zip" in any directory on your computer and then unzip it. The unzipped directory structure is the same structure of the program as it should installed on your server. The file unzip under two main directories as follows:

unzip directory/cgi-bin/forum
unzip directory/html/forums

The directory forum and all its subdirectories and files should be transferred to your server CGI
directory which is normally your cgi-bin directory. On Sites that use cPanel control panel, this directory normally under the main website folder public_html/cgi-bin, so you should transfer the folder cgi-bin/forum to the server folder /your root/public_html/cgi-bin/forum.

 The directory forums and all its subdirectories and files should be transferred to your server non
cgi directory (also called documents directory or html directory or root directory) which is normally your httpdocs or public_html or www directory.


 

2. Configure your FTP program
Configure your FTP program to transfer the files as following :

ASCII mode for the files: *.cgi, *.pm, *.ini, *.htm, *.html, *,shtml. *.txt, *.js

Binary mode for all other files types: *.gif, *.jpg, *.dll. *.so, *.wav, *.mov
 
3. Edit the first line of all *.cgi files to point to location of Perl on your server if required.

If required only, Open all *.cgi files only with any text editor like notepad prgram and change the first line only in each file to point to Perl
location on your server. Normally it should be one of the following:

On *.nix servers (Linux, BSD, Solaries, Unix, etc):

#!/usr/bin/perl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl

On Windows servers:

#!C:\perl\bin\perl.exe

You can install and run the script testserver.cgi which comes with the software and it will show you all your server configuration.

If you do not know where Perl is located, ask you system administrator or hosting company, or if you have a Telnet on your Unix server, you may run
these commands to find where is Perl located as well as sendmail program only if your are on a unix server:

which perl
whereis perl


also for the mail program location:

which sendmail
whereis sendmail

Remember to insert "#!" in front of the Perl location directory as follows:

#!/usr/user/perl

 

4. Rename *.cgi to *.pl if your server requires the .pl extension for Perl scripts(or to any other extension).

The executable files comes with *.cgi extension only. This is the extension required on most servers for
executable files. If your server still requires Perl programs to use the ".pl" extension or any other extension,
you should rename *.cgi files to *.pl.
 

5. Transfere all files and directories with the same directory structure on your computer.

These instructions assume that you have FTP access to the server and that you have some basic knowledge of how to use an FTP program to go to different directories on your site, create directories when necessary, and to upload files to your server.

If you do not have this basic knowledge, we recommend getting an FTP program such as this free one http://www.filezilla-project.org/  and reading its documentation thoroughly in order to learn how to use such programs.

When uploading all of the text files for the software, be sure to set your FTP program to
transfer in ASCII mode (the graphics files, such as those ending in ".gif" and ".jpg", should be transferred in Binary mode).
The scripts, Templates, ini files, JS files,  Language files and setup files will NOT work properly if you transfer it in binary mode.

If your FTP program allows you to transfer the directory and all its subdirectories  then you can in one step transfer all the /cgi-bin/forum directory and all its subdirectories
and files to your CGI directory which is normally your cgi-bin directory and also in one step transfer /html/forums and all its subdirectories
and files to your html directory which is normally your httpdocs or public_html directory.
 

6. Change permissions on all files and directories.

Setting permissions is the very important for the program to run correctly. Changing files permissions is different from operating system to another.

If you are on a Unix server (Such as Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc), use your FTP program to change files and directories permissions. Most FTP programs allows setting permissions by selecting the files and right clicking the mouse then selecting the option permissions or as your FTP program manual says.

On Unix servers also you may set permissions from your Telnet program, log into your server using "chmod" command.
Here are the required permissions on each directory and file:

on Unix server:

chmod -R 755 /cgi-bin/forum/*
chmod -R 755 /html/forums/*


on Windows server

On Windows servers setting permissions is different than Unix servers and complicated, you have to go to your website control panel on see how you can set files permissions.

/cgi-bin/forum/* should be read /execute
/cgi-bin/forum/data/* should be write/read
/html/forums/* should be write execute

Of course you can set the permissions according to your server security.
Some subdirectories are empty at the installation time, these directories will be used later by the program.

 

7. Create MySQL (or MS SQL) database from your website control panel.
You need to create  a MySQL or (MS SQL for supported products) database. You create the MySQL database from your website control panel (for example for sites that use cPanel or Plesk). Login to your website control panel, create a MySQL database, then create a mysql user, then add the mysql user that you created to the mysql database you just created and make sure to give that user all the privileges to that database.
 
