Help with Actinic and Virtual Server Set Up

[Jordy]

Hello

I am trying to get Actinic 7 up and running for a virtual domain on our company VPS (Virtual Private Server NTT/Verio VPS2)

The structure of the FTP VPS access is this.

www/
domainname.com/ <- This folder stores all website files
cgi-bin/

Actinic is asking me for the full URL to the cgi-bin ie http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin. However the cgi-bin is located outside the domain name folder.

So how do I specify a URL to a cgi-bin thats located outside the host folder?

Please help

Jordy

[I-CC]

You need to have a cgi-bin (somewhere to run publicly functioned scripts) for all Actinic sites, with most hosting set ups created so that each domain has a usable cgi-bin within its own domain space, so you will need to get that set up before you can proceed, i.e. providing permissions to get perl scripts running etc in the cgi-bin.

[Jordy]

I do have a cgi-bin, my problem is that the site I am trying to build is a virtual host on a VPS. So there is no way to give a true URL because the address is virtual.

For instance The Virtual Private Server is called robell.veriovps.co.uk and off this I can host as many websites as I like all running as virtual hosts.

If I set up a virtual host on the VPS I get some space in order to FTP the websites files to which is where the new virtual hosts files will reside on the VPS. The only time I can see these files is when the DNS tags are transferred to the robell.veriovps.co.uk virtual server. You are unable to see these on the web (even using the ip address) until the DNS tags are transfered because the virtual host site is virtual and any virtual host on the robell.veriovps.co.uk server will resolve to the robell IP address.

So what I have is a virtual server and on the virtual server I have some virtual Host ie.

VPS robell.veriovps.co.uk
virtual host 1: mydomain.com
virtual host 2: earth.co.uk
virtual host 3: myotherdomain.net

The IP address is the same for all of them, it is the robell one. When someone types in mydomain.com, it resolves to the Robell VPS and the VPS tells it to look at which virtual host.

each virtual host has a set amount of space and a specific folder into which the website files go in. here's the folder set up for a virtual host:

mydomain.com -> www/cgi-bin/
/mydomain.com/

The files for the website must go in www/mydomain.com/ So the actinic folder goes in this to: www/mydomain.com/acatalog/

Actinic requires me to give a full URL for the cgi-bin. As you can see, this is not only located outside the mydomain folder but the URL is virtual and doesn't essential exist.

So typing in http://www.mydomain.com/www/cgi-bin doesn't work. I guess this is bacause the URL is virtual as the IP address for mydomain.com resolves to robell.veriovps.co.uk.

So how do I solve this problem? How do I specify a full URL to a cgi-bin of a Virtual Host Running on a Virtual Private Server?

Hope someone can help

Jordy

[cdicken]

I'll begin by saying I am not a server expert.

The first thing to find out is whether you can create a cgi-bin within your domain space. Ask Verio - see what they say. All it is is a folder that can execute Perl.

Alternatively, ask them how you can map a domain address (e.g. http://your.URL/cgi-bin/) onto a folder that is outside of the domain area. In Apache you do this with a 'ScriptAlias' command...

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "www/cgi-bin/"

#
# "C:/Apache2/cgi-bin" should be changed to whatever your ScriptAliased
# CGI directory exists, if you have that configured.
#
<Directory "www/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride None
    Options None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

[Jordy]

Cheers cdicken

That is a big help, I have contacted Verio support and am waiting for them to get back to me. I have had dealings with them before and often their responces are criptic and not straight forward.

As far as I am aware the VPS is the same as any Apache server so I should be able to run a scriptalias comand as you have suggested.

Could you give me the code again (as it appears not to be showing up in your thread) and how to run the script i.e. connecting via a Telnet SSH etc...

Many thanks for you help

Jordy

[cdicken]

Here is the code pasted into the message:

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "www/cgi-bin/"

#
# "C:/Apache2/cgi-bin" should be changed to whatever your ScriptAliased
# CGI directory exists, if you have that configured.
#
<Directory "www/cgi-bin">
AllowOverride None
Options None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

With regards to connecting to the server - if you are using Apache you will need to edit the httpd.conf file which the 'ScriptAlias' command would be located within. This requires access to the server box itself - I don't know if it's the sort of thing you can get at with Telnet.

[Jordy]

Nice one cdicken

Will have a go and report back what happens

Jordy