Consulting      
        FAQ and Support Pages  

Chili!Soft ASP Slackware [un]-official Release.
--<CURRENT RELEASE IS: v3.5.01-alpha3>--

How to INSTALL Chili!Soft ASP for Linux on a Slackware 7 system. (AND IT ACTUALLY WORKS!)
compiled by Sean D. Ackley ( asp@ackind.net )

[by using the v3.5.01 release of Chili!Soft ASP.]

DISCLAIMER:

Sean D. Ackley. Ackley Industries, or Chili!Soft will not take any responsibility for corrupted or damaged files, systems, or data. As with any hack, you could technically make your system unusable. Please backup everything first, and only experiment on a development system.

Although this installation procedure has been tested, and actually is working, it cannot be guaranteed to work on your system. The nature of Linux has so many variables, this author will not even to attempt to understand your situation. If this script works for you, or you can make it work for you, yeah!

I will be glad to help individual or corporate requests on a per call basis. I have a bulletin board setup for support, and will be updating my web pages as often as possible.  Please let me know any information on your particular situation, and post messages to the BBS.
Please find all current information, and documentation at:

http://www.ackind.net/chilisoft/
CONSULTING SERVICES:
Ackley Industries will assist in your installation if you so desire. I am confident that working together with your configuration, we can get Chili!Soft ASP working on your machine. I will offer a 100% no-charge guarantee on services rendered if I cannot install Chili!Soft ASP per default install instructions on this website. I charge $125/hour due and payable at completion of install. Most installations will take 2 to 4 hours. If my slackware hack of Chili!Soft ASP works as instructed it will take me less than 1 hour to complete (mininum charge).

This guarantee only covers the instructions and software listed on this website. If you want further assistance, like putting together odbc database rules, configuring your ASP website with the database, I will be happy to assist you, for further consulting time.

Ackley Industries (510-538-7172 free phone support NOT available) (asp@ackind.net)

Pre-requisites:

1. Slackware 7 (uses Glibc2, a MUST!)

# If you have an earlier version, you must upgrade, check out the following:
# http://huizen.dds.nl/~frodol/glibc/


2. gzip/gunzip
3. GNU Make
4. Updated GLIBC and binutils
5. GCC 2.8.1 or later (for compiling your own mod_casp2.so)
6. Apache web server, preferably v1.3.9 (will work with 1.3.4)
7. You must download my un-official release of Chili!Soft Slackware for this to work.

NOTE: As of alpha3, the current release will always be here.
http://www.ackind.net/chilisoft/casp-slackware.tar.gz [size: 17.3 megs]
http://www.ackind.net/chilisoft/casp-slackware.tar [size: 66.5 megs]

You can also look into the de-tarred source directory at:
Some files may change periodically, and you may not want to download the whole file again!
http://www.ackind.net/chilisoft/casp-slackware/


Have patience, it will work! If not, send me an email, or update the BBS. I would love to hear your problems so I can write an updated install procedure.

NOTE: Chili!Soft ASP now comes with its own version of Postgres for all internal ODBC database functions. This version of Chili!Soft for Slackware will not directly ask or install other databases.

It does have internal support for MySQL and Postgres. I have a postgres database other than the one that comes with Chili!Soft ASP working just fine with the ASP engine. I have yet to test a MySQL database with it.


1. Download Chili!Soft for Slackware from http://www.ackind.net/chilisoft/

Get onto the Chili!Soft homepage, and get yourself a LICENSE.LIC file for the 30 day trial!


2. Softlink in a libncurses that is needed by Chili!Soft ASP.

cd /lib
$ ln -s libncurses.so.5.0 libncurses.so.4


3. Make sure you have your Apache running properly with the DSO option!! (very much required)

cd /apache_install_dir
./configure --prefix=/var/httpd --enable-module=all --enable-shared=max
make
make install


4. Create linux users "postgres" and "chiliasp". (Will save future headaches)

- use any password for postgres (but write it down)
- use "psailihc" for chilisoft (as stated in the Chili!soft install script)
- Give postgres the /bin/sh shell (needed for the install!)
- Give chiliasp the /bin/sh shell (needed for the install!)


NOTE: Postgres user will most likely only be needed if you want to use your own postgres database.

5. De-tar the downloaded Chili!Soft ASP for Slackware software into its own directory.
Put the LICENSE.LIC file into this install directory.

You should have the following files in that directory:
    DISCLAIMER  
    EULA  
    INSTALL  
    README  
    README.1ST  
    casp-slackware.tar  
    caspi  
    delcasp  
    docs/  

NOTE: I included a utility called "delcasp". It is designed to quickly remove your casp install, in case you are testing the software multiple times. Just make sure to stop all the CASP engines first!

