c. OpenACS Administration

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  1. What does this FAQ cover?
  2. What are the pros and cons of different Linux distributions with OpenACS?
  3. How do I install OpenACS?
  4. What do I do after I've installed OpenACS?
  5. Can I reset the password for a user?
  6. What do I do if I can't login as an administrator to the site?
  7. For some reason, I'm still using Postgres 7.0. How do I upgrade from Postgres 7.0 to 7.1?
  8. Are there any tricks to upgrading from Postgres 7.2 to 7.3?
  9. How do I tune Postgres to make it faster?
  10. Is OpenACS secure?
  11. Why are my users getting logged in as other users (and other caching issues)?
  12. How do I install packages from /contrib?
  13. How do I set up virtual hosting?
  14. How do I get my users' sessions to timeout?
  15. Is there any way to override the parameters used by OpenACS?
  16. Is there a way to download OpenACS packages as a package .apm file?
  17. How do I deal with MESSAGE KEY MISSING errors?

  1. Q: What does this FAQ cover?

    A: This FAQ covers administration of an OpenACS website. That includes setup of packages, administering users, and topics related to that. It does not address programming topics.

  2. Q: What are the pros and cons of different Linux distributions with OpenACS?

    A: Forum thread asking about using Debian on OpenACS

  3. Q: How do I install OpenACS?

    A: Go to OpenACS documentation, click on the most recent stable version, and click on the Install Guide. You also might want to refer to the current documentation, to see if there are updates to the documentation.

    In addition to the install guide, there are binary installers. In general, although the manual installation is more complex and is one of OpenACS's weaknesses, it is worth going through if you are planning on using OpenACS. If you are evaluating OpenACS, however, feel free to try out the binary installers:

  4. Q: What do I do after I've installed OpenACS?

    A: See this guide to installing packages and getting your web site set up:

    http://openacs.org/doc/current/configuring-new-site.html

  5. Q: Can I reset the password for a user?

    A: Go to /acs-admin, click on users, then their user name, then change password

  6. Q: What do I do if I can't login as an administrator to the site?

    A: Did you lock yourself out of your OpenACS site?

    Here's two ways to fix it:

    1. (short, and elegant) Put the command:

    ad_change_password $user_id $mynewpassword
    

    into a public accessible .tcl file and execute it via the web server by browsing to the url. Be sure to assign values to those variables in the lines preceding ad_change_password.

    2 (long and educational -- pain will help you remember not to do it again).

    # su - service0

    $ psql -l

            List of databases
      Name    |  Owner  | Encoding
    -----------+----------+----------
    service0  | service0 | UNICODE
    template0 | postgres | UNICODE
    template1 | postgres | UNICODE
    (3 rows)
    
    ******* service 0 is my db *******

    $ psql service0

    service0=# select object_id from site_nodes where parent_id is null;

    object_id
    -----------
          403
    (1 row)
    
    **** So we want to grant permissions on 403

    service0=# select acs_permission__grant_permission(403, -1, 'read');

    On Oracle that would be: > exec acs_permission.grant_permission(403,-1,'read'); ------------------------------------

    If the problem is that you forgot the administrative password:

    If you have access to the database for the OpenACS installation you can do this:

    Register as a New User, creating a new account.

    After the new user is logged in, click on Your Workspace link.

    Click on What other people see when they click your name.

    The URL for What other people see when they click your name looks like : http://www.example.com/shared/community-member?user%5fid=12345

    The user_id is the last part of the URL, in this case 12345. Remember this number.

    Once you have this information log into the database using sqlplus for Oracle or psql for Postgresql.

    Execute the following command for postgresql.

    select object_id from acs_magic_objects where name='security_context_root';

    Remember the result.

    select acs_permission__grant_perission ( security_context_root, user_id, 'admin' );

    Where user_id is the user_id you remembered previously and security_context_root is the result of the previous query.

    For oracle:

    select object_id from acs_magic_objects where name='security_context_root';

    Remember the result.

    begin acs_permission.grant_permission( security_context_root, user_id, 'admin'); end; /

    This will grant site-wide-admin to the new user you have created.

    Now you can change passwords, add users, or grant admin to other users using this new account.

  7. Q: For some reason, I'm still using Postgres 7.0. How do I upgrade from Postgres 7.0 to 7.1?

    A: Read Pascal Scheffer's guide to upgrading Postgres from 7.0 to 7.1

  8. Q: Are there any tricks to upgrading from Postgres 7.2 to 7.3?

    A: See http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=109337

  9. Q: How do I tune Postgres to make it faster?

    A: Optimizing PostgreSQL.
    PostgreSQL Performance Tuning
    PostgreSQL Database Performance Tuning
    PostgreSQL Hardware Performance Tuning by Bruce Momjian
    How-To: Replacing Slow Loops in PostgreSQL by Joel Burton

  10. Q: Is OpenACS secure?

    A: No software is secure. But we do make every effort to patch security problems as quickly as possible, and many members of the OpenACS community are extremely concerned about security.

    Here is another thread on security: http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=31902

    You can also look at the bug-tracker to see current bugs and security issues.

  11. Q: Why are my users getting logged in as other users (and other caching issues)?

    A: This may be a proxy server problem, not an OpenACS problem. You can work around it, however. See: http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=133971 and http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=143888

  12. Q: How do I install packages from /contrib?

    A: Contributed packages are not supported! However, the best way to do this is to put a symlink to the package you want to install. For example:

    cd ..../packages
    ln -s ../contrib/packages/project-manager project-manager
    

  13. Q: How do I set up virtual hosting?

    A: http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=100780

  14. Q: How do I get my users' sessions to timeout?

    A:

    • Go to Sitemap, ACS Kernel parameters, Security.
    • Set AllowPersistentLoginP to 0.
    • Then set SessionTimeout to whatever you want your timeout to be (in seconds).
    • Next set SessionRenew to some value less than SessionTimeout.
    • Finally, restart AOLserver.
    Thanks, Brian Fenton.

  15. Q: Is there any way to override the parameters used by OpenACS?

    A: You can override parameters in the config.tcl file

  16. Q: Is there a way to download OpenACS packages as a package .apm file?

    A: yes.

  17. Q: How do I deal with MESSAGE KEY MISSING errors?

    A: If you get an error that looks something like MESSAGE KEY MISSING: 'file-storage.Folder_available_via_WebDAV_at then one of the following is true:

    • You are missing a 'catalog' file. If this is happening in the file-storage package, then you would look in /var/lib/aolserver/openacs-directory/packages/file-storage/catalog/ and make sure there are files there that represent the language your website is in. en_US for US English, for example.
    • If the catalog file is there, you may need to import the translations. Go to /acs-lang/admin, and import all message keys.
    • If that still doesn't work, the message key may be missing. Post a bug about it

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