Sellerdeck on a Local Network

[AndyBorrett]

Hello All,

I have followed the instructions in the AUG 'Installing a Standalone Demo on a PC' to set up a computer to run Sellerdeck. This all works fine.


Does anyone know if it is possible to change the setup so that I can connect to this webserver from another computer on the local network? I have had a play with the Apache configuration files but don't really know what I am doing and can't find the information by using Google.

Any pointers will be most welcome.

[NormanRouxel]

You shouldn't need to do anything in Apache.

On the other LAN machines (and even the one you're hosting on) just put the address http://<hostname> into your browser. Where <hostname> is the name you've given that machine.

If not sure what your system name is, open a command prompt and type hostname to get the system name.

Or (using Windows 7) right-click the network icon in the notification area, then Open Network and Sharing Centre. The system name is in View your basic network....

The above will let you connect to the server but you'll find that many bits of the site contain links to http://localhost/acatalog... And localhost always refers to the machine you're using. Fix this by changing all localhost to whatever <hostname> is in your SellerDeck network settings and re-upload.

[AndyBorrett]

Thanks for the info Norman.

Your tip for changing localhost to hostname will save me a load of headache later on.
A tip for anyone reading this later is to export your network settings, open the file in Notepad, replace all occurrences of localhost with hostname, save the file then import it back in to Sellerdeck.
Note: change hostname for the name of the computer

I still haven't managed to get the netbook (running XP) to bring up the page although it works fine on the hosting computer. Next job is to start looking at the firewall and router settings as pinging the host computer works fine.

[AndyBorrett]

All sorted!

It was the windows firewall on the host PC that was blocking the connections.

Open up the firewall and select advanced on the left hand side.
Create a new rule to allow inbound connections on port 80 and Bob's your uncle.

Many thanks for your help as usual Norman

[NormanRouxel]

You're welcome.

P.S. As an experiment, I'm setting up a Raspberry Pi as a standalone server.

[AndyBorrett]

The Raspberry Pie crossed my mind for this job too.
I settled on using an Android TV dongle to 'look at' the server but this has now changed to an old netbook running to an external monitor that will run IE in kiosk mode.

[NormanRouxel]

I've now get a Raspberry Pi running as a standalone server and it's really slow. Especially when running the Perl scripts.

I used http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Raspberry-Pi-Web-Server as a guide. Skipping some steps as I already had a running Pi lurking in a cupboard with both VNC and SSH connections available.

I also installed cpanm so I could add the required Perl modules (I could add to Cart without any but the SearchScript failed until I installed HTML::Entities):

sudo apt-get install curl gcc-4.7
sudo curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo App::cpanminus

Then I loaded HTML::Entities, Digest::MD5, Exporter, File::Temp, LWP::UserAgent, CGI, CGI::Carp.
See http://community.sellerdeck.com/showthread.php?t=44812 for the full list and sequence I loaded them in.

E.g. sudo cpanm HTML::Entities

And made a link ln -s /usr/lib/cgi-bin www/cgi-bin

There were probably some permission settings needed too, but they are as per SD recommendations.

Network settings used (I'm expecting to upload more than 1 site so each one will go in it's own directory within www) were:

HTTPPROXYMODE	0
HTTPPROXYADDRESS	
HTTPPROXYPORT	80
HTTPPROXYUSER	
HTTPPROXYPASSWORD	
FTPPROXYMODE	0
FTPPROXYADDRESS	
FTPPROXYPORT	21
FTPPROXYUSER	
FTPPROXYPASSWORD	
SCRIPTID	12011
SCRIPTEXT	.pl
SMTPHOST	dummy
WEBSITEURL	http://192.168.0.141/v12-quickorderv1/index.html
IGNOREPASSIVEERRORS	true
USERELATIVECGIURLS	false
PATHTOPERL	/usr/bin/perl -X
USEENHANCEFTP	true
FTPBUFFERSIZE	4
FTPCLIENTTIMEOUT	5000
FTPRETRYDELAY	3000
FTPKEEPALIVEINTERVAL	30000
FTPSILENT	false
FTPMAXRETRIES	3
FTPCONNECTTIMEOUT	15000
SMTPAUTHREQUIRED	false
SMTPUSERNAME	
SMTPPASSWORD	
COMPRESSIONPACKETSIZE	1024
COMPRESSEDUPLOAD	false
CATALOGURL	http://192.168.0.141/v12-quickorderv1/acatalog/
ONLINESTOREFOLDERNAME	acatalog
CGIBINURL	http://192.168.0.141/cgi-bin/
PATHFROMCGITOCATALOG	/home/pi/www/v12-quickorderv1/acatalog/
FTPHOST	192.168.0.141
FTPUSERNAME	pi
FTPPASSWORD	*********
PATHTOCGIBIN	www/cgi-bin/
USEPASSIVEFTP	true
FTPPATHFROMCGITOCATALOG

Note that -X in the line PATHTOPERL /usr/bin/perl -X
I got internal server errors without it.

I've not bothered with an SMTP server and have dummy entry there just to keep the network setup happy.