Configuring web publishing
etscape Enterprise Server
3.x clients can use Netscape Web Publisher to collaborate on projects by
directly accessing, editing, and managing file on remote servers. Web Publisher
provides sophisticated features for server clients, such as file management,
editing and publishing, document version control, search, agent services,
access control, and link management.
As the server administrator, you can set many
options that define how web publishing works for your server clients and
how your server's web publishing data is maintained:
When you have configured web publishing for your server, you and your users
can access the Web Publisher home page, by typing in this URL:
http://yourServer/publisher
This displays the home page, which provides a link for downloading the
web publishing plug-in appropriate for your browser and a Start Web Publisher
button, which launches the Web Publisher applet. The page also includes
a set of links to a QuickStart tutorial and to the entire Web Publisher
online help system, Netshare & Web Publisher User's Guide.
The online help system is also available through user components such
as agent services, search, and Web Publisher. To access the help system,
you can use the Help menu command in Web Publisher, or you can click the
Help button on one of the search interface forms, on the Agent Services
page, or on the Web Publisher Services page.
Using Netshare
Netscape Netshare provides a Netscape Enterprise Server user with a personal
home page from which they can store, share, and manage their server documents.
Netshare is a convenient starting point for using the Netscape Enterprise
Server user services: Web Publisher, agents, and search. From their home
page, users can also obtain information about how they are defined in the
server's user directory, such as their name, password, and telephone extension.
To access a user's default Netshare home page, the user types in this
URL:
http://yourServer/netshare/yourUserID
After authentication, the user's default Netshare home page is displayed
with a set of links to many server functions:
-
Web Publisher: Users have direct access to the files and folders in their
home directory.
-
Access control: Users can restrict access to their home directory.
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Check links: Users can check the links in their home directory.
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Agents: Users can manage their agents on the server.
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Search: Users can search on any collection set up for their server.
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User info: Users can review and modify their user information.
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User's Guide: Users can look at Netshare online help.
When you create a Netshare home directory for a user, the user is assigned
as the owner of the directory and all its files. By default, only the owner
can write to the directory although other users can read the files. Others
cannot make any changes to the files unless the owner explicitly provides
such access permissions.
Setting up the server and creating Netshare home directories
As the server administrator, you need to configure Netshare for your server
and for your server's users before they can use Netshare. Once you have
set up Netshare, you need to create a Netshare home directory for any user
or group who wants to use Netshare. Netshare provides two types of
interface for server administrators: Server Manager forms (Set
Up Netshare and Create Netshare)
and a netshare command-line
utility.
This section on using Netshare covers these topics:
Before you start
Before you set up Netshare for your users, you need to be sure that the
Web Publishing functions are turned on for your server, that you understand
how Netshare's default naming conventions operate, what the configuration
file contains, and what it means to mark as user as licensed.
Server
features that must be enabled
In order to use the functions of Netshare fully, including Web Publisher,
link management, agents, and search, each of these functions must be turned
on for your server. By default, they are disabled.
To turn on the Web Publisher, follow these steps:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
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Click Web Publishing State.
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Click the On radio button.
-
Click OK.
To turn on link management, follow these steps:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click Link Management.
-
Click the Link Management On radio button.
-
Click OK.
To turn on agents, follow these steps:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click Web Publishing State. (This must be on.)
-
From the Server Manager, choose Agents & Search.
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Click Agent Management. (Agents must be enabled.)
To turn on the search function, follow these steps:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Agents & Search.
-
Click Search State.
-
Click the On radio button.
-
Click OK.
Netshare directory naming conventions
To facilitate handling large quantities of individual home directories
for every Netshare user, a naming convention has been defined. Its format
is <doc-root>/<netshare directory>/<home directory>. The
default is to use the primary document directory for your server (<server>/docs),
to use /netshare as the Netshare directory, and to use the user's
User ID as the home directory's name. Thus, on a default Windows NT installation
for the user JDoe, the Netshare user's home directory would created
be at C:\Netscape\SuiteSpot\docs\netshare\JDoe.
As server administrator, you can select one of the additional document
directories defined for your server as the document root, and you can define
different directories for the Netshare and home directories. If you change
these values on the Server Manager Set Up
Netshare form, the configuration file is changed to reflect your changes,
and all home directories added subsequently use the new directory values.
If, however, you use the netshare
utility to indicate different directories, the configuration file is
not changed, so only the user directories currently being added are affected.
One situation in which you might want to change the default directory
path is when you want to create a home directory for a user that does not
map to their user ID. For example, the user JDoe wants an additional Netshare
directory called Project1. In this case, the user ID would be
JDoe and JDoe would be assigned as owner of the Project1
directory.
The Netshare configuration file
Netshare uses a configuration file, netshare.conf, that contains
the following data:
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Document root
-
Netshare parent directory
-
Template filename
You can only modify this file from the Set
Up Netshare form or manually through a text editor. When you use the
netshare utility, the
configuration file is not affected.
When you use the Set Up Netshare form to change a default directory
or template file, you are updating the values in the configuration file.
From then on, any home directory that you create uses the new values.
Marking users as licensed
In order to create a Netshare home directory for a user, the user must
be marked as having been granted a Client Access License for a Netscape
Enterprise Server.
Note
After your server is installed, before being able to mark a user as
licensed, you need to go to the Set Up Netshare form (by clicking the Web
Publishing button in the Server Manager). Displaying this form causes an
essential modification to an internal configuration file. You need only
do this one time after the server is installed.
