Subject : Actinic Catalog installation I recently purchased the software product Actinic Catalog to enable me to sell over the web. In order for Catalog to install the web site properly I need some information. I would be grateful if you could answer my questions below. If any of these are unclear, please could you email support@actinic.co.uk who can clarify any points, and let you know how you can easily support or supply Catalog. The easiest thing for me would be if you quote each question and then fill in your answer to that question underneath it. I can then copy your response into the correct place in the Actinic Catalog configuration preferences. First I need to know if my site will be able to run Catalog : a) Do I have CGI script capabilities? (Yes/No) b) Do I have access to Perl 5.002 or higher at my site? (Yes/No) c) Do I have the ability to update my site using FTP? (Yes/No) d) Do I have the ability to POST data to my CGI scripts? (Yes/No) If the answer to any of the above is "No", please let me know what would be the cost, if it's possible, of upgrading my site for FTP/CGI/Perl. (There is no need to answer the remaining questions). e) Do the http server host and ftp server host each see a different map of the directory structure? (The answer is usually "No" but please see note (i) below). (Yes/No) f) Is the CGI script directory for my site shared with anyone else? (Please see note (ii) below). (Yes/No) If the answer to either e) or f) is "Yes", then please could you contact support@actinic.com for instructions on how to use Catalog on this site. Otherwise, please can you help with the following detailed questions : 1) [Configuration : CGI Script ID Number] 1 Not normally changed (see note (ii) below) 2) [Configuration : Mail (SMTP) Server] What is the full hostname or IP address of the SMTP mail server? (e.g. www.mysite.com) 3) [Configuration : CGI-BIN URL] What is the complete URL of the place where I must place CGI scripts for my site? (e.g. http://www.mycompany.com/cgi-bin) 4) [Configuration : Path from CGI-BIN to catalog directory] The Catalog CGI script needs to know where my web site directory is. What is the path from the directory in which the cgi-bin executes to my web site directory? (e.g. ../catalog/, ..\mysite\) 5) [Configuration : Path to the Perl shell (For Unix servers only)] What is the absolute path of the perl interpreter? (e.g. /usr/bin/perl) 6) [Configuration : Perl extension] What extension should I use for my Perl scripts? (e.g. .pl, .cgi) 7) [Installation : FTP Server Host] What is the full hostname or IP address of the FTP server that has access to the CGI script directory and my web pages? (e.g. www.mycompany.co.uk) 8) [Installation : Username / Password] Will my standard login username and password work with this FTP server? If not, what username and password do I need to use? (e.g. Login: Joe, Password: qr001) 9) [Installation : Path to CGI-BIN] Once I am logged into the FTP session, what is the path to the CGI script directory? (e.g. cgi-bin, ..\cgi-bin, /www/server/cgi-bin, etc.) 10) [Installation : Path from FTP server to Catalog] What is the path from the cgi directory to the Catalog directory as seen by the FTP server (see note (i) below and leave blank if FTP sees things as CGI does) Technical Notes for information only (i) Problems may be encountered if the map of the directory structure differs between the http server and the ftp server due to network disk mounting. For example, if the web page directory is /usr/people/todd/web, the ftp server might view this as same directory as /ragtime/usr/people/todd/web and the http server might view this as /stimpy/usr/people/todd/web. This is the case where fields [Configuration : Path from CGI-BIN to catalog directory] and [Installation : Path from FTP server to Catalog] will differ. (ii) Actinic Catalog creates two CGI scripts and names them nqXXXXXX.pl and caXXXXXX.pl where XXXXXX is a number padded with leading 0's (e.g. nq000012.pl). This feature allows catalog to work in a shared CGI-BIN directory although its script must have a number that is unique in the CGI script directory, and some aspects of installation and running must be performed manually. The web hosting company must check the cgi-bin to find if there are any Catalog scripts already there. If there are, what is the lowest number not currently being used? (e.g. 000002). Regards, Your customer ----------------------------------------------------------------------