|
|
|
| EasyResponder Documentation
|
In Brief :
1) Unpack the EasyResponder.zip file
2) Edit the easyresponder.config file
3) edit the perl scripts so that they know where to find your config
file.
4) Upload the scripts to your webserver in ASCII mode and set the correct file
permissions
5) Set up the mail filter
6) Set the crontab
7) Browse to the admin script in your web browser and configure the
script's options
If you have any problems installing the scripts look back over these
instructions carefully. If you still have problems, you can mail me
(pete@perlcoders.com) and i'll get back to you in a few hours,
or visit perlcoders.com's tech support channel for live help(use
the link on www.perlcoders.com).
** NOTE TO WINDOWS USERS **
These scripts were written on a unix machine and are designed to run
on unix platforms. You may find that the scripts don't wrap correctly
when view in Notepad, making them hard to read. If this is the case,
try opening them with Wordpad, or go to 'Settings' and change the way
lines are wrapped.
### What is 'a non-browsable' directory ?
This refers to a directory which cannot be accessed via your web browser.
A typical account on a web server may look like this :
/home/yourname
\ ---- www
\ --- logs
Only the files in /home/yourname/www/ are viewable via a web browser.
####################################################################
Detailed Instructions
#####################
1) Unpack the EasyResponder.zip. If you're a Windows user, winzip
will do this. The fact that you're reading this document suggests that
you've done this ok.
#####################
2) Edit the easyresponder.config file
This file sets the urls and directory paths where your scripts are
installed, so you will want to think first about where you are going
to install your EasyResponder.
EasyResponder requires four locations for it's files :
1) A directory for gifs and jpegs used in the menus. This can be
any dir in your webspace.
2) A directory to hold banners. These are the banners ads which
will be displayed to free account users.
3) A directory for your cgi scripts. This could your cgi-bin,
or a folder inside of your cgi-bin.
4) A non-browsable directory. All the other scripts, config files,
settings etc need to be installed in a directory which is not
browsable by the public (a very big security risk). This dir
should be outside of your www root.
As an example, here is the layout of my directories on one of my web
server :
/home/pete is base directory. Inside of it is the folder 'www' which
contains all my webpages :
/home/pete
\-- www
\- logs
Only files inside the www directory can be viewed through a web
browser.
Imagine I have a page called contact.html inside my www folder. The
URL of this page will be http://mydomain.com/contact.html. The *PATH*
to this page however, would be /home/pete/www/contact.html. Please
make sure that you are happy with the difference between paths and
urls.
Here's how I have the EasyResponder installed on my system:
/home/pete
\--- www
\ \--- cgi-bin
\ \ \--- easyresponder
\ \--images
\ \-banners
\
\--- easyresponder
I've created a directory inside my cgi-bin to hold the easyresponder
cgi scripts (just to keep things neat).
Inside my www directory I have two subdirectories for my images and
banners.
And finally outside of the www folder I have a directory to hold
the non-cgi scripts.
You can change the directory names if you like, but unless you have
a good reason, it's simpler to leave them as they are (eg if you
already have a directory called 'banners' you may wish to use
'banners2' for your EasyResponder banners.
You may already have a question at this stage : "how to I know
what my path is?".
Usually when you you ftp in, it will simply show your base
directory as / , your www dir as /www, your cgi-bin as /www/cgi-bin
etc etc. To install these scripts you need to know the *full* paths.
Your webprovider should have information on this on their site. If
not, ask them.
Once you've decided where to install everything, you can start
editing the easyresponder.config file. Don't worry, there is more
help on paths in that file.
#####################
3) Edit the scripts
Once you've edited easyresponder.config, you need to edit a line
in each of the following scripts :
easyresponder.pl
admin.pl
submit.pl
unsubscribe.pl
responder.pl
scheduled.pl
submit.pl
adminsetpass.pl
paypalpickup.pl
At the top of each file you will see the line
$configpath = "/usr/local/apache/easyresponder";
Change this line to reflect the directory where your non-cgi
scripts are installed (it will be the same as the value you set
for $erloc in easyresponder.config).
Don't forget to save the changes you made to these files.
#####################
4) Uploading the scripts
The six scripts
easyresponder.pl
admin.pl
unsubscribe.pl
submit.pl
adminsetpass.pl
paypalpickup.pl
..should be uploaded to the directory you chose for you EasyResponder
cgi scripts. (this is usually your cgi-bin or possibley
a subdirectory such as cgi-bin/easyresponder).
Change the permissions on these six files to 755
filt.pl is a mail filtering script for EasyResponder. We will look
at it section (5)
Everything else should be uploaded into the non-browsable directory
you set in your easyresponder.config file (the variable $erloc). This
directory should have the permissions 777.
Here is a list of the files along with the permissions they should
have:
admin.help 744
easyresponder.config 744
er.help 744
responder.pl 755
scheduled.pl 755
5) Setup the Mail filter
The mail filter is used to allow people to subscribe to a mailing
list by sending an email to username@yourdomain.com. Because of the
wide variety of web server configurations it can be tricky to get
this feature working correctly - for this reason mail filtering is
optional, if you do not wish to use it you can ignore this section.
You will need to know the mail agent used by your webserver - usually
procmail or qmail. This information should be available on their
website.
filt.pl is the mail filtering script. Edit the 3rd line of the script
(the one starting $configpath = ) to point to the directory you set
for your non-browsable scripts (usually /home/yourname/easyresponder/
or similar). Save filt.pl and upload it to the BASE DIRECTORY of your
account - ie /home/yourusename/ or similar. Change the permissions of
this file to 755.
Next you need to upload either:
.qmail (if your mail agent is qmail)
.forward (if your system uses procmail)
Note the period at the begining of these filenames - files like this
have a special meaning under unix, and after you have ftp uploaded
one of them you may not be able to see it through your ftp client.
Don't worry about this, most ftp clients don't show files starting
with a period by default.
Read the file MAILFILTER.txt for more information.
6) Set the crontab
Easyresponder uses cron to schedule it's mail delivery. If you
web provider has a control panel, there is probabley an option
for setting a crontab, otherwise you'll need to telnet/ssh in
and enter it manually. The entry you need to make is :
0 * * * * /path/scheduled.pl
Make sure you change 'path' to the actual path where scheduled.pl
is located. On my system this would be:
0 * * * * /home/pete/easyresponder/scheduled.pl
To edit your crontab via telnet/ssh, login and type
crontab -e
You can now enter the line and save it. To view the tasks you
have set in your crontab, type
crontab -l
7) With everything installed, you are now ready to start using the
EasyResponder. Browse to admin.pl in the cgi directory you chose for
your scripts (usually cgi-bin/easyresponder) and enter your password.
More information is available in the 'help' section of the admin page.
You'll probabley want to create a user account for yourself (even if
you don't intend to use it) simply so that you can familiarise
yourself with how it works. The user page is in the same directory
as the admin page, but with the name 'easyresponder.pl'
|
|
|
 
 
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