There are several ways to do this:
-
For a new user, mark the licensing as part of creating a user by following
these steps:
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From the Administration Server, choose the Users & Groups function.
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On the New User form, enter the user's information.
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Click Create and Edit User
-
Click Licenses.
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Check the checkbox labeled "Netscape Enterprise Server" and click Save
Changes.
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For an existing user, mark the licensing in one of these ways:
-
as part of creating an individual Netshare home directory through the Server
Manager form
-
as part of creating an individual Netshare home directory through the netshare
utility
-
by following these steps:
-
From the Administration Server, choose the Users & Groups function.
-
On the New User form, click Find. (Use wildcards as necessary to define
your search.)
-
On the form listing all matched user IDs, click the desired user ID.
-
On the user information form, click Licenses.
-
Check the checkbox labeled "Netscape Enterprise Server" and click Save
Changes.
For a set of existing users, mark all users as licensed by using the netshare
utility.
Access control for Netshare
When you create a Netshare home directory for a user ID, the server assigns
the user as its owner and the user is the only one who can write to the
directory. Other users can read the user's files, but cannot make any changes
to them unless the user explicitly provides such access permissions.
The default access permission is to allow anyone defined as a valid
server user to read any Netshare directory, but only the designated owner
of the Netshare home directory can modify the files.
This is the default ACL that is applied to the Netshare parent directory:
allow (all) user = 'owner';
When you create a Netshare home directory for a group, the server assigns
ownership of the files and folders in that directory to the owner's user
ID. This also gives all users in the group read-write access permission
for all files and folders in the home directory. Because this requires
creating a new ACL rule for this particular group, this forces the server
to restart to pick up the new ACL information.
Using the Server Manager forms
You can use the Set Up Netshare and
Create Netshare forms that are
available through the Server Manager. These provide a more accesible interface
for updating the Netshare configuration file and creating Netshare home
directories.
The Set Up Netshare form
The Netscape Enterprise Server user interface available through the Server
Manager provides the Set Up Netshare form that you can use to modify the
Netshare configuration settings. You can change some of the Netshare configuration
information for your server and the configuration file is updated with
your changes. When you have set up Netshare for your server, you can create
Netshare home directories for your users.
To change the values in the configuration file, follow these steps:
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From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
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Click Set Up Netshare.
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Enter the new directory or template file values:
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Netshare document root
Choose from the dropdown list of document directories defined for your
server to change which is to be the document root for Netshare. This is
where the Netshare parent directory and all the individual Netshare home
directories are to be placed. The list displays the physical pathname for
each document directory.
-
Netshare parent directory
The path for the Netshare parent directory that is to contain the individual
Netshare home directories. By default, this is /netshare, so when
you create the default Netshare home directory for a specific user, it
is named the /netshare/<userID> directory. If any directory
in the path does not exist, Netshare creates it for you.
-
Name of template file
The file that contains the names of the template files used in creating
the Netshare home pages. The default is the netshare.lst file,
which is located in the <server-root>/bin/https/admin/html
directory.
-
Click Save to save your changes or Reset to return to the default values.
The Create Netshare form
There are three choices for creating Netshare home directories from the
Server Manager: for an individual user, for a specified group, or for all
users who have been marked as licensed. The last choice is particularly
useful for server adminstrators who wish to add Netshare home directories
for all existing users.
Note: You must have already set
up Netshare for your server before you can create Netshare home directories
and Web Publishing must be enabled before your users can use Netshare.
To create a Netshare home directory for a single user, follow these
steps:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click Create Netshare.
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Click the "A single user" radio button.
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Enter the user's user ID.
-
Ignore the Owner field.
-
[Optional] Enter another Netshare home directory if you do not want to
accept the default of using the user ID.
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Click the Create button.
This marks the user as licensed
if not yet marked as such, creates the user's Netshare home directory,
and assigns ownership of the files and folders in that directory to the
user ID that was entered. If you attempt to create a home directory that
already exists, you receive an error message.
To create a Netshare home directory for a group, follow these steps:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click Create Netshare.
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Click the "A group" radio button.
-
Enter the name of the group.
-
Enter the name of the group's owner. This must be a valid member of the
group.
-
[Optional] Enter another Netshare home directory if you do not want to
accept the default of using the group name.
-
Click the Create button. This restarts the server because you have added
a new ACL, granting special access to the members of the group. When you
add a single user's Netshare, the default ACL is sufficient.
This marks the group's owner as a licensed
user if not yet marked as such, creates the group's Netshare home directory,
and assigns ownership of the files and folders in that directory to the
owner's user ID. This also gives all users in the group read-write access
permission for all files and folders in the home directory. If you attempt
to create a home directory that already exists, you receive an error message.
To create Netshare home directories for all users at once, follow these
steps:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click Create Netshare.
-
Click the "All users marked as licensed" radio button.
-
Click the Create button.
This searches through the local or LDAP user directory for your server
and creates a Netshare home directory for each user who has been
marked as licensed but who does
not yet have a Netshare directory. If you attempt to create a home directory
that already exists, you receive an error message.
Note: You can use the netshare
utility (the -l option) to perform a batch update, marking
all users as licensed, before using this form.
The netshare command-line utility
Server administrators can use the netshare command-line utility
to define the Netshare configuration settings, create Netshare home directories
for an individual user or for a batch of users, and display the online
help.