NOTE: Make sure you have any previous versions of Chili!Soft ASP unloaded. You will most likely need to do this by hand.

6. You may want to modify some of the parameters at the top of the caspi script. The following are the defaults:

## CASP Installation Path (default="/var/httpd/casp")
install_path="/var/httpd/casp"

## /var/opt path to put casp/chilisoft.ini file (default="/var/opt/casp")
var_path="/var/opt/casp"

## Do you have the Apache RPM? (default=0)
apache_rpm=0

## Apache Web Server Path (default="/var/httpd")
webserver_path="/var/httpd"

## Admin Port # (default=5100)
admin_port=5100

## .tar file to use (default="casp-slackware.tar")
tarfile="casp-slackware.tar"

NOTE: The caspi installation script calls many variables, other perl scripts, looks into library functions, does parse checking, and a load of other things. Who knows what configuration you may have setup out there. I do know, that a fully loaded, but new installation of Slackware 7 will work with this program without any true headaches. The trick will be to integrate this patch into your existing production system using whatever software you may have loaded.

At the end of this web page I have listed the the places caspi puts things. Look here to see if you may have to modify things yourself.

If your script does not run, it probably means that you are running a Slackware release other than 7, or you have modified your release and default software far beyond what this script recognizes. It can still be run, fixed, and modified, but it needs to be done manually.

7. Run the ./caspi program to start the install.

NOTE: When the following messages come up, enter the following:

Would you like to start the ASP server (y/n): [y] y

You will get a couple errors. I will get these worked out later.  They are harmless.

Would you like to have this server started automatically on system boot (y/n): [y] y
Would you like to set up Chili!Soft ASP's Administration Console (y/n)? [y] y
Would you like the administration console to automatically start on system boot (y/n)? [y] y

Enter the administrator username you would like to use: [admin] admin

Then it will ask for a password entry, just make up a good password and put here.


8. You should now see the following:

Install summary file: /var/httpd/casp/logs/install_summary


Check this file out, and see how your install went!

$ more /var/httpd/casp/logs/install_summary


9. You are NOW done with the server installation, and should have a working CASP engine running!

10. You now need to configure the engine, and test the sample apps.

Change into: /var/httpd/casp/asp-apache-xxxx (whatever the directory is)
Modify the file: casp.cnfg and uncomment the last lines, to use the sample site.
Modify the file: odbc.ini for custom ODBC settings.

Check your /etc/rc.d/init.d and /etc/rc.d/rc?.d directories. caspi puts files in there for auto start, and you may not like them doing the default thing. I suggest removing them, and just put a startup line in rc.local or something.


11. Do a server restart (CASP Engine and the Apache web server)

$ /etc/rc.d/init.d/asp-apache-3044 restart
$ apachectl restart (restart Apache)


12. Check out your sample site now!

http://yourserver/caspsamp


13. HAVE FUN, and God Bless!

NOTES ON caspi INSTALLATION LOCATIONS: (from my defaults)

/var/httpd/casp caspi puts all files and directories under here.
/var/opt/casp/chili.ini caspi puts the version info here.
/var/httpd/conf/httpd.conf caspi updates the httpd.conf with the following info:

Put these where the others are:
LoadModule casp2_module libexec/mod_casp2.so
AddModule mod_casp2.c

Put these where the other handlers are:
## Chili!Soft ASP installer
AddHandler chiliasp .asp
AddHandler chiliasp .asa
CaspLib /var/httpd/casp/asp-apache-xxxx
/var/httpd/libexec mod_casp2.so
/etc/rc.d/init.d asp-admin-xx
asp-apache-xxxx
functions
/etc/rc.d/rc?.d various run level startup scripts.
Check these, before rebooting.

NOTES:

Coming Next will be the instuctions on how to compile Apache with the ASP modules, and more information on how Apache actually works with CASP/Apache/Slackware7. There are so many aspects of this server software that needs to be added here.

updated: 4/3/2000
author: Sean D. Ackley
REVISION HISTORY:

alpha3 [April 3, 2000] [DIR]
----------------------------------------
1. Updated all DISCLAIMER and INSTALL text files.
2. Updated docs/index.html
3. Fixed /bin/sed not found bug.

alpha2 [April 2, 2000] [DIR]
----------------------------------------
1. Updated some DISCLAIMER files
2. Added the install script
3. Added this web page into docs/
4. Started versioning, and control.

alpha1 [April 1, 2000] [DIR]
----------------------------------------
1. First release. Should install fine, on all "out of the box" Slackware 7 platforms.