8. Run the Admin program from your web browser and setup the program configuration.

Now before you go further, you need to know if the required Perl modules installed on your server or not.
If not installed, you will need to contact your hosting company or server administrator and ask them to install these Perl modules.

Please do not contact Mewsoft or ask our support for installing Perl modules, Perl modules has to be installed by the hosting company or the server administrator as it needs server root access unless you have your own dedicated server and you have root user login access to that server, then you can hire Mewsoft to install Perl modules or hire anyone else.

These modules are almost required by all Mewsoft products that uses SQL database like Auctionawy, Classifiedawy, Searchawy, and Boardawy:

Required Modules:
DBI
DBD::Mysql
Archive::Zip
Crypt::SSLeay
GD

Optional modules:
Business::OnlinePayment
Finance::Quote
Mail::POP3Cleint
Finance::QuoteHist

To help you determine if these modules installed or not, run the program "testserver.cgi" from your web browser,
this file is available with the software package in the same cgi files directory. You can access this file from the browser as:

http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/forum/testserver.cgi

Now you have done a great gob. If you have carefully followed all of the instructions above, you are now ready
to start the admin program to complete the program configuration and installation. Please point your browser
to the URL of the "admin.cgi" file as follows:

http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/forum/admin.cgi

where "www.yourdomain.com" would be replaced by your actual domain name or IP address. Please note that if you renamed
the "admin.cgi" file to "admin.pl" or to any other name, you would need to adjust this URL accordingly.

Only each time you run the admin program you need to login as the system admin, the default login "User ID"
is "admin", and the default password is "admin" if any default but normally you will be able to login without User ID and password.

Please change these login information once you login for your system security.

If the "admin" program runs now, then great gob, the remaining part is very easy. You should see now the admin
program main menu.

From the admin menu click on the  "Configuration" menu option. Change all path's and URL's
to point to your server and all other information. These information are very important to run all the software. You can click on the "Tip" link to help you know your paths and URLs.

The next step is to create a mysql database (of course you must have mysql server installed and running on your
server) and put its information in the admin->Configuration.

Next, create the SQL database tables from the admin->Setup Wizard, click on "Create SQL Tables".

Finally, load the default program settings and the default database, this is very important, to do so, click on "Database & SQL Manager", then click on the link "Restore SQL Database From The Text Files Backup".

The last step is from the admin menu also to set the default language for the program to start properly.
To do so, click on "Language Manager" from the admin main menu, then click on "Prepare All Available Languages
" and also set the default language to "English" by selecting the "English" language.

Now if everything done as it should be you have finished the installation.

 

8. Run the forum program from your browser

If you finished all the previous installation steps correctly, you will be able to run the main  program from
your browser. To to so, please point your browser to the main program on your server as follows:

http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/forum/forum.cgi

where "www.yourdomain.com" would be replaced by your actual domain name. Please note that if you renamed
the "forum.cgi" file to "forum.pl" or to any other name, you would need to adjust this URL accordingly.

If the program run and you see the main page, then congratulations, and thanks for this great gob.

 

9. Register as a user and test the program settings and features.

Now the program is running, but to make sure that all the installation process completed correctly, you need to test
all the program functions. To do so, please register as a user and test every single function as it requires the user
to do. For example, edit your registration information, check the emails sent out.

This will help you detect any problems with the program installation, for example, files not transferred in the correct
mode, permissions not set, directories not created, missing Perl module.
 

11. If you have any problems contact go to Mewsoft Support Forums.

In case you were unable to complete the installation process successfully, please go to our site and search the user forum and post your questions and you will get immediate answers and help. of course you can order our installation service and avoid any headache.
 

12. Important Notes
The products are packed as zip file on a Windows computer. If you unzipped the product.zip file on a Unix computer or server, then you need to use the unix utility dos2unix on all cgi and text and templates files to convert the text files line endings from Windows to unix or the program will not work.
 
13.  Congratulations.

Congratulations for using our  software products and thank you for your business with us. Please check our sites for more products and offers.

Best regards,
Dr. Elsheshtawy, Ahmed  Aamin
Ph.D. Physics
Mewsoft President
Mewsoft Corporation
sales@mewsoft.com
http://www.mewsoft.com


Mewsoft Support
www.mewsoft.com

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