Several values are defined in the configuration file. See the section
on syntax for details. To accept
the default values from the configuration file, skip these command-line
options. (Some examples of how
you can use netshare are provided for your convenience.) When you enter
a different value for an option, it only applies to the home directory
or directories being created at that time. If you want to modify the configuration
file, you must use the Server Manager form or use your local text editor
to edit the configuration file manually.
You can use the netshare command-line utility to:
-
create a Netshare home directory for an individual user
-
create a Netshare home directory for a group
-
create Netshare home directories for all users marked as licensed
-
mark all users as licensed
When you use the netshare utility to create a Netshare home directory for
an individual user, the server marks the user as licensed if not yet marked
as such, creates the user's Netshare home directory, and assigns ownership
of the files and folders in that directory to the user ID that was entered.
When you use the netshare utility to create a Netshare home directory
for a group, the server marks the group's owner as a licensed user if not
yet marked as such, creates the group's Netshare home directory, and assigns
ownership of the files and folders in that directory to the owner's user
ID. This also gives all users in the group read-write access permission
for all files and folders in the home directory.
When you use the netshare utility to create Netshare home directories
for all users at once, the server searches through the local or LDAP
user directory for your server and creates a Netshare home directory for
each user who has been marked as licensed but who does not yet have a Netshare
directory.
Syntax of the netshare utility
netshare -u user_ID -r server_root -s server_name [-alXxv -d dir_name -o owner -g group]
Required fields: You must provide the name of your server instance
and the path for your server root so that the utility can locate the appropriate
configuration file for your server. You must use either the -a
(all users) or the -u (single user) option to indicate which user
directories you want to create.
-u user_ID |
Identifies the user ID to assign as the owner of the Netshare home
directory, marks this user ID as licensed if it hasn't already been marked,
and creates a home directory with this user ID unless the -d option has
also been used. |
-r server_root |
Specifies the Netshare root. |
-s server_name |
Indicates the name of the Enterprise Server instance you are currently
configuring for Netshare. |
-r server_root |
Specifies the Netshare server root. |
[-a] |
Creates Netshare home directories for all users that are marked as
licensed. |
[-l] |
Marks all users as licensed Netshare users. |
[-X] |
Marks users (or specific user if -u option is included) as no longer
licensed Netshare users and deletes user directories. |
[-x] |
Marks users (or specific user if -u option is included) as no
longer licensed Netshare users. |
[-v] |
Displays progress information as the operation proceeds. |
[-d dir_name] |
Specifies a name for the Netshare home directory that overrides the
default name, which is the user ID or group ID. If the directory does not
exist, Netshare creates it for you. |
[-o owner] |
Identifies the user ID to assign as the owner of the Netshare home
directory that is being created for a group, and marks this user ID as
licensed if it hasn't already been marked. This field is required if you
use the -g option. |
[-g group] |
Creates a Netshare home directory for this group ID unless the -d option
is also used. Defines an ACL for the Netshare home directory being created
that provides read-write permission for each user in the group. You must
also use the -o option because a user ID needs to be assigned as the owner
of the group's Netshare home directory. |
Examples of using the netshare utility
netshare -r /export/ns-home -s moray -u JDoe
(For the server instance moray, creates a Netshare home directory
called /JDoe, assigns JDoe as its owner, and marks the
user as licensed if not yet marked.)
netshare -r /export/ns-home -s churchill -l -a
(For the server instance churchill, marks all users as licensed
and then creates a home directory for each user, assigning them ownership
of their own Netshare directory.)
netshare -r /export/suite-spot -s iguana -g Marketing -o JDoe -d mktg1
(For the server instance iguana, creates a home directory called
/mktg1 for the Marketing group, with JDoe assigned
as owner.)
netshare -r /export/enterprise -s sylvester -u JDoe -d Project1
(For the server instance sylvester, creates a home directory called
/Project1 for JDoe .)
netshare -r /export/ns-home -s bonzini -x
(Unlicenses all Netshare users known to server instance bonzini.)
netshare -r /export/ns-home -s bonzini -X -u FredB
(Unlicenses FredB and removes FredB's directory .)
Setting access control for Web Publisher owners
The access control system supports a special user
called owner. When an ACL rule designates the user to be the owner,
the permissions defined by this rule apply to the owner assigned by Web
Publisher for each document. For example:
allow (write, delete) user = owner;
Note
Do not create a user with the username of owner.
Ownership of web publishing documents can be assigned
either through the Web Publishing|Index and Update Properties form or through
Web Publisher. The Index and Update Properties form allows you to do a
bulk assignment of ownership to a set of documents and Web Publisher performs
individual assignments of file ownership to a user when the user publishes
or uploads the file.
Only the owner can modify the access control (ACL)
rules for a file. These rules define the actions users can perform on the
file, such as moving, copying, renaming, or deleting it. An owner can reassign
ownership of a file to another user, and if a file has no owner, anyone
with a valid username can identify themselves as its owner. Because the
username identified as the owner of a file can change, any access control
that you place on a file should target the owner of a file rather than
a specific username.
If the default access control (ACL) that governs
your server is not restrictive or flexible enough for your web publishing
needs, you can use the Server Preferences|Restrict Access function to create
an ACL that is more appropriate for web publishing.
For example, you could create an ACL like this:
acl "uri=/publisher/";
allow (read, execute, list, info) user = anyone;
allow (write, delete) user = owner;
This ACL sets a restriction such that only the owner
of a file within the additional document directory of /publisher
can modify or delete the file.
See Chapter
6, "Controlling access to your server" for more information about setting
access control.
