Installing YaBB on Windows, Apache and Perl. (Parts V & VI)
V: YaBB
Once you have Perl and Apache running, installing YaBB will take a few steps.
Download the latest version of YaBB and put it in ‘My Documents’ Folder on the Desktop. If you are using XP, Vista or Win7, Windows will be able to extract the folders and files from the YaBB.zip file (currently at this time it is: YaBB_2.5_AE.zip). Double clicking on it will extract the files in a folder labeled: YaBB_2.5_AE. Opening this folder will give you the files README.txt and VERSION.txt, and folders Quick-Guide, cgi-bin and public_html. It is these last two folders cgi-bin and public_html that has YaBB in them and you need to pay attention to them.
Double-click on public_html and it will open showing another folder: yabbfiles. Right-click on the yabbfiles folder and scroll down to COPY to copy the folder into memory for the time being.
Now open by double clicking the ‘My Computer’ icon and then the ‘Local Disk (C:)’. There you will see a list of folders for C:, double-click Program Files, then Apache Software Foundation, then Apache2.2. There you will see a folder named or labled ‘htdocs’ double click this folder and past the yabbfiles folder in there. When done, you have completed 30% of the process to install YaBB on Windows through Apache.
The next step is to go back to the YaBB folder where you copied the yabbfiles folder from, and double-click the cgi-bin folder. When the cgi-bin folder is open, there is a ‘yabb2’ folder in there. Right-click on the yabb2 folder and scroll down to COPY to copy the folder into memory for the time being.
Now go back to the Apache folder where the cgi-bin and htdocs folders are in. Double click the cgi-bin folder and paste the yabb2 folder in there. Once the copying is done, you are now 60% done installing YaBB on your Windows/Apache server. The next part is the hard part and is divided in two sections.
First, find where your Perl is. This is information is for your Shebang line. Since I’m using IndigoPerl-9.02, it is installed at C:\perl-5.10.0. From there look for the perl.exe file. This will complete your shebang line, in my case it is #!c:/perl-5.10.0/bin/perl.exe. Your version of Perl will be different but maybe similar too.
Once you have your shebang line, open with Wordpad the following files: AdminIndex.pl, FixFile.pl, Setup.pl and YaBB.pl. Highlight the top line which says ‘#!/usr/bin/perl -’ and paste your shebang line information in its place. Save each file when done. Now 80% of the work is done.
In browser, open page to localhost/cgi-bin/yabb/Setup.pl When asked for password, type in ‘admin’
In setting the paths for YaBB, click the ‘Insert’ button for Absolute Path and then click on ‘Autofill the forms below’. Make sure that all entries have a full directory and full urls with your domain name in it on the right side. Finally at the bottom of the page, click on ‘Save Settings’.
Give it a while to process.
Note: if you get a blank page at this section, it means that your files and folders are not writable. You need to check your YaBB folders and file permissions and uncheck the ‘Read-only’ option, apply and OK. Refreshing the page should bring the section that did not loaded.
Also Note: if you do not have your domain name setup yet, you can use ‘localhost’ as a domain name (not localhost.com, localhost.org, localhost.net, just ‘localhost’). When you get your domain name and have the site online, you can change ‘localhost’ to your domain name in the forum’s administration panel under ‘Path Settings’.
Next page will show you the installed modules on both Perl and YaBB. If there are missing modules, you can always add them later through the Perl CPan Library. With the set up I have, these are the missing modules found:
Net::SMTP:TLS - used to send emails through SMTP:TLS, and not needed to run YaBB unless you want to send emails through Perl. You can use another email system like hMailServer to send emails for YaBB. You would need to configure that in the Adminstration Panel later on.
Compress:Bzip2 – used for the back up feature. Its does not effect the forum itself but as a forum administrator and owner, you will need to back up your forum, mainly the: Boards, Members, Messages, Modules, Sources Templates and Variables folders. You also need to back up the Paths.pl and YaBB.pl files.
Crypt:SSLeay – used for YaBB Spell Checker’s “GoogieSpell.” Without this module, it just means that your members must do their own spell checking. This does not effect the over forum.
After saving this page, the next page is System Set up. Fill in the options you have for your forum: Forum Name/Title, your email, domain name (if any at this time), etc.
The next page is ‘Checking System Files’ where the forum’s set up is checked. If there is an error or issues, you will be alerted to fix them and maybe hinted on how to fix them. In my installation, there were no issues to fix. Click on the ‘Continue’ button to do ‘Forum Settings’.
Next page will be the forum itself, saying that it is in Maintenance Mode, and asking you to log back in as the administrator. User = admin , Password = admin. Once logged in, you will see the forum as it is - blank. Click on the ‘Admin’ button on the button bar. At this point YaBB is running. You will need to go to the Admin Panel to make changes to the forum and get it out of Maintenance Mode. Also go to the ‘View/Delete Members’ page in the admin panel and give the admin user a new password!
Congratulations – It’s A YaBB Forum Done On Windows/Perl/Apache!
But it is a blank forum. All you have to do is make and shape the forum and its sections with the Forum Configurations and add forum sections and posts to get it stated. Put it online, make a few adjustments like adding the domain name in the administration panel, and tells your friends about it. Then watch it grow. All you have to do is administer it. As its owner, you can give administration and moderator rights to those you trust to help you run the site. At this point do a File Property on the YaBB files and the Admin, Modules, Sources, Help folders and set them to ‘Read-only’.
And that’s it.
IV: My Notes
This was done on a Compaq Presario 2700 running a Pentium III at 1Ghz with 256megs of RAM and a 30gb hard drive running Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2. I originally tried to set up WAMP on it but it would not work no matter how many times I tried. I kept getting some sort of ‘kernal32.ddl’ error with WAMP. This was happening on any machine that I tried to install WAMP on. Maybe it is a bad release, bad download or something; I don’t know. I hope the WAMP developers read this so they can fix their software!
The time it took to install Perl and Apache on this system was faster than installing those all-in-one packages. The time it too to install YaBB here was the same as with the other all-in-one systems. This is because copying and pasting files is equal in time. But setting up YaBB through the Setup.pl file was a bit faster in this set up than in other systems. I’ll chalk this up because the all-in-one systems are running PHP and MySQL, which are not needed by YaBB and can slow down a webserver if it is not powerful or lacks in RAM. Nor is the simplicity of installing Perl and Apache any more difficult because these all-in-one programs (WAMP) require that you must install Perl separately with it. Programs like XAMPP and IndigoAMP installs Perl with Apache, PHP and MySQL. The Perl on these all-in-one systems may not be upgradeable, so Caveat Emptor – Buyer Beware. I personally know that Indigo Perl on IndigoAMP is upgradeable, as is their versions of Perl, so I can trust it.
Once Apache and Perl are running on the system, it was rather easy to install YaBB. Since I wrote the Linux and Mac OSX YaBB install files, I can say since they use Apache and Perl, their install procedures were similar and simple, if not the same.
|