Thunderstone Support Forums

Background: My ISP tried the first installation, I assume as root, which
didn't take.
At ISP's invitation I tried installing webinator (via Telnet logged in as
user) and several anomalies occurred.



**First error message:

Installing Webinator files
Webinator files installed
----------------------------------------------------------------
I can't find /webinator/wstsbut.gif on http://localhost
Please enter the URL prefix to access the files under
/usr/local/etc/httpd/sites/opinion-pages.org/htdocs on this machine.
Leave this blank to skip this check (at the risk of having broken images).
URL Prefix:


I tried to install twice. The first time I typed in:
/usr/local/etc/httpd/sites/opinion-pages.org/htdocs/webinator

but it stated it could not find any icon files (something like that)
and typing in the above path still didn't satisfy it.
Second install, I just skipped this and got:



Skipping icon check at user request.

Configuring Webinator
INFO: 2 patches made
INFO: 4 patches made
INFO: 4 patches made
INFO: 1 patch made
INFO: 1 patch made
INFO: 1 patch made
INFO: 1 patch made

Existing webinator/index.html preserved.
New sample in /usr/local/etc/httpd/sites/opinion-pages.org/htdocs/webinator/defi
ndex.html .

Previous copy of webinator executable renamed to webinator.previous
----------------------------------------------------------------
There is a previous copy of texis installed in your cgi directory.
Should it be replaced with this version?
NOTE: Owners of commercial Texis should answer NO to this!
yes or no:



To which I answered yes and received back:



Previous copy of texis executable renamed to texis.previous
Existing texis has been replaced.


Please note that those two files were created in the cgi-bin directory
Yet to run search script from installed index page, webinator
expects to find it in:
/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/
which does not exist and returns a 500 Server Error.


**Next error message:

Creating initial empty database
000 Can't get hostname: timeout
000 gethostbyname: No such file or directory
Can't determine this machine's name
----------------------------------------------------------------
Database creation failed.
.. Press ENTER to continue ...



The first time, the database wasn't created either giving the same
message as above.


**Server message:

Existing webinator/search script preserved.
New script in /usr/local/etc/httpd/sites/opinion-pages.org/htdocs/webinator/defs
earch .

----------------------------------------------------------------

Installation complete

Index your WEB site with a command similar to this:
/usr/local/etc/httpd/sites/opinion-pages.org/htdocs/webinator/bin/gw http://w
ww.mysite.com

Access your index with a URL similar to this:
http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/

----------------------------------------------------------------



**Next error message:

After the first install, trying to gw http://www.opinion-pages.org
from the bin directory this message returned:



gw http://www.opinion-pages.org
000 gethostbyname: No such file or directory
Can't determine this machine's name


Second time around, I tried the full path instead of running gw from
the bin directory and got the same message:


/usr/local/etc/httpd/sites/opinion-pages.org/htdocs/webinator/bin/gw
http://www.opinion-pages.org
000 gethostbyname: No such file or directory
Can't determine this machine's name



Please advise. With thanks and apologies for length.

Monty Kersell

It already knows where the files are on the filesystem. It was asking for
the URL to the specified directory. It will usually work ok if you leave
it blank.


/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/ is not expected to literally exist.
"/cgi-bin/texis" is the path to the cgi program. The rest, "/webinator/search/",
is passed as information into the cgi program telling it where to find the
search script.

When you install as a non-root user you will probably have to change
the URL to the correct location for your personal cgi's. We can't really
predict what that would be because every system does it differently.

(The problem below needs to be resolved before the cgi will work though)


Your web server machine is poorly configured. It can't even lookup the IP
address of it's own name. This needs to be fixed for free Webinator to run.
Running:
hostname
will tell you the machine's name.
Running:
nslookup NAME
will get the IP address for the machine named NAME.
Once these standard system commands work, Webinator will also run.