Note
If you expect web publishing users to publish documents to a directory,
you need to set the Unix file permissions to give them write access to
that directory. You should also disable write permissions for directories
you do not want them to publish to.
Indexing and updating properties
Before users can perform a search across a set of
documents and directories, information about the documents and directories
needs to be indexed into the web publishing database. The web publishing
database is stored as a search collection and is created as part of the
server installation process. Initially it contains no data and must be
populated by indexing the documents in the document directories.
The Web Publisher window lists the files and folders
that are in the document directory selected when a user starts up Web Publisher,
but the data initially is not indexed (and therefore is not available for
searching) and the files have no owners (so anyone can define their username
as the owner of a file, and thereby be able to set the access control for
a file).
You can use the Index and Update Properties form
to perform bulk indexing of documents to create searchable web publishing
data and you can also use it to do a bulk assignment of owner for the files
included in the collection. You can restrict or expand the scope of documents
and directories to be indexed, and you can index just the file properties,
called metadata, or you can also index the documents' contents.
If you choose to index the contents of the files, you can search on any
word in the documents although publishing and uploading files with Web
Publisher may be slightly slower.
Note
Using this function clears the link status database of all current
link checking information. You must recheck your links after indexing files.
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Index and Update Properties link.
-
The Document Directory field displays the currently selected directory.
You can index documents in the primary document directory, an additional
document directory, or in a subdirectory. If
you want to index a different directory, click the View button to see a
list of directories. You can index any directory that is listed or you
can view the subdirectories in a listed directory, and index one of those
instead. Once you click the index link for a
directory, you return to the Index and Update Properties form and the directory
name appears in the Document Directory field.
Note
You can index the contents of your users' files and folders that are
in their default user home directories as defined by the Content Management
| User Document Directories function.For example, if user document directories
are active on your server and the default ~USERNAME/public_html
has been defined for your server, that entry is displayed as one of the
permitted document directories you can index. This indexes all user document
directories that exist currently on your server according to the criteria
you select in the Index and Update Properties form.
Note
You cannot use this function to index files that are larger than 3MB
in size. You can, however, do an automatic indexing of such large files
through the Property Sheet in Web Publisher (through the Web Publisher
View|Properties menu command) by checking the "Make contents searchable"
checkbox.
-
To also index the subdirectories within the specified directory, click
the Include Subdirectories checkbox.
-
You can index all files in the chosen directory by leaving the default
*.* pattern in the "Include files matching pattern" field or you can define
your own wildcard expression to restrict indexing to documents that match
that pattern.
For example, you could enter *.html to only index the content
in documents with the .html extension, or you could use this pattern
(complete with parentheses) to index all HTML documents:
(*.htm|*.html)
You can define multiple wildcards in an expression.
See Chapter 3, "Managing your
server" for details of the syntax for wildcard patterns.
-
If this is the first time you index web publishing documents, check the
"Index unindexed documents" checkbox.
In subsequent indexing operations, you can uncheck it or you can leave
it checked to index any new documents that have been added to the document
directory.
-
You can make a change to files that have already been indexed.
For example, you can use the "Update previously indexed documents" option
to do a bulk ownership assignment or to index the content of files that
did not have this option set when they were first indexed. These options
are useful when you change many files at once. You can use the Web Publisher
client to index and update individual files.
-
You can do a bulk assignment of ownership to all files that match your
criteria.
To do this, check the "Set document owner to" checkbox and type in a
username. Be sure to type in a valid username because the server does not
perform any validity checks on the name. This updates the owner property
in each file's collection entry.
-
To index the document content, check the "Index document contents" checkbox.
You can choose to index the documents' contents as well as their file metadata.
-
Click OK to begin indexing and updating web publishing.
A summary of the indexing operation is displayed
in the web browser window. The information is also logged to the yourServer/plugins/content_mgr/logs/wpsimport.log
log file. New data is appended to the log, so you may want to monitor
its size as you proceed through many indexing operations.
Note
Once you have indexed documents into the web publishing collection,
don't change any document directory's URL mapping or the collection's entries
will target the URL mapping to the wrong physical file location. If you
have to change a document directory, you need to reindex the documents
in the new location. You can use the Repair function to remove the indexed
data from the old directory mapping.
Changing the web publishing state
You can activate web publishing and you can turn
it off. If you turn off web publishing, you also turn off link management.
Documents that are subsequently moved or renamed may have incorrect links,
and the link status database may not be up to date. The solution is to
use the Web Publishing|Link Management function to manually turn link management
off and then turn it back on again. This starts the link management function
up again with an empty link status database. See
"Changing the link management state" for more details of link management.
Note
If you turn web publishing off, all agents for the server are
also turned off and clients cannot use Netscape Web Publisher to access
agent services. When web publishing is turned back on, agents that were
turned off solely because web publishing was turned off are turned back
on. Agents that were disabled for other reasons are still disabled.
Warning
If your server is outside the firewall, Netscape recommends that you
turn off directory indexing (from the Server Manager, choose Content Management|Document
Preferences and click the Directory Indexing None radio button) as well
as web publishing. This ensures that your directory structure, filenames,
and web publishing features are not accessible.
To change the web publishing state:
-
Select your server on the Server Administration page.
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Web Publishing State link.
-
To turn web publishing on, click the On radio button. To turn it off, click
the Off radio button. The default value is On.
-
Click OK to change the state of web publishing on your server.
Setting the web publishing language
You can change the web publishing language to any
language supported by the user's installation, and these are listed for
the server administrator in a drop-down list on the form.
Note
Be cautious when using this function. If you change the language
of a collection, the system deletes all the existing data in the collection.
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Web Publishing Language link.
-
Select a language from the drop-down list. The default is English.
-
Click OK to set the language.
Your changes are reflected in the language.conf
file, which is located in the server_root/plugins/search/admin
directory.
After you change the web publishing language,
your server is automatically restarted to apply the change.
Maintaining web publishing data
Web Publisher maintains multiple sets of data about
the documents that are in the web publishing collection. When all web publishing
data is synchronized, each file in the chosen document directory has a
record in the web publishing collection and every property record in the
collection has a corresponding file in the document directory.
Although you can limit the scope of the Repair
and Report functions to checking only the files in a particular document
directory for collection records, every property record in the collection
is checked for a corresponding source document regardless of which directory
the file might be in.
Occasionally, these can become out of synch. You
can obtain a report on the state of your web publishing files, and then
repair one or more directories as needed. For example, if a document that
was indexed into a collection is deleted, there is a record in the collection
that no longer has any corresponding source document. Repairing removes
the collection records for any such document.
You can perform these functions to maintain your
web publishing data:
-
Report on the collection's data
You can produce a report on the current logical consistency of the web
publishing collection's data. This lists all the files in the selected
document directory and also lists all the records in the web publishing
collection, regardless of which directory the collection data corresponds
to. The report indicates which files are not yet indexed (and therefore
don't have records in the web publishing collection) and which records
have no source document (and therefore should be repaired). The report
highlights errors and indicates what the result of the repair would be.
For example, "Repair will delete Properties Record."
The report provides a short summary at the end
of the log file, indicating how many directories and files have been checked,
how many repairs are recommended, and how many errors have been encountered.
-
Repair the collection
You can repair the web publishing collection's logical consistency.
This function repairs the files in the selected document directory and
produces a report similar to that from the Report function. The Repair
function indicates on the report which repairs have been completed and
what the repair accomplished. For example, "Repair: Removing Properties
Record."
-
Optimize the collection
You can optimize the web publishing collection to improve performance
if you frequently add, delete, or update documents or directories in your
collections. An analogy is defragmenting your hard drive. Optimizing is
done automatically when you reindex or update a collection, so you should
not need to do additional optimizing. One situation when you might want
to optimize a collection is just before publishing it to another site or
before putting it onto a read-only CD-ROM.
Periodically, you may want to maintain your web publishing
collections. You can perform the following collection management tasks:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Maintain Web Publishing Data link.
-
You can define the scope of the Repair and Report functions by choosing
the document directory to check through. If you want to use a different
directory, click the View button to see a list of directories. You can
report on or repair any directory or subdirectory that is listed.
Once you click the link for a directory, you
return to the Maintain Web Publishing Data form and the directory name
appears in the Document Directory field.
-
To also report on or repair the subdirectories within the specified directory,
click the Include Subdirectories checkbox.
-
To report on the collection, click the Report button. This reports on the
selected document directory.
-
To repair the collection, click the Repair button. This repairs inconsistencies
in the selected document directory.
-
To optimize the collection, click the Optimize button. This optimizes the
entire web publishing collection.
Changing the link management state
At times, you may not need automatic link checking
and updating. At these times, you can turn link management off to conserve
resources and to improve searching and indexing performance. When you turn
link management off, Web Publisher stops doing automatic link checking
and you cannot use the Check Links function from the Web Publisher Services
page.
You can also use this form to selectively turn
the automatic link update feature on and off. When automatic link updating
is on, Web Publisher changes the outgoing and incoming links in a file
to keep them up to date as files are moved and renamed in Web Publisher.
Because this revises the modification date for any file that has updated
links, this feature is off by default.
Note
The automatic link update feature only affects links outgoing
to or incoming from moved or renamed files. It does not affect HTML files
that are being uploaded or published. Provided that link management is
on, the links in these files are always updated as part of the upload or
publish operation.
For further information about link management in
Web Publisher, access the online Netshare & Web Publisher User's
Guide through the Help menu command in Web Publisher or the Help button
on the search interface, the Agent Services page, or the Web Publisher
Services page.
-
Stop your server. Use the Server Preferences On/Off form or simply click
the green light ON indicator for your server instance at the Server Administration
page.
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Link Management link.
-
To change the state of link management, select the On or Off radio button.
To deactivate link management, select the Off
radio button. This clears the link status information so that when you
try to check links in Web Publisher, you get an error message, and you
cannot access any link status information.
To reactivate link management, select the On
radio button. This starts link management up again, which creates a new
empty link status database. To get link status information, you must again
check links for all your files. Links that have changed status since you
turned link management off may have to be manually fixed.
-
To turn automatic link updating on, select the On radio button. You can
only turn this on when link management is on.
This starts up automatic link updating, which
revises links from or to files that are subsequently moved or renamed.
It does not, however, affect the links in any files that were moved or
renamed while automatic link updating was turned off.
-
Click OK to apply your change.
-
Restart your server.
Setting the version control archive
Netscape Web Publisher includes a version control
system for keeping track of files and documents as they are updated and
changed. Web Publisher manages version control for you, allowing you to
compare different versions of a file, providing version history for any
file under version control, and automatically incrementing version numbers
for files edited under version control.
For further information about version control
in Web Publisher, access the online Netshare & Web Publisher User's
Guide through the Help menu command in Web Publisher or the Help button
on the search interface, the Agent Services page, or the Web Publisher
Services page.
Files under version control are stored in an archive
directory. The path in the default installation is server_root/plugins/content_mgr/archive.
Web Publisher uses this archive to store all files under version control.
Note
If you are changing the archive directory but
keeping the version history intact, you must have (a) already created
the new directory, (b) moved the version history files to the new directory
as mentioned in step 2, and (c) deleted the old archive directory. If you
don't want to keep the old version history, you don't need to move the
files to the new directory, but you must do the other two steps (a and
b) or this function will fail.
To specify a different directory for Web Publisher to use as the version
control archive directory, follow these steps:
-
Stop the server. Use the Server Preferences On/Off form or simply click
the green light ON indicator for your server instance at the Server Administration
page.
-
Move your current version control directory to the desired new location.
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Version Control link.
-
Type the full path for the archive directory in the Archive Path field.
-
Click OK to set the archive directory.
-
Restart the server.
Unlocking files
If a file that has been locked in Web Publisher is
required for another user, you can unlock it. This is true for files that
were locked manually by the client or automatically by Web Publisher as
part of an edit or download operation.
For further information about locking and unlocking
files in Web Publisher, access the online Netshare & Web Publisher
User's Guide through the Help menu command in Web Publisher or the
Help button on the search interface, the Agent Services page, or the Web
Publisher Services page.
Be cautious in using this function because by unlocking a file
that was locked, you are forcing the file to be available for editing by
other users. This is contrary to the intent of the lock owner, who may
not know of the unlocking operation.
To unlock a file:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Unlock File link.
-
The Choose field displays the currently selected file or directory.
If you want to unlock a different file or a file
from another directory, click the View button to see a list of resources.
You can unlock files that are listed or you can view the files in a listed
directory, and select one of those files. Once
you click the unlock link for a file, you return to the Unlock File form
and the filename appears in the Choose field.
-
Click OK to unlock the file.
After you unlock a file, your server is automatically
restarted to incorporate the lock change.
Note
You cannot use this form to unlock a file that begins with
a period (as in .cshrc), a plus (+), an equals sign (=), an ampersand
(&), or any hexadecimal character. You have to log into Web Publisher
as the user and unlock the file there.
Adding custom properties
As server administrator, you can add your own custom
Web Publisher file properties. These properties are added to the default
set of file properties stored in the web publishing collection. Server
clients can view visible custom properties in Web Publisher and use them
in their document searches.
For further information about viewing and modifying
properties in Web Publisher, access the online Netshare & Web Publisher
User's Guide through the Help menu command in Web Publisher or the
Help button on the search interface, the Agent Services page, or the Web
Publisher Services page.
There is a limit to the number of each type of property you can have.
These are the default settings:
-
Text (a maximum of 30).
-
Numeric (a maximum of 5).
-
Date (a maximum of 5). Dates are formatted as month/day/year, and year
can be two or four digits.
You can change the maximum settings for these in
the webpub.conf file, although larger sets of attributes impact
the performance of your server. See
"Configuring manually" in Chapter
11, "Using search" for details on how to change the webpub.conf
file.
Note
If you want to add another custom property after creating the maximum
number of custom properties for a given type, you cannot remove an existing
custom property and "reuse" the property's slot in the collection by adding
a new custom property of the same type. For example, if you want to add
a numeric property after 5 have already been created, you cannot delete
one of the existing 5 numeric properties and add another numeric property
in its place. The only way to use the new property is to remove the entire
collection and recreate it with the new property.
This means that if you extend the maximum settings
to add additional attributes, you cannot automatically use the new attributes
in the existing web publishing collection. To allow this, you must use
your file system to remove both the web_htm and link_mgr
collection files from the search collections directory and then restart
your server to automatically create a new web publishing collection for
you. (The link_mgr collection is an internal file that's part
of web publishing.)
To add a custom file property:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Add Custom Properties link.
-
Type a name in the Property Name field. The name has these restrictions:
-
It cannot duplicate an existing Web Publisher property name.
-
It cannot exceed 128 characters.
-
It cannot be "." or ".." or contain spaces.
-
It cannot contain an underscore.
-
Select the property's type from the Property Type scrollable list. This
value is not modifiable once you have created the property.
-
Click one of the Permissions buttons, either Read only or Modifiable. By
default, this is set to Modifiable.
Note
For modifiable custom properties defined
as META-tagged attributes, the value in the document is extracted only
the first time the document is indexed. Because users can input a different
value in the attribute field through the Web Publisher Services Properties
page, the server ignores the META-tagged value in subsequent indexing.
In this way, the user's value is not overwritten.
-
Click one of the Visible to User buttons, either Invisible or Visible.
By default, this is set to Visible. This defines whether server clients
can view the property through Web Publisher.
-
If the property you are adding is actually an HTML file attribute that
has been tagged with the HTML META tag, you can check this checkbox. From
this point onward, when files containing this attribute are indexed, the
contents of the META attribute is used as the value of the property and
you can search for files that contain this META-tagged property. The property
must conform to the same conventions as property names.
Note
Because all attributes tagged with META
are defined as text, sorting operations on fields containing dates or numbers
do not sort in the expected date or number order. With this feature, you
can redefine META- tagged attributes to dates or numeric values to obtain
valid sort sequences.
-
Click OK to create the new custom property.
Managing properties
You can list all the file properties that are available
for use. These include the default set plus any new custom properties you
have created. You can remove or edit only those properties that you have
created. These have active Remove and Edit links in the first two columns.
To manage file properties:
-
From the Server Manager, choose Web Publishing.
-
Click the Manage Properties link to obtain a listing of all available properties.
To remove a custom property:
-
Click the Remove link for the property. The Remove Custom Property form
appears.
-
Click OK to remove the property. Click Back to return to the Manage Properties
page without removing the property.
To edit a custom property:
-
Click the Edit link for the property. The Edit Custom Property form appears.
-
Change the property as needed. You can only change the property's name,
permissions, visibility and its option of whether to capture META-tagged
attributes.
-
Click OK to update the property with your changes. Click Back to return
to the Manage Properties page without editing the property. Click Reset
to reset any property values you changed.
Customizing your Netshare home page
By default, a user's Netshare home page displays the netshare.html
file in the right frame. Initially this HTML file contains mostly text
and a few sample links, but you or your users can revise this file to contain
other text, graphics, links, and other HTML elements.
This file is the starting point for a user's workspace on the remote
server and is what other users first see when they access the user's home
page. You or the owner of the home page may want to provide some explanation
of what other files, folders, and services are available through the home
page and display some navigational links to route other users through the
site.
This is the default set of files that is installed in a Netshare home
directory:
-
netshare.html - The default text that appears in the right frame.
-
banner.html - The banner across the top.
-
home.html - The frameset itself.
-
menu.html - The set of links in the left frame.
-
test1.html - A sample file.
-
test2.html - A sample file.
Customizing the Web Publisher user interface
Web Publisher uses a standard set of default properties to describe its
files and folders. These properties are listed in the Manage Properties
form and are used in the HTML forms that the Web Publisher user sees.
As server administrator, you can customize these forms to meet specific
user requirements. These forms are defined as a set of modifiable pattern
files that contain pattern variables for the Web Publisher properties.
These variables are named by taking the attribute name defined in the dblist.ini
file (located in the yourServer/plugins/search.admin directory)
and adding the prefix $$. For example, you can $$ to the variable CM_LOCK_OWNER
to create the $$CM_LOCK_OWNER variable for displaying the lock
owner in an HTML pattern file.
The Web Publisher attributes
To understand how these work, look at the dblist.ini file that
came as part of the default installation of your server. You can see there
a series of attributes called NS-idxattr1 through NS-idxattr27.
These are the default Web Publisher attributes and they follow a standard
syntax:
NS-idxattrn=CM_attributeName;displayName;TYPE;size
where
-
n = attribute number
-
attributeName = internal attribute name
-
displayName = name displayed in Manage Properties form
-
TYPE = TXT (text), NUM (numeric), or DAT (date)
-
size = size of field
Web Publishing attributes, listed in order
of NS-idxattr number
No. |
Attribute Name |
Display Name |
Type |
Size |
Description |
1 |
CM_PPATH |
File-Name |
TXT |
25 |
The physical path name of the file or folder that's being operated
upon. |
2 |
CM_MDATE |
Modified-Date |
DAT |
9 |
The date of the last modification to the file or folder. |
3 |
CM_CDATE |
Creation-Date |
DAT |
9 |
The date when the file or folder was created. |
4 |
CM_SIZE |
Size |
NUM |
9 |
The size in bytes. |
5 |
CM_ID |
ID |
NUM |
11 |
An internal ID. |
6 |
CM_RES-STAT |
Resource-stat |
TXT |
11 |
An internal status. |
7 |
CM_URI |
URI |
TXT |
9 |
The URI of a file or folderI. |
8 |
CM_OWNER |
Owner |
TXT |
9 |
The owner of a file or folder. |
9 |
CM_COUNTER |
Counter |
TXT |
9 |
An internal counter. |
10 |
CM_VERSION |
Version |
TXT |
9 |
The number for a particular version of a file. |
11 |
CM_LINK_STAT |
Link-Status |
TXT |
9 |
A flag indicating the state of the links in a file or folder. A link
can be working, broken, or external (file) or unchecked (folder) |
12 |
CM_LOCK_STAT |
Lock-Status |
TXT |
9 |
A flag indicating whether the file of folder is locked. |
13 |
CM_LOCK_OWNER |
Lock-Owner |
TXT |
9 |
The user who locked the file manually or who is editing the file. |
14 |
CM_RECENT_AUTHOR |
Modified-by |
TXT |
9 |
The user who made the most recent modification to the file or folder. |
15 |
CM_RECENT_COMMENT |
Most-Recent-Comment |
TXT |
9 |
The most recent comment added for a file as part of an upload or publish
operation. |
16 |
CM_VERSIONED |
Versioned |
TXT |
9 |
A flag indicating whether the file is under version control. |
17 |
CM_AUTHOR |
Author |
TXT |
13 |
The author defined for the file with the HTML META tag of Author. |
18 |
CM_DESCRIPTION |
Description |
TXT |
13 |
The text defined for the file with the HTML META tag of Description. |
19 |
CM_TITLE |
Assigned-Title |
TXT |
8 |
The title defined for the file with the HTML META tag of Title. (not
used) |
20 |
CM_LOCALE |
Locale |
TXT |
9 |
The language defined for Web Publisher. |
21 |
CM_IS_INDEXED |
Is-indexed |
TXT |
9 |
A flag indicating that the content and metadata of a file has been
indexed. |
22 |
CM_IS_PERSISTENT |
Is-persistent |
TXT |
9 |
A flag indicating that the metadata only of a file has been indexed.
The file's content has not been indexed. |
23 |
CM_RES_TYPE |
Resource-type |
TXT |
9 |
The default file extension defined for a particular file type, such
as .doc for Word files and .pdf for Acrobat files. |
24 |
CM_INDEX |
Index |
TXT |
9 |
A flag indicating that the content of a file should be indexed when
the metadata is indexed next. |
25 |
Title |
Title |
TXT |
9 |
The title defined for the file with the HTML META tag of Title. |
26 |
CM_SourceType |
SourceType |
TXT |
9 |
An internal indicator. |
27 |
CM_DOC_FN |
DocFileName |
TXT |
11 |
An internal filename. |
The Web Publisher pattern files
The Web Publisher pattern files use the Web Publisher pattern variables
to display values, and to pass values between the user's system and the
remote server. The pattern files use a combination of HTML syntax and JavaScript
to define additional variables and to display information to the user.
These default Web Publisher pattern files are in the yourServer/plugins/content_mgr/ui/text/en
directory on an English language server:
-
main.pat - displays the 3-paned Web Publisher Services interface
-
toc.pat - displays the left-hand set of links and buttons displayed
for a file
-
dirtoc.pat - displays the left-hand set of links and buttons displayed
for a folder (version history is omitted)
-
sys-prop.pat - displays the properties form for a file
-
dirps.pat - displays the properties form for a folder
-
version.pat - displays the version history form for a file
-
links.pat - displays the check links form for a file
-
dirlink.pat - displays the check links form for a folder
-
usrps.pat - displays the custom properties form
The remaining pattern files display a short message, typically as a result
of not being able to satisfy the request.
A good place to begin customizing the interface is by modifying the
existing pattern files. After you see how they work and you understand
pattern variables, you can create your own pattern files and change the
configuration files and other pattern files to point to them.
There are three kinds of Web Publisher pattern variables:
-
those defined in the configuration file, dblist.ini, as an index
attribute (NS-idxattr)
-
those defined as pointers to other forms, with "-NS" suffix
-
those defined internally by Web Publisher
Most modifications to the Web Publisher pattern files involve simply changing
which attributes you want displayed in the properties forms, adding or
removing variables from the pattern file. That is, adjusting the use of
the variables defined in the dblist.ini file. Other modifications
are likely to involve the pointer variables, identified by their "-NS"
suffix. The Web Publisher-defined variables are not intended for general
use, and thus are not described at length here.
Pointing pattern variables
There are some pattern variables that point at specific files and displays
them in one of the frames in the browser. The pointer variables that you
can use in your pattern file are listed in Table
2.
Table 2: Pointing pattern variables
Variable name |
Result |
$$CM_CUSTOM_FEILD_NS |
Custom properties form (gets data for it) |
$$CM_HTML_REND_NS |
The right frame displays the HTML version of the file |
$$CM_LINK_INFO_NS |
Link status form |
$$CM_SYS_PROP_NS |
Properties form |
$$CM_TOC_NS |
Left-hand frame |
$$CM_USR_PROP_NS |
Custom properties form (posts data from it) |
$$CM_VER_DIFF_NS |
Compare versions form |
$$CM_VER_INFO_NS |
Version history form |
$$CM_VER_LINKS_NS |
Check links form |
$$CM_WEBPUB_NS |
Web Publisher applet |
Conditional variables
You can set up a search to use a variable conditionally so that if there
is no value associated with the variable, nothing is displayed. The syntax
is as follows:
variableName[conditionalized output]
For example, you could request that the document's title be output if it
exists. If there is no title for this document, not even the label "Title:"
is to be displayed. To do this, you would use code like this:
$$Title[<P>Title: <B>$$Title</B>]
Figure 1 shows the file properties page
displayed by the sys-prop.pat pattern file. The fields for Owner,
Title, Author, Lock Status, URL, and so on are all defined in the pattern
file. Most of the variables are in the dblist.ini file, but there
are a few that are defined by Web Publisher.
Figure 1: The Web Publisher file properties page
To see how these work together, here are some of the more interesting
lines from the file properties pattern file, sys-prop.pat, that
define various fields and their labels:
<TD><B>Owner:</B></TD>
<TD><input name="CM_OWNER" value="$$CM_OWNER" size="40"</TD>
<TR VALIGN=BASELINE><TD NOWRAP><B>Title</B>:</TD><TD>$$Title</TD></TR>
<TR VALIGN=BASELINE><TD NOWRAP><B>Author</B>:</TD><TD>$$CM_AUTHOR</TD></TR>
<TR VALIGN=BASELINE><TD><B>Lock Status:</B></TD>
<TD>$$CM_LOCK_STAT (only lock owner may unlock) <SPACER type=horizontal size=10></SPACER>
$$CM_LOCK_VAL:<SPACER type=horizontal size=5></SPACER>
<INPUT TYPE="checkbox" NAME="CM_LOCK_STAT" ><BR></TD></TR>
$$IF_DOC_HAS_RENDITON[
<TD NOWRAP><B>Rendition</B>:</TD>
<TD><A HREF="$$CM_URL?$$CM_HTML_REND_NS">HTML</A></TD>
</TR>
]
Notice these aspects:
-
The owner field is limited to 40 characters.
-
The title and author fields are read-only.
-
The lock status information a checkbox with its own associated label that
varies depending on whether the file is already locked or unlocked, as
indicated by the value of $$CM_LOCK_VAL.
The Rendition field only appears for files that have renditions available.
It includes a pattern variable that points to the HTML version of the file
and shows it in the right frame.
Copyright 1997 Netscape Communications
Corporation. All rights reserved.